Our subject is the Saints' Fellowship with the
Lord Jesus.
And we turn to John's first epistle, and
our study will be the entire first chapter
and the first two verses of chapter two.
And in these verses we find four conditions
which must be met by the saint if
he is to enjoy intimate fellowship with the
Lord Jesus Christ.
The first one is in verses one to
four, live in the book.
The second one is in verses five to
seven, walk in the light.
The third one is in verses eight, to
maintain a contrite.
And the fourth one is in chapter two,
verses one and two, depend upon the advocacy
of the Lord Jesus.
We take these four up now one at
a time.
First of all, if we expect to have
intimate, intelligent, close fellowship with the Lord Jesus,
we must live in the book, the Bible.
John says, that which was from the beginning,
which we have heard, which we have seen
with our eyes, which we have looked upon,
and our hands have handled the world of
life, that which was from the beginning.
John talks about that in his gospel, chapter
one, verses one to ten, where he speaks
of those things true of the Lord Jesus
since the beginning of the universe.
But when he says, which we have heard,
he starts in verse eleven and with the
incarnation.
The word we, of course, is the editorial
we of John.
He's talking about the things true of the
Lord Jesus Christ, and he speaks of the
things that were true of him, which, he
says, we have heard.
The verb is in the perfect tense in
Greek here.
The perfect tense in Greek speaks of an
action going on in past time, complete, having
present results.
And the full translation is, that which we
have heard with the present result, that it
is ringing in our ears.
It's the present result of a past action.
John wrote the gospel attributed to him about
sixty years after Jesus was on earth.
And he records in that gospel things that
he heard Jesus speak.
And by the use of the perfect tense,
he tells us that while he was writing
the gospel, sixty years afterwards, the words of
Jesus were still ringing in his ears.
And then another reason for using the perfect
tense is found in the fact that he
wants to assure his readers that after sixty
years had elapsed, he still was a competent
witness to record the life of the Lord
Jesus Christ.
Those things which he did not remember, he
had the promise of the Holy Spirit, that
the Holy Spirit would bring back to his
remembrance things that he had forgotten.
Then he says, the things which we have
seen with our eyes.
And again he uses the perfect tense.
The things which we have seen in time
past, with the present result that they are
vivid in our minds' eyes.
John could close his eyes as he was
writing the gospel, and see the Lord Jesus
very vividly in his mind's eyes.
Now why did he say, we have seen
with our eyes?
We can't see anything except with our eyes.
The answer is found in the fact that
he's combating a false doctrine, which in the
first century obtained, we call it docetism.
And it taught that Jesus didn't have an
actual human body, it was just a seeming
human body.
But John says, with his optic nerve he
saw the Lord Jesus.
And the Greek word for see here means
to see with discernment, to understand what you
see.
Then he says, which we have looked upon.
Another Greek word to see, it means to
gaze with wonder.
No wonder after having seen the Lord Jesus
with the disciple's gaze with wonder.
And then he says, and our hands have,
the Greek word for handle means to handle
with a view to, and here we have
an incidental reference to John referring
back to the upper room experience, see
that a spirit, he says, that which we
have heard, seen, and handled, the life.
And the Greek word for word there has
the idea of the total of the life.
Now what life?
The life that God is in himself.
For he says, for the life was manifested.
We could also translate it, for the life
was made visible.
Now we cannot see light.
It's invisible.
But when we put light through it, that
prism breaks it up into its component color.
So we cannot see the life that God
is.
But when that life was brought through the
prism of the human body and human limitation,
beauty, and that's what John is speaking of
here.
For the life that God is, and bear
witness and show, that
is in verses 1 and 2 in his
gospel, he recorded, then
in verse 3, he gives the purpose.
He says, that which we have seen and
heard, declare we unto you that ye also.
How are we to understand this?
The English word fellowship means companionship.
Most of the readers of John's first epistle
never saw John.
The family letter center.
How could John have?
The answer is found in the basic meaning.
The basic meaning is to have joint participation.
Let's translate it that way.
That which we have seen and heard, declare
we unto you, that ye also may have
in his first hand knowledge of the Lord
Jesus Christ.
And as a believer in the control of
the Holy Spirit, he looks through John and
he listens through John's ears and he touches
Jesus with John's.
And thus, John says, that will enable us
to have fellowship with the Father.
That is the portrait of the Lord Jesus
painted by the Holy Spirit.
And in fact, in other places in the
Bible, the portraits are a medium through which
we are enabled.
And we have believed Romans.
How much I could
write letters to a young.
We could know about each other, but
here we have an invisible person, the Lord
Jesus.
To have fellowship with.
And the Holy Spirit has painted a series
of him in the book.
Suppose for a moment, I would say now,
of this young man who you
say, that's ridiculous.
That's not a picture of that man.
The artist knows.
It's just as ridiculous to take pictures purported
to be of the Lord Jesus painted by
artists who never saw him.
It's just as ridiculous.
They're not pictures of him.
They're pictures of the artist's imagination.
And these pictures are spurious.
And in the judgment of the Holy Spirit,
they detract by the paint.
So the first condition of having fellowship is
live in the book.
The second condition is walk in the light.
This, then, is the message which we have
heard of him in declaring to you that
God is light and in him is no
darkness at all.
But I don't believe that.
I do not believe that God is light.
God is a person.
God, as to his nature, is light.
And that's what the Greek says.
That is, there is no sin in him.
He's righteous and pure and holy.
And there is no darkness of sin in
him, John says, not one bit.
Then he says, if we up and say
that we have fellowship with him and walk
in darkness, we lie and do not the
truth.
That is, if we say that we have
things in common with God and thus fellowship
and companionship with him, then our habitually ordering
our behavior in the darkness of sin, we're
lying.
And we are not habitually obeying the truth.
That person is an unsaved person.
But if we walk in the light as
he is in the light, we have fellowship
one with another.
Now, who's the we who have fellowship one
with another?
Is it we saints have fellowship with one
another?
Or is it we saints and the Lord
Jesus have fellowship with one another?
Well, the context is very clear where we
have in verse 3, truly our fellowship is
with the saints.
And so we read, if we saints walk
in the light as he is in the
light, the Lord Jesus, we, the saints and
the Lord Jesus, have fellowship one with another.
Now, that word fellowship in its basic meaning,
we said, was to have things in common
with one another, common likes and dislikes.
Now, you couldn't imagine that a grave digger
and an artist had, therefore, two
artists had things in common with one another.
We saints have things in common with the
Lord Jesus.
We both have the divine nature.
That is, of course, to be distinguished from
our Lord's divine essence.
We're not talking about that.
We have likes and dislikes, common likes and
dislikes.
We hate the things Jesus hates, namely sin.
And we love the things Jesus loves, namely
righteousness.
So, as we order our behavior within the
spirit, we, the saints and the Lord Jesus,
have things in common with one another, and
thus fellowship.
The words one with another are the translation
of a Greek word which is a reciprocal
pronoun.
And this fellowship, therefore, is a reciprocity.
It isn't a one-sided affair.
It isn't as if a young man is
in love with a young woman.
It's this.
The saint fellowships with the Lord Jesus, and
the Lord Jesus reciprocates by having.
And while we're having this fellowship, the blood
of Jesus Christ, his Son, keeps constant.
Now, Jesus will not have fellowship with a
saint, a sinning saint.
He will not have fellowship with a saint.
These sins here are sins of omission, okay?
There are some things you and I are
doing.
Therefore, we have the divine provision of the
constant cleansing.
Now, this fellowship is a very, very, very
beautiful thing.
This word, Greek word fellowship, is found in
early of a doctor who had lost his
wife, and he had put an inscription on
her tombstone.
It seems, as we piece the story together,
that they had been sweet, had then married,
and now he was a lonely old man,
and he put this inscription on her tombstone.
As with you alone, I shared my life.
The word shared is the Greek word here.
How beautiful it is when a saint can
say to Jesus, how with you alone I
shared my life.
Jesus only, not of self to mar his
glory, not of sin to make it dim,
just a glorious, glorious shining that the friends
around see.
Resurrection joys abounding.
Every day his conscious presence.
All my life, when soon he'll come, then
I shall see my Lord the crucified.
What a glorious day is breaking, he and
I, quite satisfied.
So the first condition of fellowship with Jesus
is that we might become better acquainted with
him.
The second condition is walk in the light,
that we might live right.
The third condition is maintain a contrite heart.
David said, the sacrifices of broken and a
contrite heart.
Oh, we come now to this contrite heart.
In verse 8 we say that we have
no sin.
We deceive ourselves, and the word sin here
is in the singular number, and it doesn't
have an article before it.
The emphasis is upon nature, and the word
sin here therefore does not refer to the
sinful nature.
And so we could translate and interpret as
we deceive ourselves.
The Greek order of words is ourselves we
are deceiving.
The implication being clear that John means that
the person who believes in the eradication of
the sinful is only deceiving himself.
He's not deceiving anybody else.
Everybody else can see sin speaking out all
over him.
And he says that person doesn't have the
truth in him, namely the truth regarding the
indwelling sinful nature which remains in the believer
until his death.
Now, what is the value of this teaching?
Namely this, that the person who believes in
the eradication of the sinful nature doesn't watch
carefully the indwelling sin in his life, and
he gets rather careless about his actions.
Whereas the person who remembers and counts upon
the fact that the indwelling sinful nature is
still in him, though the power over him
is broken, carefully watches.
Let this sinful nature bring sin into his
life.
Then John says, in case sin does come
into the life, and it does in our
Christian lives at times, we don't want to
sin, but it does, he says, if we
confess our sins, he is faithful and just
to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse
us from all unrighteousness.
What should we do if sin comes into
our lives?
Confess it, John says.
The author, the writer?
No, the present speaker, when he was teaching
Greek, had a student in his class who
translated it this way, if we admit our
sins.
But I pointed out to the class that
the Greek word meant more than to admit.
The Greek word is made up of two
words put together.
One word means to speak, and the other
word means sin.
And the compound word meaning to speak the
same thing as another, that's to agree with
someone on a certain thing.
And Christian confession of sin in the life
is the act of that saint agreeing with
the Holy Spirit as to sin in the
life.
The Holy Spirit says that's sin in your
life.
I say that is sin.
The Holy Spirit says you ought to be
ashamed of yourself and sorry for it.
The Holy Spirit says you ought to repent,
and I say I do repent.
The Holy Spirit says you ought to put
that out of your life, and I say
by thy grace and thy power, that's Christian
confession, and nothing short of that is.
And so if we confess our sins, he
is faithful and just to forgive us our
sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness,
which means that the sin in our life,
so far as defilement is concerned, is cleansed
away.
Sin in a Christian's life, so far as
the breaking of the law is concerned, was
dealt with at the cross.
But sin in a Christian's life has to
do with defilement, and thus the blood of
Jesus cleanses us away in fellowship with Jesus.
John says if we say that we have
not sinned, we make him a liar, and
his word is not in us.
And so the third condition of fellowship with
Jesus is to maintain a contrite heart, a
heart that is always willing, yes, eager, to
have the Holy Spirit point out any sin
in the life, and is always eager to
put that sin out.
Let me tell you of a saint who
illustrates this truth very, very well.
His name is Albert Sengel.
He was a great Greek scholar, a German
theologian who was Orthodox.
The old man who lived in the dormitories
of men's students at the seminary where he
taught.
And one night he came in rather late
and went to his room and left the
door ajar.
The students wondered at his holy light, and
they wanted to find out the secret of
it.
And some of them gathered outside his room
to listen to the old man's devotions.
The old man opened the Bible and spent
a little time with it.
Then he closed it, bowed his head, and
said, Lord Jesus, things are just the same
between you and me as they've always been.
Amen.
What had he been doing?
Allowing the word of God to search for
sin.
That was one of the secrets of his
holy life, and his biographer has this to
say concerning him.
So close was his communion with his Lord
that labor did not interrupt it, and prayer
was not necessary to renew it.
He was a ceaseless, almost unconscious person.
Like the fragrance of a summer garden, or
the presence of some dear one by our
side, whose presence somehow we feel, even though
hours pass by and not a word is
exchanged.
And so we have three conditions for intimate
fellowship with the Lord Jesus.
Live in the book.
Two, walk in the light.
Three, maintain a contrite heart.
And four, depend upon the advocacy of the
Lord Jesus.
And we find that in chapter 2, verses
1.
John says, My little children, these things write
I unto you that ye sin not.
An expanded translation would read, These things write
I unto you that you do not commit
an act of sin.
Sin is forbidden in the Christian mind.
But John says, If any man sin, and
he's very careful to use the tension mode
in the Greek here, which tells us that
a Christian does not sin habitually like he
did before he was saved.
John says in his Greek, And if any
man commit an act of sin, we have
an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the
righteous.
The English word advocate is the English spelling
of a German word Advo.
And that is the translation of the English
word a lawyer.
An attorney retained to defend someone.
And this Greek word translated advocate was used
in the Greek law courts of an attorney
for the defense.
It means literally one called alongside of another
to give him aid.
It's one who pleads our cause.
And Jesus our Lord is our advocate up
there with the Father.
The English word thee is the translation of
the Greek word which means facing.
And so we translate it, If any man
commit an act of sin, we have one
with the Father, facing the Father, pleading our
cause.
Jesus Christ is always facing the Father.
He's always in fellowship with the Father in
order that if you and I get out
of fellowship, he can pray us back into
fellowship.
For when we sin, Jesus takes up his
work of advocacy and prays that the Holy
Spirit might produce in our hearts that requisite
repentance and contrition for sin and confession that
will bring us back into fellowship with himself.
And then John adds, and he is the
propitiation for our sins, not for ours only,
but also for the sins of the whole
world.
Now that word propitiation, the Greek word was
used in the pagan religions, the act of
a pagan worshiper bringing an offering or a
gift to his pagan god for the purpose
of buying the god's love and placating his
anger.
And that's exactly what the word propitiation means,
namely the act of someone attempting to buy
someone else's love and placate his anger.
But our God is not a god.
His love wells from his heart spontaneously like
an artisan well, and he is not like
a pevious Greek god that needs his anger
to be placated.
That means that here is one Greek word
when brought over into the New Testament has
had its meaning changed.
And we have translated it this way, and
he is the expiatory satisfaction for our sins.
That is our Lord's sacrifice on the cross
for the satisfaction to the broken law.
He satisfied the just demands of God's law
which we broke, paid the penalty, and the
word expiatory means that it was a sacrifice
on his part.
So he is the expiatory satisfaction for our
sins, and not only for ours but also
for the sins of the whole world.
Thus, in order to have intimate intelligent fellowship
with the Lord Jesus, first we must do
what?
Live in the Bible.
Read the Gospels.
Don't read them chapter by chapter.
Sit down and read as much of one
gospel as you can in one sitting.
Then read another large section.
And then in the Pauline Epistles in the
Old Testament, see the portraits of the Lord
Jesus painted by the Holy Spirit, and thus
we can in our hearts see the Lord
Jesus in his beauty, and thus be able
to have a more intelligent fellowship with him.
So the first condition is live in the
book.
The second condition is walk in the light.
Order our behavior within the sphere of what
God's word tells us to do.
And the third condition is maintain a contrite
heart.
Have a heart which always is eager to
allow the Holy Spirit to search it for
sin, and eager to put that sin out
when it's discovered.
Contrite heart, by confessing it, putting it away.
And finally, the last condition is depend upon
the advocacy of Jesus, praying us back into
fellowship when we stray away from our Lord.
Thank you, Dr. Weeks.
You have just heard Dr. Kenneth S.
Weeks say for many years that this is
one message of a series of 16, which
have been placed on tape by Victory in
Christ Literature Crusade, Box 61, Wheaton, Illinois.
These are available at a price of $2
each tape for a five-inch size.
Also, seven-inch tapes for $3 at a
speed of seven and one-half, which can
be used for radio work.
The title is Tape 1, The Precise Distinction
Between The Annoying Width and the Fullness of
the Holy Spirit, Victory over Indwell.
Tape 2, The Rapture of the Church, page
29.
Tape 3, Four Greek Words for the Verbal
Inspiration of the Bible.
Tape 4, Tape
5, The Self
-Emptying of the Son of God, known as
Tape 6, A Post-Resurrection Crisis.
Tape 7, Tape
8.
We also have tapes, Moody, Founders Week, Bible
Teacher.
We have tapes of, many of these tapes
are available, three and three-quarters.
I would like to call your attention particularly
to consider chapter 10, verse 10, the last
phrase, a statement of purpose.
I am come that they might have life,
and that they might have it more abundantly.
Then the last phrase of verse 11, the
good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep.
And with that verse, notice the last phrase
of verse 15, I lay down my life
for the sheep.
And the last phrase of verse 17, I
lay down my life that I might take
it again.
Then in verse 18, I lay it down
of myself.
Then the final verse, verse 28, I give
unto them eternal life, and they shall never
perish, neither shall any pluck them out of
my hand.
There is a sequence of thought, not only
a sequence of thought, but an actual sequence
in the redemptive process given to us here
in these verses.
A statement of purpose, a statement of method,
and then a statement of fact concerning the
life of Christ actually possessed by men.
The Lord Jesus said, I am come that
they, the sheep, may have life, and that
they may have it abundantly, more abundantly.
Evidently they didn't have this life.
They could not themselves procure this life.
They needed this life.
And Jesus states he has come for the
express purpose of giving them life.
The life of the Lord Jesus stands absolutely
unique.
None had ever lived as he lived.
The only man in all history whose entire
life was God-approved, this man in thought,
word, and deed did always those things that
pleased the Father.
He was born under the law, and he
fulfilled the law.
The law to him was not a minister
of condemnation.
It was a minister of approbation and approval.
The law amened him for what he was.
The law approved him in what he did.
He was totally accepted under the law by
the law before God.
He fulfilled it in thought, in feeling, in
attitude, and action, and reaction, in his Godward
relationship, in his selfward relationship, in his manward
relationship toward friend and enemy, toward good and
bad, toward religious and non-religious, toward learned
and ignorant.
His actions and reactions were proper.
They were righteous.
They were true.
They were good.
They were just.
This man, of all men, alone stood approved
under the law, and by the law, a
perfect life.
In this he was the recovery of the
ideal of man, for this is what God
intended man to be.
This is what God created man to be.
This is the man that God wanted, a
man who would be right with God and
right with his fellows, right in feeling, thought,
and action, always.
But none had ever been so.
Adam had failed, and all the sons of
Adam had failed, and the best of men
in every generation had failed, the greatest of
them, the most saintly of them.
Oh, you say, hadn't they found acceptance with
God?
Yes, but not by keeping the law.
Not one of them.
Their approval before God was on the basis
of the work of another.
They had to have representation before God.
Their sin had to be acknowledged.
It had to be removed.
They were judged as being not righteous men,
not basically good men.
They were justified, they were accepted by faith
in God and acceptance of the promises of
God.
But here was a man, here was a
man who in every particular was certified by
God to be well pleasing, accepted, approved in
every possible way.
And he talks about leading men.
He challenges men to live like he lives.
He calls men to follow him.
He promises to men great things, not only
that involve this life, but the life to
come.
And the immediate problem rises.
Are there any men who can follow this
man?
Are there any who will have the disposition,
who will have the nature, who will have
the ability to follow this man, to be
led by him into the kind of life
he lives, and into the glory that he
pictures, not only for this life, but for
the life to come?
He insists in this tenth chapter of John
that he has sheep.
He insists that they hear his voice, and
they follow his call, and they will do
his will, and he shall lead them into
pastures, and they shall go in and out,
and they shall know salvation, and they shall
be with him forever.
How?
How can it be?
There are two little prepositions here that are
with great meaning.
There is the first preposition stated for us
in verse 11.
He giveth his life for the sheep.
The second preposition is stated in verse 28.
I give to them eternal life.
There's a big difference between life for the
sheep and life to the sheep.
And you come over into the epistles, and
you find even a stronger and third preposition
in this sequence, the life of Jesus in
our mortal bodies.
Or, as Paul said in Galatians 220, Christ
is living in me.
Or in Colossians, the first chapter, Christ in
you, the hope of glory.
Now, there is an ordered sequence here.
His life for us, life to us, life
in us, the same life.
Here is a life that no man had
ever lived, a life that Jesus now perfectly
manifests.
It is a life that is divine.
It is of God.
It is not of human origin, not of
human resolution, not of human progeny in any
sense.
It is not of the flesh, nor of
the will of the flesh, nor of blood,
human blood.
It is not of that at all.
Here is a life that is of God.
It is not of earth.
It is from heaven.
It is not from beneath.
It is from above.
It is a totally different kind of life.
And this life now, in the form of
a man, walks and talks and works, acts
and interacts.
And the difference between him and others becomes
increasingly clear at every point in the road,
every day.
Even the difference between him and the men
whom he had chosen out of the world
who were learning to follow him, the difference
is immense.
He would say something they would misunderstand.
He would interpret they still would misunderstand.
And until after his death, burial, and resurrection,
they really understood very little.
But they did begin to believe him.
And in believing, they did begin to know.
And he promised he could lead them all
the way.
He promised that he could lead them all
the way into the full knowing of him,
and into his knowing of God, and into
his loving of God, and into his obedience
to God, and into his enjoyment of God.
Oh, what a staggering proposition to set before
men.
He must lay down his life for the
sheep.
It is the only way of communication.
It is the only way that the life
that he is can become theirs.
He must lay down his life for the
sheep.
And he does not shrink from this.
This is why he came into the world.
But I want you to see something.
The ultimate purpose is that men may have
life.
The ultimate purpose is not the death of
Christ.
The ultimate purpose is not the shedding of
his blood.
The ultimate purpose is not that great redemptive
work, and we cannot in any way minimize
the greatness of that work.
It is the greatest work that has ever
taken place on the face of the earth.
What Jesus did on the cross of Calvary,
it is immense in its dimension.
Its heights and depths and lengths and breadths
far greater than any human mind has ever
yet comprehended or ever will.
But the cross is not the goal.
The death of Christ is not the grand
design, the grand purpose of the design.
The grand purpose is that men should have
life.
That men should have this kind of life
so that they can walk knowing God.
That men could have this kind of life
so that they can worship, so that they
can enjoy God, so that they could be