We have learned from the Apostle John that life without fellowship with God is like being shut away from the light; it is dark and cold, depressing and filled with illusions. God is light. This is the message of the life of our Lord Jesus, John declares. This is what he came to tell us and to show us. As light, he warms, fills, and fulfills us and unveils reality to us by showing up the false.
But, evidently, not to everyone. This is the problem which we now must face. Why is it that some Christians seem to be transformed by contact with Jesus Christ -- their lives are perceptibly different -- but others are not? Some Christians, even Christians of long standing, seem still to be very much conformed to the world around them, even deformed in their views and outlooks. Yet all of them stoutly assert that they are Christians, that they, too, have been born again by faith in Jesus Christ. It is not strange that the world asks, what is wrong, why is this condition true?
The secret, John says, is fellowship. The reason he writes this letter is that we might understand that. Verse 3 tells us,
that which we have seen and heard we proclaim also to you, so that you may have fellowship with us; and our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ. {1 Jn 1:3 RSV}
So the key is fellowship. We must distinguish and understand very clearly the difference between relationship and fellowship. Relationship is becoming a member of the family of God, by faith in Jesus Christ. It is established by asking him to come into your life and heart. John makes that clear at the end of this letter. "He who has the Son has life [that is relationship]; but he who has not the Son of God has not life [he does not have a relationship]," {1 Jn 5:12 RSV}. The Christian life starts right there with this matter of relationship. But fellowship is experiencing Christ. Relationship is accepting Christ; fellowship is experiencing him. You can never have fellowship until you have established relationship, but you can certainly have relationship without fellowship. This is what this letter emphasizes for us. Relationship puts us into the family of God, but fellowship permits the life of that family to shine out through us. That is what marks the difference between Christians. Relationship is to be "in the Lord" but fellowship is to be "strong in the Lord and in the power of his might," {Eph 6:10 KJV}, as Paul so beautifully expresses it in his letter to the Ephesians.
Relationship means that all God has is potentially yours, but fellowship means you are actually drawing upon that, and his resources are visible in your experience. Relationship is you possessing God; fellowship is God, possessing you. Fellowship, then, is the key to vital Christianity. That is why this letter, which calls us back to fundamental issues, focuses first on that. The important question is, as a Christian are you enjoying fellowship with the Father and with his Son, experiencing all things in common together?
Now John sees three ways by which Christians miss out on fellowship. If you look at the first chapter of John's letter, you will see three times he uses the phrase, if we say:
Verse 6, "If we say we have fellowship,"
Verse 8, "If we say we have no sin," and
Verse 10, "If we say we have not sinned."
Three times a profession is indicated, but the condition or possession that follows belies the profession. We shall spend our time now with that first one, taking these one by one because they are so important.
In this first instance, John says,
If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not live according to 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. {1 Jn 1:6-7 RSV}
What is the problem here?
This is a very common condition. Perhaps many of us here are suffering from this very condition at the present moment. Here is a Christian, John says, who has established a relationship with God, he has come into the family of God by faith in Christ. Perhaps that relationship has actually been established for years. The man has been a Christian for a long time and he says that he has fellowship with God. That means that he is experiencing the full flow of the life in the Spirit, the life of God. He claims that the life of Jesus Christ is his in experience as well as in potential. Ah, but, John says, there is no sign of it in his life. He lies. He does not live in a way that accords with his claim. He does not live according to the truth. His life is harsh, perhaps, and loveless; critical and demanding of others. Or perhaps it is intemperate, frivolous and flippant, lived solely on the surface; shallow and superficial. Or perhaps it is gossipy and sharp-tongued, or resentful and filled with bitterness.
Well, what is wrong?
Nothing is wrong with the relationship. It is no good talking to this person about becoming a Christian, he is a Christian. He knows what it means to know Jesus Christ. Well, what is wrong? John analyzes it. The problem is, he says, he is walking in darkness. Do we not greatly misunderstand this phrase? Most of us mentally read this as though it refers to having fallen into sin, what was once called "a backslidden condition," to having turned aside into willfulness, or wickedness. It is the opposite, of course, of walking in the light. The opposite of that would be walking in darkness, that is, not behaving the way we ought. But if we view this phrase that way we are confusing cause with results. The fact is, we sin because we are walking in darkness! Walking in darkness is not an equivalent term to sinning. We are sinning because we walk in darkness. That is the problem.
Well, then, what is darkness?
We must answer that first on the physical level. How would you go about getting this room dark? It is now filled with light. Would you somehow have to scoop out the light and shovel in the darkness? Of course not, we need only to turn off the light. Darkness is simply the absence of light. Wherever there is no light there is darkness, because darkness is the absence of light. That is precisely what John means here. To walk in darkness means to walk as though there were no God, for God is light. It is to be a practical atheist. Not an actual one, of course. We believe there is a God, we know he exists, but we live as though there were none. We do not expose ourselves to him. That is walking in darkness.
This is what John is describing here. It is possible to be a Christian and yet walk in darkness by turning God off. When you turn off the light the darkness comes flooding in, instantly. As I suggested, this is not a rare condition at all. John starts with this problem because it is one of the most wide-spread and commonplace of problems. It is evident on every side. You can miss the benefits of God's presence in your heart and life by ignoring the light. This is the case he brings before us.
How do you do this?
I wish to be very practical about this. I have discovered that sometimes these Biblical terms are so familiar to us they fall on our ears without meaning. We really do not know what they describe, and, therefore, it is sometimes very helpful to put them in other ways. How, then, do people actually do this, turn off the light and walk in darkness? Well, there are some very obvious ways in which it is done.
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