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Humans are made to connect with God and other people. We need this fellowship, and it is hugely important.
If there is one thing that we have learned from this past year it is that people need fellowship. It’s easy to take it for granted. But when we lack it, we can really feel it. Last year, I went to the Billy Graham Training Center in October with my wife. Several people had not been in a public worship setting since March. They said, we didn’t realize how much we missed it, how good it is to be in fellowship with other people.
We need people, and we need to experience them face to face. It is fine to make calls and write letters and texts when we need to, but it is that face to face fellowship that is especially crucial and important.
The Proclamation of God Come in the Flesh
That’s the sort of fellowship that John had with Jesus. He proclaimed Jesus who was the one “which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched” (1 John 1:1). When I hear this, I am reminded of Jesus sitting with John at the last supper. At the last supper, John was reclining right next to Jesus. In the Middle East, people often eat sitting or reclining on the floor. John was right next to Jesus eating with him. That’s how real Jesus was and is. He says, “we have heard . . . we have seen . . . we have looked at and . . . have touched.” Jesus was and is a real human being.
The most amazing thing is that they believed that this Jesus was something much more than a mere man. He existed from the beginning. They believed that this Jesus whom they touched, saw, and heard had existed long before He ever became a human being. He had always been there. Before He became a human being, Jesus was “with the Father.” He did not begin to exist when He was born, but the one who already existed “appeared” in time and became a human that people could see, touch, and hear.
John has two words that He uses to describe Him here. The first is the “Word” or the logos. For many of the ancient philosophers, logos was the eternal principle of reason in the divine mind that every person shared in to a degree. It was the principle of creation. It was the pattern of everything. The Jews also used this word and had a similar concept. They saw the logos principle in that God spoke and creation came into being. So, when the early Christians looked for a way to think about who Jesus was, they realized that logos or “the Word” could be one helpful term to explain who Jesus is.
The second word that John uses is “life.” He is the life because He is the Creator of all things. He is the one who sustains life. He is the one for whom we exist. He is the one for whom all things exist. He is the one in whom our lives find completion. He has come that we might experience abundant life, that we might have life and have it more completely.
He calls this life “the eternal life.” Eternal life does not mean primarily living forever. Humans have an immortal soul, and they will live forever. Their bodies will one day be resurrected, either to everlasting condemnation or to everlasting blessedness. Eternal life is more a quality of life, though it also goes on forever. As Jesus said, “Now this is eternal life: that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent” (John 17:3). In other words, eternal life is living in joyful fellowship with God and man.
All of this is very similar to what John says in his account of Jesus’ life. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. . . . And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us” (John 1:1, 14). He says of Him, “In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind” (John 1:4). I would encourage you to read through that passage very carefully and compare it to this letter.
Now, the idea that an immortal being who already existed would come down in the form of a human would not have seemed that odd in John’s world. No, this would not have seemed very strange to the Greco-Roman world in which John lived. They believed that many humans were gods come in the flesh. Read what happened in Acts 14.
Now, the Jews did not believe in many gods. They believed in only one God. However, in the Old Testament, God did appear from time to time in human form. These appearances were preparing the people of God for the coming of the Son of God. But that John is talking about, though, is totally different than a mere appearance. The Word became a human being and remained such, being born, living, eating, laughing, crying, dying, and rising again.
What about the idea that the Word, Jesus, was distinct from the Father and yet also God? Remember that in the Old Testament it says “Let us make man in our image.” In Exodus 23, the Lord speaks of the Angel of the Lord as one who is to obeyed and worshiped as God and yet is also distinct from the Lord who was speaking. God the Father was preparing them for the coming of His Son through many examples in the Old Testament.
All that said, today this is seen as a strange thing. Could this human be the one, true God? That is the fact that is the foundation of our faith. All our hopes are set on the fact that this man is the one true God come in human form. It may be strange to the modern world, but that does not make it less true.
And our reason for believing it is essentially what it was in those days. Jesus claimed to be the one, true God. He demonstrated it with miracles. He proved the validity of everything He said by rising from the dead. This is not just an idea. These are facts confirmed by eyewitnesses. They saw. They touched. They heard.
Remember our Mexican friend Yitzhak this summer describing what brought him to faith. He investigated the truth claims of the resurrection, and he saw that it was true. Since this was true, then Jesus must be who He said He was, and Christianity is true.
The Purpose of the Proclamation?
Now, what is the purpose of this proclamation about the Word of life? That we might have fellowship with God the Father and God the Son and one another. The purpose of knowing this truth is to live in joyful fellowship with God and man.
That’s what John says here. “We proclaim to you what we have seen and heard, so that you also may have fellowship with us. And our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ” (1 John 1:3). The goal is to live in fellowship with God and the community that is in fellowship with God. Some people think the main purpose of this letter is that we would know that we are truly saved. John says that at the end of his letter: “I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God so that you may know that you have eternal life” (1 John 5:13). However, the knowledge that we have eternal life is given to us with a higher purpose: to live that life. The purpose is joyful fellowship with God and man. Notice what he says in the next verse in 1 John 5:14, “This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us” (1 John 5:14). If we really know that we have this fellowship with God, then we can approach Him with confidence. We can live in joyful fellowship with Him.
So, what does it mean to live in fellowship with God? We know to a degree what it’s like to live in joyful fellowship with people. However, it can be harder to know how to live in fellowship with God. They could live in joyful fellowship with Jesus when they could see and touch and hear Him, but what about when He went away into heaven? Well, that’s what this letter is all about, and that’s what this sermon series is all about. How do we live in joyful fellowship with God and man? Now, why do I say, God and man? You can see here that John says, your fellowship is with us. Then, he says that our fellowship is with the Father and the Son. The point here is that fellowship with God cannot be divorced from our fellowship with fellow human beings and especially those who are believers in Jesus Christ. As John puts it poignantly: “whoever does not love their brother and sister, whom they have seen, cannot love God, whom they have not seen” (1 John 4:20).
So, one of the key ways that we have fellowship with God is by having fellowship with one another. If the love of God is in us, then we will want to have fellowship with those who love Him. I like the word used here in our translation, fellowship. This shows that love is about connecting with the people of God. This means more than just getting together with a couple of people we like. It means a general love for God’s people. One great thing about the church is that it brings together a diverse group of people. We learn to love by loving all of God’s people and taking an interest in them. We live in fellowship with the people of God. I remember one person saying that on the same day many years ago, a doctor and a man who had just gotten out of jail visited Evergreen for the first time. That’s the type of community the church is supposed to be.
But there’s much more. What else does it mean to have fellowship with each other and fellowship with the Father and the Son? There are many other things, but let me just mention a few of them that we will consider in the weeks to come:
- By experiencing, meditating on, and relying on the love of God.
- By experiencing the power of the Holy Spirit working in us. God is not only outside us. He is inside us. We live in fellowship with God by experiencing the power of the Spirit of God working within us.
- By asking Him to provide for us everything we need for body and soul.
- By having affection for God and keeping His commandments.
- By confessing our sins and seeking God’s forgiveness and grace when we sin.
These are some of the ways we can walk in fellowship with God. This letter helps us see them more clearly so that we can live more intentionally in the joyful fellowship of God and man.
Now, one more point from this passage. John speaks of writing this so that our or your joy may be full. Now, I need to explain something a little complicated here. There is the original text that the Apostles wrote, and then there are the copies of what the Apostles wrote. We don’t have the original manuscripts the Apostles wrote like we have The Declaration of Independence in Independence Hall in Philadelphia. However, we do have copies of those manuscripts from all over the ancient world. We have quotations from those copies. They are remarkably consistent showing that we really do have what the Apostles actually wrote. However, sometimes those who copied these manuscripts made errors. Sometimes, like less than 1% of the time, it makes it a little difficult to know what was in the original manuscript that the Apostles wrote. This is one example of that. There is a difference of one letter in the Greek between you and us. That letter must have been copied incorrectly at some point. So, there is some confusion. Now, you can see that this does not matter that much. These are the sorts of questions we have about the text and it shows us how accurate our text actually is. Nevertheless, we have to try and understand it. Is it “our” or “your”?
I think it probably is “our joy.” This means that John would have great joy if his children walked in fellowship with God. This is similar to what he says at the beginning of his other letters. “It has given me great joy to find some of your children walking in the truth, just as the Father commanded us” (2 John 1:2). Again, he says in 3 John 1:4, “I have no greater joy than to hear that my children are walking in the truth.” John’s joy was seeing people walk in the truth. This highlights an important truth for us. We should not only be concerned about ourselves. We should find great joy in having other people walk in the truth. Who are you reaching out to? Who are you desiring to see come into communion with God? Who are you desiring grow in fellowship with Him? Are you praying for those people? I would encourage you to think of one person this week outside of your nuclear family and pray for him or her.
Conclusion
In conclusion, our faith rests on an amazing fact. The God who created the world has come in human flesh. He has become a human. He has done this so that we can have joyful fellowship with God and man. I remember talking to a Serbian man in Egypt. He said that he had lived in America for a while, and he just found it hard to connect with people. He felt like we were all kind of isolated compared to his own country. He said, the one place that was not true was church. That’s good for us to remember. That’s what it should be. We are called to be a community of joyful fellowship with God and man. That’s what God is doing in the world. That’s what we should lean into. That’s what people really need. That’s what we are going to consider in the months to come, and by God’s grace we will have a clearer vision than ever before of what it means to live in joyful fellowship with God and man. Amen.
Benediction: In the midst of all the struggles and trials of this life, remember that you have a refuge, joyful fellowship with the Father and the Son. Remember in joyful times that these good things are meant to lead you to the greater joy of fellowship with God and His people. Be intentional about it because it’s easy to forget in the midst of our daily activities. Instead, may the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God the Father and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be your constant refreshment and present blessing. May this lead you to the love of the people of God so that you may with one mind and on heart glorify our God and Father in heaven. And may this meditation lead you to active service to the whole human family as you work, visit, connect, and move in the communities in which you live. Amen.