The principles of genuine fellowship with God
Some people reading these studies that we’ve been doing lately might get the impression that I’m very focused on “works” but that honestly couldn’t be further from the truth. What I am focused on though is the complete Gospel and not just the part that sounds good and is easy to do. That being said, let’s start out from where we left off yesterday.
Yesterday we discussed that when we are saved our walk needs to match our talk in order for us to stay in fellowship with the Lord. When our walk doesn’t match our beliefs, then we are “out of fellowship” with the Lord and each other. Sin has come between us again. However, this is easily fixed by repenting and confessing our sins knowing that the Lord will forgive us and we will once again be in close communion with Him.
I do want to point out here however that when we see someone who is obviously out of fellowship with the Lord , and obviously has been for a long time, ore even from the beginning of the time they were supposedly saved, then they were never saved to begin with. When a person is saved, there is always some fruit to show that salvation has taken place, that a change has occurred.
1 John 2:3-6 We know that we have come to know him if we obey his commands.The man who says, “I know him,” but does not do what he commands is a liar, and the truth is not in him.But if anyone obeys his word, God’s love is truly made complete in him. This is how we know we are in him:Whoever claims to live in him must walk as Jesus did.
In this next verse John sums this up pretty much the same way. Keep in mind however that John is not talking about someone who commits a sin and repents. We all do that daily! No, John is saying that someone who constantly and consistently does not obey God’s commands about something is a liar and the Truth isn’t in him. Again another way to say that would be if someone is living in unrepentant sin, then they are a liar and the Truth isn’t in them. John sums the entire thing up quite nicely by saying that whoever claims to live in Jesus must walk as Jesus did. Another way to look at this is the saying, “by their fruit you shall know them”.
Someone who is in a genuine relationship with the Lord, or as John calls it, genuine fellowship with the Lord, will produce fruit that shows they are saved. Jesus said it this way:
John 15:5-8 “I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.If anyone does not remain in me, he is like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned.If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be given you.This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.
Next John reminds us that there is nothing “new” about this command, and that it has been taught as part of the Gospel from the beginning by Jesus that they should walk as He did and obey His commands.
1 John 2:7-8 Dear friends, I am not writing you a new command but an old one, which you have had since the beginning. This old command is the message you have heard.Yet I am writing you a new command; its truth is seen in him and you, because the darkness is passing and the true light is already shining.
John then talks about the “new command” that Jesus gave that they should love their enemies, and says that by walking in Christ and obeying His commands that love is seen and causes the darkness to pass away. He then expands this thought and says:
1 John 2:9-11 Anyone who claims to be in the light but hates his brother is still in the darkness.Whoever loves his brother lives in the light, and there is nothing in him to make him stumble.But whoever hates his brother is in the darkness and walks around in the darkness; he does not know where he is going, because the darkness has blinded him.
Here again John is telling us that there is no middle ground. Where God’s love lives in us when we are walking closely with Him, no hate for another person who is saved can abide. However when there is hate in someone’s heart, that means that there is something they are holding back from the Lord, some part of them still in the darkness and walking in the dark, they have lost all real sense of direction and therefore cannot be in a genuine close relationship (fellowship) with the Lord. When we are in a close relationship with the Lord, that automatically brings us into a close relationship with others who are also saved and walking closely with Him. We know that God is Light and in Him there is no darkness at all, therefore our relationships with others will reveal the genuineness of our relationship with Him. This is just another example of how the fruit of our lives shows what our relationship with Him is. A person who’s life is characterized by love is a genuine believer. Let me share with you what one of the commentaries says about this:
In verse 11, John goes back to negative application of the light-and-love premise in order to emphasize that hatred (perhaps he has in mind some aspect of the problem with the false teachers) creeps over one’s life like the darkness, affecting his walk, and even his knowledge (knoweth not whither he goeth), making him in fact spiritually “blind.” KJV Bible commentary. 1997, c1994 (2633). Nashville: Thomas Nelson.
1 John 2:13-14 I write to you, fathers, because you have known him who is from the beginning.
I write to you, young men, because you have overcome the evil one.
I write to you, dear children, because you have known the Father.
I write to you, fathers, because you have known him who is from the beginning.
I write to you, young men, because you are strong, and the word of God lives in you, and you have overcome the evil one.
John isn’t really writing this to little children, instead he’s using these terms to denote different stages of spiritual growth in the community that he was writing to, just as we are each at different stages of our spiritual growth here and now. He is mainly wanting to encourage us with this words and remind us of the truth of who we are in Christ. John then goes from reminding us of that to reminding us that we are not to love the world or anything in it any longer.
1 John 2:15-17 Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.For everything in the world—the cravings of sinful man, the lust of his eyes and the boasting of what he has and does—comes not from the Father but from the world.The world and its desires pass away, but the man who does the will of God lives forever.
This is yet another way to tell the difference between someone who is really in a close personal relationship with the Lord and someone who isn’t. John says that those who still love the world do not have the love of the Father in them. That’s pretty straight forward. If the love of the Father is not in them, then they are not saved. John constantly points us away from the world and all it’s desires that entrap us and toward the Lord and His commands.
We also need to realize that each of these things we’ve discussed about how to tell when someone is really walking with God and when they aren’t can also be used to discover is someone is a complete phony and not saved at all. The reason John was writing this letter in the first place was because false teachers had come around and tried to teach them things that weren’t true. They offered a false gospel and John is trying to help them discern the difference between a false gospel and the real one. To do that he also needed to show them how to tell the difference as to whether the person who was teaching these things was saved or not. Once we are able to determine if someone is truly walking with the Lord or not, it becomes much easier to determine if what they are teaching is the Truth or not. This is badly needed by us in our times too as there is so much heresy being taught.
