1 John (ii) Quality: Average)

[0:00] Please take notice that God willing to prepare meeting will be tomorrow evening. Three o'clock is expected to preach on Wednesday evening.

[0:15] Next Lord's Day is the time for the monthly collection. I will endeavor to speak again this evening from the first epistle of John, the first chapter, the third verse.

[0:32] That which we have seen and heard declare we unto you that ye also may have fellowship with us.

[0:44] And truly, our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ. We endeavor this morning to look a little at this fellowship being founded upon that precious fellowship which is with the Father and the Son.

[1:17] And we notice three particular points in regard to this fellowship. Fellowship with God who is the light, the eternal light.

[1:36] Fellowship with God who is the light. And not only essential light, but the diffuser of it and the giver of it in and through the person of his dear Son.

[1:58] I might repeat what I said this morning. There can be no fellowship with God the Father except in through the Lord Jesus Christ.

[2:14] He is that communication between God and the sinner whereby he is brought into that close acquaintance and communion with God the Father.

[2:33] What an unspeakable privilege it is to be permitted as a poor sinner to have fellowship with God the Father in that life which he is pleased to bestow in creating in the sinner's heart a life which is after his own life and after the divine danger.

[3:08] not of course the sinner becomes divine. He never becomes God but he partakes of a nature so similar to and closely allied to God's life that there can be no separation between them.

[3:33] The life of God flows in the continuity of it into him and he lives in union with the Lord Jesus Christ.

[3:52] His life is hid with Christ in God. And thus there is this fellowship regard to the life of God in the soul.

[4:08] And thus we said this one is a fellowship in regard to God who is light, essential in all his wonderful fullness and his meaning his diffusion his coming down his coming down again through Christ who is the light of life into the experience of those interested in God's everlasting love and redeeming mercy.

[4:46] I want to come now just for a short time to my third point. God is love.

[4:58] That doesn't declare that love is merely an attribute of God. But it says God is love.

[5:15] Just as in the same sense he is life and might so he is love. He himself is love.

[5:27] There's a fullness of love in the eternal Godhead Father Son and Holy Ghost needs nothing to be added to it to make it more sacred and more blessed.

[5:48] and thus we find particularly in regard to the Son of God He dwells or has dwelt everlastingly in the bosom of the Father with the only begotten well beloved Son of the Father.

[6:14] we cannot conceive for one moment this transcendent love between the persons in the Godhead and that love sufficient if I might put it so for their blessedness forever and ever without any manifestation of it outside themselves.

[6:42] God is love. There's no contradiction in saying that. I know that it's a general expression amongst religious people today that God is love and of course their meaning is He's so full of love to men to sinners that He wants them to be saved.

[7:18] Wants them to come to Him and believe and accept the Lord Jesus Christ and Son.

[7:31] And again they speak of love in such a way as though God is such a God of love He takes no notice on sin.

[7:44] That's all covered up by His love. True it is but not the way they mean. There is no contradiction in the attributes of God and in the being of God.

[8:03] God is love. God is light. God is life. God is holiness. God is justice.

[8:15] God is mercy. Why every one of those things are that expression of God's being what He is in Himself.

[8:29] I mentioned this morning about light. and I believe it's true that in light there are three primary colors.

[8:44] The red, the green, the violet. And yet those three colors so blend together in combination with others that that there's a pure white light comes forth produced by the combination of them.

[9:10] If I might use that as a figure, in God we have all those wonderful attributes which belong to His being, but they're all so blended together that in so far as it has to do with the salvation of sinners, they're one, they bless, they harmonize.

[9:42] So God is love. But then you see this love of God must have its display. His manifestation in the purpose and thought of God's heart away from eternity.

[10:02] He willed that His love should be revealed in this poor sin-stricken world. How could it be revealed?

[10:17] Only by the sending thought of His only begotten sin. Know the display is like that of love.

[10:32] Can we talk about creation? But that's not a display of God's love, a display of His wisdom and His goodness to mankind and to all things He's created.

[10:49] And of course in a sense God loves all His creation but not in the meaning of our subject tonight. No, that's not the display of God's love.

[11:03] And then you may talk of providence, the wonder working hand of God in His providential arrangements. God's love.

[11:15] Now here you have what I might call a display of God's love when it can be seen. But so often in circumstances attending God's dear people they are so overshadowed and be clouded and perplexed they cannot see God's love in it.

[11:42] And yet it's there. But then that depends upon this other display of God's love. God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten time.

[12:01] He sent him forth from His bosom charged to convey the manifested love of His heart towards the chosen people of God.

[12:15] So in this epistle and in the chapter you heard read and the fourth chapter you get many expressions setting forth this manifestation of God's love not only to His Son but to His people in His Son.

[12:42] He loved the self-same love. He loved the Son. And because of that everlasting infinite love He brought to them, He was pleased to make it manifested in time.

[13:00] love. And the greatest revelation of God's love to sinners is on the cross of slavery.

[13:12] Greater love, says Christ, of no man than this, to man laid out his life for his friends.

[13:25] Ah, but Christ laid down his life for his enemies. he died for the women of his, determined to save them because he loved them so.

[13:41] And not all their baseness, vileness, wickedness, rebellion against him could quench one drop of that unspeakable love that he had towards these people.

[14:00] He undertook their case and undertook to save them. And love carried him through to the very end, even down to death itself.

[14:16] And consequently, they have an interest in the love of the Father, the love of the Son. Now, this is made known to them in God's good time.

[14:31] It becomes the work of the Holy Spirit who also loves these people to come to them and their time is a time of them.

[14:49] The new birth is a time of them. Conviction of sin is a time of them. Be brought to true repentance for sin.

[15:02] Be brought to humble oneself before God in their vileness, unfitness, unworthiness. that's the love that's manifested to them.

[15:16] The whole operations of the Holy Spirit in the heart of a sinner are but the real blessed evidences of the love of the Father, of the Son, and of the Good Spirit as well.

[15:37] it's not merely and only those tokens of love, the shedding of wrath of the love of God in the heart, but all that precedes it, all that makes the soul ready to receive it, because there must be a preparation for God the Holy Ghost reveals the love of God, the love of Christ, there must be a preparation for it, and this preparation is but the work of love, and then comes the blessedness of the inflowing of the love of God.

[16:28] The love of Christ revealed a manifestation of his dying love to the soul, love. Then what?

[16:40] Fellowship. Oh, what returns of love flow out of that poor sinner's heart. How he loves the Father for his everlasting love, loves the Son for his wonderful suffering and death, and all he has done regard to salvation, how he loves the Holy Spirit too.

[17:11] We must never forget, friends, the Holy Spirit is just as much associated in the truth that God is love as the Father and the Son.

[17:27] God and thus he, in all his wondrous work, is one to be loved in return.

[17:39] Not only Christ, the central person, but also the divine Spirit for his gracious, tender influences, felt and known from time to time.

[17:57] There's thus a fellowship of love. We love him because he first loved us. Love flows back to him again.

[18:11] Well, there are these three particular points. We have the ground, the foundation work of true Christian fellowship.

[18:27] And one more word I will mention here. There comes into this fellowship, particularly that God for the last point, what we call love to the brethren, love to the saints of God, love to those who are of the same mind and the same spirit in the things of God.

[19:01] And we have a good deal said, or written by the apostle in this epistle, that love to the brethren, and love to one another.

[19:17] That's rather different to love to the brethren. Love to the brethren is that which flows out of a sinner's heart when the love of God flows in.

[19:31] He loves not only him that begat, but those begotten of him. All that God loves, and Christ loves, he feels he can embrace them all, take them all in his arms of love and true affection towards them.

[19:50] Many doesn't know, and yet he loves them because they belong to Christ. They are members of the same family, the children, the same father, redeemed by the same precious blood, loved by the same holy spirit, and taught by that spirit.

[20:14] and there's a love going out towards them. Then there's loving one another. That signifies love reciprocated.

[20:29] You may love some of the Lord's people that do not appear to reciprocate your love. No fellowship between you, really.

[20:41] Not in the foolish meaning of it. No, they seem to stand or move, or they appear as though they're unapproachable, and you can see or feel no real proof of any reciprocal love between you.

[21:06] love. That real fellowship in the gospel is that of loving one another.

[21:17] When two hearts are joined together, united in the truth and experience of the gospel, in love to the Father and the Son, that's the sacred bond the unity of the Spirit, joining them together as one.

[21:43] Now there's true fellowship there. And then a fellowship in regard to ministry to the brethren. You heard great just now, the word, that we should do well to take heed to.

[22:03] who so hath this world's good, and see if his brother hath need, and shutteth up his spouse compassion from him, how dwelleth the love of God in him?

[22:23] What a question. What a solemn, searching question. You see, the point is this, who so hath this world's good.

[22:36] Doesn't mean to be a billionaire, for a thousand pounds in the bank, plenty of money, plenty of good, who has this world's good in any quantity.

[22:50] Maybe small, the man may feel has only got just well enough for his own good, his own need. But if the love of God's in his heart, he'll look on his poor brother in need.

[23:07] He'll see that poor sister or brother in Christ, that inner condition of need. And if he's got the love of God, he'll minister there.

[23:23] But if not, he looks on the case, he sees it, and he contemplates it, he thinks about it.

[23:35] It's a question of shall I help the person, or shall I not? But his covetous heart makes him shut up his bowels of compassion.

[23:47] He closes the door of sympathy, and he closes his purse strings at the same time. when he says, no, I can't afford it, I want all I've got for myself.

[24:01] Love is sacrifice, his friend. It's not giving out of one's abundance beyond what they need.

[24:12] It's giving out of what one really comes in need of themselves. love is. Look at that dear woman in the temple that casted all her living just two might.

[24:25] Don't you think she needed it? Where'd she get her food for the next day from? How did she pay her way? That's all she got.

[24:38] It all went into the treasury that day. there was no self sacrifice in that. Now real fellowship with God and Christ is of the same danger.

[24:56] May I say it with all reverence, God made a sacrifice when he gave his son, gave his only begotten son, the darling of his heart, his bosom, in order that his people should have the blessings of salvation and love made known to their hearts.

[25:25] He sacrificed his son, just as every hand. when called to offer up his son, he sacrificed him.

[25:37] That is, he went as far as he was called upon to do, and he was willing in faith to obey God's commandment.

[25:53] So, friends, there's a sacrifice in the love of God. Is there no sacrifice in the love of Christ? See what it cost him.

[26:07] See what he gave out of his own proper good, which belonged to him, which was his rightful possession.

[26:22] He gave, and he gave abundantly. himself, he gave himself to suffering and death and to the curse due to sin.

[26:39] What a sacrifice. Hmm. Does any fellowship center between you and Christ and God the Father, in your serving God, in your ministering to his cause or his people, is there a self-sacrifice about it?

[27:01] You know, naturally, true love loves to serve the loved one, loves to sacrifice something for it. Should it not be so in this fellowship, are we not called upon love because of what we hope is our interest in the love of the Father of the Son, to love the brethren with a pure heart fervently, disinterestedly, not expecting something back for what we give, but giving liberally from a cheerful heart, because of one's indebtedness felt to the Lord himself for all he has done for us.

[28:00] But I might go on and think in regard to this fellowship of the saints in union with fellowship with God, it enters into all their worship, their service, there in the yoke upon them, following after Christ, seeking to do his will, obeying his precepts.

[28:30] I just want, before I leave it tonight, to notice just three or four things that contain this particular fellowship of the people of God.

[28:47] Now, first of all, in fellowship, there's knowledge. You won't have fellowship for the person you don't know.

[28:59] You may hear about them, read about them, but you don't know them. love. You might even go so far in regard to your own spiritual life as to hold a feeling of fellowship with some person you never met because you read their writings or the sermons they preach.

[29:30] You feel a union, a bond with them, but then they cannot hold fellowship with you. You can't come together in this true fellowship.

[29:45] Though they enter into your experience, you enter into theirs in that sense, there's the fellowship of the spirit, but not the joining together here on earth.

[30:00] But there must be knowledge there. first of all, there's the knowledge of God. In measure, if ever we have fellowship with God, we must have some knowledge of God by the teaching of the Holy Spirit.

[30:22] This is life eternal. They might know thee, the only true God, God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.

[30:34] Do we know anything about him? Anything of him? Anything of those precious, vital truths I've tried to set before you?

[30:49] As the life, the life, the earth, in regard to the revelation of him in the gospel, in his precious word, oh, to know him is to have one of the precious accomplishments of fellowship with him.

[31:14] So it is spiritually. You get to know a person, in the Lord, that is, in a spiritual way.

[31:26] You're brought together to know each other in measure as partakers of the same precious faith, the same divine teaching, and there comes about the feeling of union and fellowship with them.

[31:47] So then we've got knowledge as a very particular part of the fellowship. And then there's friendship. There can be no fellowship between those who are in of it.

[32:03] There must be friendship on both sides. And how can God have fellowship with an enemy to him?

[32:17] Only when the sinner has been subdued and brought into subjection. His enmity slain, who still detains a carnal nature, but he has now that which is in friendship with God.

[32:39] He's brought to realize that his former life of enmity against God has been a life of sin, misery, and death to him.

[32:55] And now he's brought into friendship with God like Enoch who walked with God. It was friendship between them.

[33:05] And I could not express, friends, what friendship there is on God's part, and what friendship in that regard to the Lord Jesus Christ who suffered out of tonight.

[33:21] Oh, what a friend he is, an unchanging, faithful friend, how he loves, how he cares, how he sympathizes with his people, how he comes to them and says, cast, he said, on me thy care, till they not that I am dying, of all thy burdens bear, of all thy needs supply, that's fellowship.

[33:54] That you can come, poor sinner, and bring your cares to him and cast them upon him as your heavenly friend, you found the secret of fellowship with Christ and his friendship will be very dear to you because it's a friendship that never fails, never ceases.

[34:21] And you see, amongst true, those who truly have fellowship one another, there's this true friendship, faithful friendship.

[34:31] there's that that you knifes them together in the bonds of the gospel so that they can walk not in enmity, but in true peace, and unite one with the other.

[34:50] This is the fellowship that the apostles speak so much of. you'll read the fourth chapter of Ephesians. See what Paul meant thereby fellowship.

[35:04] Walking in love, in union, in the unity, the spirit, the bond of peace, he realized the need of enforcing upon those Ephesians the necessity of cultivating this spiritual fellowship one with the other.

[35:30] And that does not hold a that, but there's communication. Those in fellowship communicate one with the other, converse together.

[35:46] Perhaps at times tell one another the secret feelings of their hearts. They're like those who read on in Malachi.

[35:59] They that hear the Lord spake often one to the other. The Lord harped and heard. He listened to their conversation, their communication, just as he did with the two disciples on the way to Emmaus, who were in fellowship in sorrow and distress.

[36:24] So sad that day, so downcast their looks, so full of trouble, as they walked together by the way, and then the Lord came on the scene.

[36:40] And here we've got some fellowship again. When the Lord came, he had such an effect upon them, it made their heart burn.

[36:54] It made them feel that they had someone with them understood the case, was able to explain matters to them.

[37:05] And what blessed joy they felt when he was made known and embraced the bread. There was fellowship, communication, intercourse together, converse, our friends, this is the secret of true fellowship.

[37:30] this binds the hearts of God's people together, and this binds them to God himself.

[37:41] And when they're thus favored to tell him their troubles, pour out their hearts before him. He communicates divine comfort, consolation, speaks peace to the troubled heart, what communications there are, what intercourse between them.

[38:04] And then there's mutual interest, where there's fellowship. The people that are in fellowship love the same things and hate the same things.

[38:18] They'll love all that God loves, hate what God hates. God hates sin, they'll hate it.

[38:28] God loves holiness, they will love it, and desire to possess it, desire to attain to it, to enter at last into perfect holiness in him.

[38:44] There's that in them which causes them to have a mutual interest with God the Father, God the Son, in those things that they choose and they love and they hate.

[39:05] And sometimes, experimentally, a child is brought to choose even that which is opposed to flesh and nature and sex because he knows it's God's will, God's choice for him.

[39:24] And so there's a mutual interest, a sympathy between them, a bond of union, a fellowship that's begun on earth between the saints and God himself, between one another.

[39:43] A debt cannot bring the fellowship. It's only here in the birth, so to speak, only just the beginnings of the sacred, everlasting fellowship of joy and peace and blessing and worship and praising God to be the saints employed throughout eternity.

[40:14] But I have tried as well as I can to just set before you a few things today in regard to this sacred fellowship by God the Holy Spirit and grant to us to know it for ourselves more and more and realize that even the declaration of the gospel will.

[40:44] As Paul hears of me, a binding together our hearts in one, that fellowship one with the other, with the Father, with his Son, Jesus Christ.

[41:01] Amen. life an another, itliness has out kind of worship each atomic hooing