[Listen to an audio version here]
Everything we do involves some administrative work. We have to make lists. We have to get things done. We have to organize. We have to prioritize.
Our society seems to be very, very busy. We always have things to do. People who are retired tell me that they have never been busier than when they are retired. They don’t know how they did everything before.
In the midst of all the busy-ness, we have to remember what life is all about. Christmas is a great time to remind us. First, it is about joyful fellowship with God. Second, it is about joyful fellowship with man, with other human beings. Christmas refocuses our attention on God. We set aside time from our hustle and bustle and enjoy our family and friends. It’s a chance to reset and focus on what is most important.
That’s what this letter from John is all about. The goal of this letter, which we call 1 John, is that we might enjoy that fellowship with one another and fellowship with God. These two are connected. We cannot ignore the one or the other if we want to experience joyful community.
In this passage, we have a sort of summary of what John has said in this letter with a few additional concluding thoughts. Let’s look at these through the lens of the blessing of fellowship.
Knowing the Fellowship
The key problem in our fellowship with God is, how do we know we can enjoy fellowship with Him? After all, how can an infinite God have fellowship with human beings? Even if he can, we know that we have not done what He has asked of us or become what we were supposed to be. How can such people have fellowship with Him? We all have sinned, and fall short of the glory of God. So, how can we know that we can have fellowship with Him?
Well, that’s one reason John wrote this 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). Eternal life here is fellowship with the Triune God. It is not just length of life, though that is also included. He writes to those who believe in the name of the Son of God that they might know that they have that eternal life, that fellowship with God.
How can they know it? They know it because of what Jesus has done. “This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins” (1 John 4:9–10). Out of His great love, God has done what is necessary to restore our relationship with Himself.