Introduction: Grace be to you and peace, from God our Father, and from our Savior and Lord, Jesus Christ. Our text is the Epistle Lesson just read, from 1 John 1 and 2. We begin with prayer.
Dear fellow disciples of our Savior and Lord, Jesus Christ:
- The text that we are considering was written long after the events of Easter Sunday, the Ascension of Jesus, and Pentecost. John was an old man, a much seasoned and mature Christian when he wrote these words to the church. He had had many years to reflect upon the nature of God, the work of Jesus, and the life of God’s church in the world.
- He wrote to strengthen and encourage the church of his time, and the church throughout the ages. He wrote eternal truths to strengthen our faith and trust in God’s love, revealing to us the “WONDERS OF HIS LOVE” and how God seeks to bring His blessings into our lives.
- To this day what he wrote is of utmost importance to us and to the whole Christian Church, all people of God. For we continue to have the same challenges to faith as God’s people have always endured, challenges from the devil, the world around us, and from our own sinful flesh.
- And none of this will end until the glorious day of His return, the Day of Judgment, when the unbelieving and incorrigibly wicked will be remanded to hell, and God will usher in a new heaven and earth, “the home of righteousness.”
- So we continue to listen to this blessed apostle of our Lord Jesus Christ, and take comfort and strength from his assurances. First, that:
I. God Has Provided Us With Eye Witness Testimony About Jesus And God’s Wondrous Love For Us In Order To Bless Us
A. To Bring Us Into Fellowship With The Apostles First, And By This Fellowship Into Fellowship With God
Text: “That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we looked upon and have touched with our hands, concerning the Word of Life – the Life was made manifest, and we have seen it, and testify to it and proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and was made manifest to us – that which we have seen and heard we proclaim also to you, so that you too may have fellowship with us; and indeed our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ.”
Statement: This seems odd to people today, even Christians, that we should have a kind of “mediated” fellowship with God. We think that we should have a direct fellowship with God, but this is NOT what God has ordained. Rather, He lifts up and exalts those who followed Him for three years and were His constant loving companions, those who suffered the loss of all things for His sake and for the sake of His kingdom – His apostles. And this is important, for it grounds and connects us to the reality in a way in which we experience this created world today – real human beings, genuine human experiences, what can be touched, looked upon, and handled, through a written record that they left behind for us.
Application: This provides a kind of objectivity for us in our “fellowship” with God – God is not an invention of human minds; He is not whatever we make Him out to be, or whatever we imagine. He is revealed, made plain and evident, by the incarnation of “that which was from the beginning” but Who became flesh and dwelt among the disciples, the Only-begotten Son of the Father, full of grace and truth. They saw Him sweat, pray, hunger, thirst, suffer, and die. They heard directly from His mouth the Word of God, the truth, and most importantly the “WONDERS OF HIS LOVE” for us. They also witnessed His resurrection, His power over nature, over disease and disability, and even death. They reveal all of this to us in their writing – and invite us into fellowship with themselves. And the assurance is clear and certain, that if we have fellowship with them we also have fellowship with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ!
Transition: And this fellowship is unique – one of great pain and loss, but also one of greatest comfort and joy, for:
B. God Has Provided Us With This Apostolic Testimony And Fellowship To Bring Us Into Light, Real And Brutal Honesty In Regard To Our Sin, And Utter Peace And Joy In God’s Cleansing Forgiveness – In Which We Are Also Enabled To Have Real And Genuine Fellowship With One Another, In The Church
Text: “This is the message that we have heard from Him and proclaim to you, that God is light, and in Him is no darkness at all. If we say we have fellowship with Him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. But if we walk in the light, as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sin.”
Statement: We may take it lightly. Our sinful nature wants us to take it lightly and superficially. But when we gather together in the solemnity of worship, we first call upon the presence of God with the Invocation. The very next thing we do is “walk in the light” together, confessing before God and one another that we have sinned much in thought, word, and deed. Then together we hear what Christ has commanded His servants to speak – His forgiveness of all our sins, the truth and reality that “the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sin.” This is our fellowship with one another – if we will have it. It is the only real fellowship that human beings can have, the deepest fellowship.
Application: It is fellowship with the apostles, with the prophets, with all who are God’s children from the beginning, when Adam and Eve first fell into sin. It is also the only fellowship we can have with God – based in confession of our sin, and in joyful, comforting, faith and trust in His gracious forgiveness and mercy in Christ Jesus. This is why He sent His Son into the world in love for us, to be “the Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world.” To reject this basis for fellowship with God is to reject God altogether. To have a “god” who fellowships with you on any other basis is to have a false god, an imaginary invention of perverted and sinful human hearts.
Transition: But it does not have to be so, for through His apostles:
II. God Has Provided Us With Realities – Truth – In Order To Richly Bless Us With The Wonders Of His Love
A. To Enable Us, By His Gracious Assurances, To Honesty And Honest Confession Of Our Sins
Text: “If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just 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.”
B. Note That He Promises – On His Faithfulness And Justness – To Forgive Us And Cleanse Us From All Sin
Text: “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”
C. God Assures Us That In This Fellowship We Have The Constant And Eternal Advocacy Of His Son Jesus Christ, Who Is The Very Blood Atonement For Our Sins
Text: “My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. He is the blood atonement for our sins, and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world.”
Statement: This is the very heart of the “WONDERS OF HIS LOVE,” the assurance of His gracious love for us, of His forgiveness, mercy, cleansing, and salvation. But it is based in honesty – in the light – and this is the nature of the fellowship that we have with the apostles and prophets, and also the nature of true and genuine Christian fellowship, and fellowship with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ! It is freeing and exhilarating – but there are many within the outward and external fellowship of the church who have neither the faith, the courage, nor the freedom to live in this fellowship! And this is, quite frankly, a pitiful waste.
Application: It begins by wasting the opportunity to genuinely confess our sins together. It continues by doubting or diminishing the absolution spoken to us – whether deliberately or by lack of attentiveness and faith. And this excuses one from real and genuine fellowship with the Father and with His Son. And if this is the case, really of what worth is the rest of the service? A mockery is then made of the sermon, and of the Sacrament of Christ’s body and blood “given and shed for you for the forgiveness of sins.”
But there is no need for this – and certainly this is not God’s will for us! He offers us, in the Word of our text, in the reality of the “WONDERS OF HIS LOVE,” the most blessed and wondrous experience of reality and fellowship with Himself! So let us take care not to ignore it, or to miss it.
Conclusion: Do we recognize the thoughts within our hearts and minds, the doubting and unbelieving opinions of the people of the world around us, and the arguments of the devil himself, AGAINST our involvement in this apostolic fellowship with the Father and His Son Jesus Christ, and also AGAINST our Christian fellowship? Then we understand the need for this objective and authentic experience of “fellowship” – with eyewitnesses, with fellow Christians, real human beings, in honesty and light and confession; in which we have certainty also of fellowship with God! All of this centers in the “WONDERS OF HIS LOVE” – His faithful and just forgiveness and cleansing away of our sin and guilt, in the blood of Jesus Christ.
There are other fellowships and associations of human beings that we participate in – superficial, fake, and hypocritical, of human origin, based in lies and deceit. This is the nature of all the rest of our relationships with fallen human beings in this world. There is but one uniquely honest and forthright fellowship – that of the Christian Church, offered to us only in the “WONDERS OF HIS LOVE.” God grant this fellowship to each of us, through the testimony of His apostles, in our fellowship with them and with one another. Amen.
Votum: And the peace of God, which surpasses all human understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds in the true faith, which is in Christ Jesus, even unto life everlasting, Amen.