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Series 1: God Is Light
Message 2: The Fellowship of the Light
Text:
Vision Statement: God Is Light
Purpose Statement: Learn and live in fellowship with God as Light.
Quick Review of Message 1:
Purpose statement equation: Truth of Christ + Light of Christ = Joy of Christ
Joy comes from an "active" relationship with Christ is the present tense.
Inactivity brings about complacency, boredom, and cynicism.
To be active is to make manifest, validate and declare the joy of the Light in our lives.
Introduction to "Fellowship of the Light"
From the joy of the light we move into the fellowship of the light.
If we were to play the game of word association and I said "fellowship."
What is the first thing you would think of?
Well for some of us as Baptist we might say, "dinner."
You know ... a fellowship dinner.
Ahh ... a good fellowship meal is inviting!
The nice thing about a fellowship dinner is there are all sorts of good things to choose from ... fried chicken, pot roast, casseroles, cabbage, Brussels sprouts, spinach, corn, green beans, roles, and desserts galore!
The great thing about a fellowship dinner is you can "pick-and-choose" what you want to eat and not eat.
This "pick-and-choose" manner in which we go about at fellowship dinners seems to have made itself into our fellowship with God.
We have the tendency to "pick-and-choose" what we want from God and His Word and leave the rest of it alone.
But is that the true fellowship God desires with you and I as His children?
Retired Episcopal Bishop John Shelby Spong is a man with a mission.
He is out to save Christianity from fundamentalists.
According to Bishop Spong, the gospel of Christ is found in three words: love, life and being.
This gospel can be reduced to the idea that tolerance is the only absolute because humanity itself is divine, without need of redemption, or even much instruction.
Even though the Bible is scientific and locked into the culture of the tribal primitives who wrote it, Spong is sure that the real truth of the Bible is that Christ called us to "be all that one can be."
Spong is very dogmatic about his view of truth.
And his view is very popular today.
It is a gospel that tells us to be spiritual without "religion."
In other words, we are free to pick and choose spiritual ideas from a smorgasbord of "religious" sources.
In Bishop Spong's view, acting morally is tied to an all-inclusive, totally tolerant Christianity that rejects the notion of sin and atonement.
Source: Probe Ministries: Rescuing the Gospel from Bishop Spong
We need to know the falsehoods and the truth concerning our fellowship with God.
Fellowship literally means to share things in common.
Where people deny the basic beliefs and truths about God there is no fellowship with either God or Christians.
If we say that we have fellowship with Him, and walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth.
7 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.
8 If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.
9 If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
10 If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar, and His word is not in us.
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.
2 And He Himself is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the whole world.
We can liken John's words to the drawing of two circles.
· Circle of Light: The first circle contains, truth, love, righteousness, eternal life, hope, purity, and confidence.
This is God's circle of light and His children are to walk within it and the things of God.
· Circle of Darkness: The second circle contains, falsehood, hatred, impurity, fear, sinfulness.
This is the world's circle of darkness.
It consists of all that God is not.
These two circles share nothing in common.
They do not over lap in any way ... for God is light and in Him is no darkness ... therefore God has no fellowship with the darkness.
We need to understand that one or the other circles will influence us in the way we live.
We will either live with and for God or against and not in fellowship with Him.
John the Elder writes to encourage a fresh recognition and realization of the fellowship ... so that we, as God's children, might have a restoration of fellowship with the Father in the light of His circle of influence.
1. Fellowship In the Recognition of the Light
If we say that we have fellowship with Him, and walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth.
7 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.
1a.
Recognition of the Darkness (6)
Falsehood of Fellowship: We can fellowship with God and walk in darkness.
· Darkness is characterized by disobedience and a lack of relationship with God.
· Darkness is anything and everything that is hostile (enmity) and opposes itself against God.
· Darkness is a disregard for and defiance of God's self-revelation as light.
· Darkness is to live a life of sin.
The person who walks ... influenced living ... in darkness lives his or her life without thought to God and His Word.
When walking in darkness our fellowship with God is broken, but repairable.
I want to make clear that John is not making a case here for the loss of salvation.
He is speaking to our fellowship and makes it clear that sin (walking in darkness) breaks fellowship with God.
John is explicit to state that those who walk opposite of God as LIght are not practicing (living) in the influence of the truth.
1b.
Recognition of the Light (7)
Truth of Fellowship: We can only fellowship with God in the light.
Man's fellowship begins with "overlooking" sin whereas fellowship with God begins with looking at our sin and walking in the light of the forgiveness of our sins.
· Walk in the Light ... means to live by, be shaped by the standard of God's Light.
That means actions, decisions, thoughts and beliefs are to be conformed to God's standard, Jesus Christ.
· Walk in the Light ... means to live guided by the Word.
· Walk in the LIght ... means to be committed to God and His purpose.
· Walk in the Light ... means to recognize what is false and impure in us and in the world.
The great French leader Napoleon said that laws were made for ordinary people, but were never meant for the like of him.
To walk in the light of God's fellowship says we cannot think sin doesn't matter.
To think such is "dark thinking!"
Our walk with God (in the light) must not become a "Discussion Circle Christianity" where we merely look on Christianity as a series of problems to be solved and the Bible a book to be taught and lectured.
Fellowship with God is to walk in the light of following the Savior and adhering our lives to His Word the Bible.
"God as light is always seeking to shine into the minds He has made in His own image."
- Robert Law
To walk in the light is not to become "sinless" but will most definitely bring us to "sin less."
Walking in the light brings to the forefront our sin and then allows God through the Son, Jesus Christ, to cleanse us from all the sins that separate us from God and man.
I do not want us to overlook the obvious that is sometimes hidden.
John says not only will do we have fellowship with God ... but also with one another.
John being the "present tense" apostle writes to encourage us to "keep on walking" in the light that we might have continual fellowship with God and one another ... other Christians.
Fellowship with God will always bring us closer to one another.
We cannot have one without the other.
"Fellowship with God will always be characterized by walking in the light, doing the truth, living as God desires." - Marianne Meye Thompson
2. Fellowship In the Realization of the Light
If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.
9 If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
2a.
Realization of the Deception of Sin (8)
Falsehood of Fellowship: We can reach a point of no sin in our lives.
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