Fellowship — John 3

0:01 It's an honor to be speaking here again. And I remember the scripture saying, I am a companion of all them that love Thy name. This is true of this assembly here. And before I speak, let us pray for the again, for the message. Our gracious God and heavenly father, we come in weakness on our part today realizing that the power is of God.

0:37 We depend on the spirit of God's guidance and the power of the spirit to enlighten us on the subjects we're speaking on or anything we speak from the word of God. We thank you for the message of the gospel that gives the heart such a peace that Christ died for the ungodly, that Christ died for our sins, that he bore our sins in his own body on the tree. We thank thee, our father, that he's coming back again. And today, as we are opening the word of God, we pray for the pages will come alive to all of us. And we pray, Father, for sister Nancy, that all will go well and the healing hand of God.

1:24 Give thanks now and ask this in the name of our Lord Jesus. My subject today, which is a wonderful subject, is the subject that we're going to speak on first is a little bit in the gospel and then we will speak on fellowship. I always like to preach the gospel because if there is any unsaved here, before you speak on fellowship here, we are going to get them into the fellowship and that is to be saved. The most important thing in the world, in life, is to be prepared and ready for the next life, to be saved. Christ came from heaven's glory, became a man, suffered, bled and died.

2:15 And it says, for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame. Why has that joy with all the suffering needed that he may bring money sons into glory? To save people and make them children of God. Because on their own, they cannot. The reason...

2:33 I'll tell you why. The reason why a person must be saved. First of all, sinfulness. The Bible says all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. There is none that doeth good.

2:45 No, not one. All we like sheep have gone astray. We have turned everyone to his own way. And the bible says your sins and inequities have separated between you and your God. And he will...

2:58 Between you and your God that he will not hear. It's amazing. The warnings are given. And he told the children of Israel, because I will do this, O Israel, prepare to meet thy God. There's a meeting the bible speaks about, It is appointed unto man, one unto man once to die.

3:21 But after this, the judgment. The word after is immediately after. Rich man died, what happened? And in hell he lifted up his eyes being in torment. When you read about that, that he being in torment, it says rich man died and was buried.

3:42 That's his body, he wanted us. And in hell, he lifted up his eyes. What was in hell? His soul and spirit. And they felt the burning of hell, the suffering of hell.

3:55 And it says, Lazarus died and was carried by the angels into Abraham's bosom. That's referred to paradise, the heaven. And the warning is clear. You cannot die in your sins. The Lord said if you die in your sins, where I go, you cannot come.

4:27 They should believe a lie. That's not the Lord is God, that Satan is God. That's what the lie is. The devil is around there. That's in second Corinthians, if you wanna read it.

4:41 And be careful on that. And then the other thing is the time to be saved and to come to know the Lord as your savior is now is the accepted time. Now is the day of salvation. Come now and let us reason together, saith the Lord. If your sins be like crimson, they shall be as white as snow.

5:01 If they be... Am I confusing the two? Come let us reason together, saith the Lord. If your sins be like crimson, they shall be as white as snow. If they be...

5:17 I forgot the last word. A A scarlet, they shall be as white as wool. What means your sins cannot keep you away from the Lord. He wants to reason with you. He came to the earth to die for your sins.

5:32 Why should you bear him after you go into eternity? Come to him, and he paid the ransom. And the other thing we we said... We we we said about now, remember now like creator. Now thy creator, not tomorrow.

5:49 There's no promise of tomorrow. Thy boast not thyself of tomorrow, for thou knowest not what a day will bring forth. Your time... He says, my time is not yet come, the lord said, but your time is all the way ready. Don't tell me a person can go and jump the bridge and say, oh, it's not his time.

6:11 Why? He wouldn't die. You have to try it again. Get in a car accident. You see, your time is always ready, so you have to be ready.

6:19 And then we have, why should you come to the Lord for salvation? Because neither is there salvation any other. For there is none other name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved. There is no Peter. There is no Paul.

6:35 There is no saint. No anybody. Don't take that route. You're going... This is Peter who said that.

6:42 That's Acts four and twelve. Neither is there salvation in any other. For there is none other name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved. It's important you are restricted to one avenue of going to heaven. That's in man, the Lord Jesus himself.

7:01 He says, it's faithful is the same worthy of all acceptance that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners of whom I am the chief or the first. That's what Paul said. First of sinners, but look at him. He was waiting for his coming, waiting to go to meet the Lord. And then we have, the way of salvation is by faith in Christ.

7:27 It says, if thou shall confess with thy mouth Jesus as Lord and believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, you shall be saved. Many people have the mouth, but they don't have the heart. The two go together. The confession is something that was already in the heart. What must I do to be saved?

7:47 Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be saved. And the two... The division, I always call the Gospel of John from beginning to the end. I always call it that's God's manifesto. You've heard of the communist manifesto.

8:27 Everlasting life, not death, not everlasting damnation as you read somewhere else, everlasting life. It says, for God sent not his son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through him might be saved. That's one for the believer, not condemned. The other one is for the he that... It said, but he that believeth not is condemned already.

8:54 That's the destiny. It's set before the human race. You wanna go to heaven, Christ or nothing. You just stay the way you are, you are condemned already. Verse 36, it says, he that hath the son, hath life.

9:10 He that hath not the son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abideth on him. I speak those verses of judgmental verses to wake up anyone that is not saved and saying, tomorrow, tomorrow, give me just a little longer for the world now looks so bright. When I feel that I'm dying, I'll be saved, but not tonight. Friends, if you're not saved, what do you think you're doing? You're helping your case?

9:38 You're improving your results? Salvation, it says, by faith. By grace are you saved through faith and that not of yourselves, it's the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast. You can save yourself by works, pat your back... Himself on the back.

9:56 Well, then why did Christ die? But if righteousness come by the law, then Christ died for nothing. If righteousness come... Righteousness that you think it is righteousness in your eyes, it's not. God says there's none righteous.

10:12 No, not one. Not one. But you become righteous by believing in Christ. God made him to be sin for us that we might become the righteousness of God in him. In Christ, we are as righteous as he.

10:29 And I'm saying it reverently. We are one with the sun. We have been washed. We have been sanctified. And don't forget it.

10:40 Romans eight, whom he sanctified, it says he glorified. And the glory which I have, it says, he has received, I have I have given it to them, the Lord said in John 17. So come to the Lord Jesus, trust him as your savior, and you will have eternal life, you shall never perish. You'll walk from here walking on air. That's what happened to me when I got saved.

11:08 I said, my, I can't believe it. As bad as I was, he made me fit for heaven because he shed his blood and his blood washed away my sin. Unto him that loves us and washed us from our sins in his own blood. The subject I'm going to speak about again, I can't cover it all, have no time, but I'm going to speak about some things that important things about fellowship. And I'm going to go to first John.

11:47 I know we should go to Acts two or no, I don't think so. My own thinking says no. We will go to that because I'm going to speak about the fellowship then when we get there. And we come to the first epistle of John. We read these few verses here.

12:09 That which was from the beginning with God, that which was from the beginning, which we have heard. They have heard them, see. And this is not speaking about the Genesis in the beginning. This is another beginning. Which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handle of the word of life.

12:36 For the life was manifested. This is in parenthesis here. For the life was manifested and we have seen it and bear witness and show unto you that eternal life which was with the father and was manifested unto us. In him was life. Remember, he's speaking about the son of God.

12:56 He was with them, he handled them, he heard them, and he's trying to tell them something here. The life was manifested. As in the epistle to the of the epistle, first epistle of John. Not only he brings in several things, even defense of the gospel against those Gnostics and so on, Sorrento and the rest of them. But here he is speaking to believers.

13:23 He said that while life was manifested, they said the Gnostics said those developmental... Future development of things, the heretics, they say, no, he was not. He was not. For the life was manifested, we have seen it and wear witness and show unto you that eternal life which was with the father, which was manifested unto us. That which we have seen and heard declare we unto you, that ye also may have fellowship with us.

13:58 Isn't that wonderful? That you may have fellowship with us and truly our fellowship is with the father and with his son Jesus Christ. And these things write we unto you that your joy may be full. That you may have fellowship with us, for our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ. The word fellowship is the...

14:28 I'll give you Vine's dictionary, which is highly recommended, w e vine. The word is koinonia, of course, I wouldn't know that much. Meaning of the word is fellowship. He said the meaning is communion, fellowship, sharing in common. Their fellowship, they share in common with the father and with the son.

14:54 And he wants us to be with them, and he gives us a reason. And he's coming to the to say, the intent of this this this epistle, you don't... You take the fellowship out of it, you're gonna mess up in big time. The subject is fellowship with the father and with the son, not only defense of the the faith. But he said here, this then is the message which we have heard from him and declare unto you that God is light and in him is no darkness at all.

15:47 Why is he bringing that God is light into here? You can't have fellowship unless if you are walking in the light. You are a son child of God. You'll never lose your salvation. But here is the intent of being in fellowship, walking with God, walk in the light.

16:07 Walk according as you walk. Walk as become of the gospel. Walk, he said, in the spirit. There's a lot of things said about walk, but how, what is it that? Ah, God is light.

16:22 So if we were to walk in the fellowship of God, we cannot just do those things. First of all, three things we are told, consecutive things in this epistle. First of all, he brings in to man he brings into man the life and I'll read you here the the first one. Divine life communicated to man. You see, the son was sent, was manifested, he came down.

16:58 And our introduction into that as in the fellowship with the apostles and the father and the son. The second one is the gods communicating about God. And the last one is the means by which God brings those believers that sin back, a remedy for them. So here we know that we have the call to the fellowship because God is light. God is light, therefore we have to walk in the light.

17:34 He said, if we say or if we should say that we have fellowship with him and walk in darkness, we lie not and do not practice the truth. You see, if we don't do this, you see, we're not fooling anybody. If we really want to have strong fellowship with the Father, it's not if we have life, we have eternal life, it shall never perish. Don't mix the two together. He's talking about the fellowship here.

18:04 How we walk down in this light road of life as believers in the Lord Jesus Christ. Some people say, well, I believe I'm saving, so I can do anything I want. No. You can do everything you want to. The fool is the one who fools himself and that's where they stand.

18:24 You can't. You are a child of God. You manifest the righteousness of God for the grace of God that that hath appeared teaching us that denying ungodly lust and so on, we should live righteously, soberly in this present world. Our grace is so overpowering that we were saved by grace we don't deserve. It should make us...

18:46 Prompt us to have walk in the fellowship with the... As the apostle said, with the father and the son. And then we come to if we should say that. But if we walk in the light as he is in the light, there's nothing here to to... We...

19:03 If we walk in the light as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and this is our fellowship among ourselves. We have fellowship one another because we're walking in the light because we are children. We are light in the Lord, not of light. We are light in the Lord. You know that, if you read it.

19:27 It says, in the light, we have fellowship one with another and the blood of Jesus Christ, his son, cleanses us from all sin. Is he saying that every time you get your sin, you go to the blood? The blood here is not once for all shed sprinkling of the blood once for all. This is the blood, it's what it does and it already did it. Our sins were paid for at the cross.

19:57 He washed us from our sins with his own blood. It says, by one offering he hath perfected forever then my sanctified. What he says, that's the blood's quality, what it does. Like food nourishes, because it's in the present tense. A water quenches thirst.

20:18 And that is very important to us. It's not running through the blood every time, because it's saying to us, we're walking in the light. We are children of the light. And the blood of Jesus Christ, his son cleanses us from all sin. He's talking about the walk.

20:34 He asked me where are my sins are. They are gone at the cross. They were paid for. Mr. Darby has a question here when he comes to this.

20:41 I'm not going go through all that, but he has a question here. He said, Is the child of God sprinkled by blood several times? I'm not going to go to the whole article, but this is a good question. He said, No, for the sprinkling of the blood upon the believer answers to the shedding of blood once for all before God. Neither is repeated.

21:05 He said, it is important that the Christian should hold fast a true sense of the value of the blood of Christ offered once for all. No. All my sins are gone and their sins and iniquities will I remember no more in the future. Why? Because they were paid for at the cross.

21:37 Why a believer's sins will not impute them imputed to him. Why can... Are not remembered? The future sins I'm talking about. They were born at the cross.

21:46 I wasn't even born when Christ died. He died for our sins. On the cross, he put away our sin, all your sins and iniquity, having forgiven you all your sins and iniquity, and he shall not remember. It's not that God doesn't know them, but he chose by an act of God's will. Not anymore because when Christ died for them, not only they were wiped away, but is more than satisfied the claim of God, the claim of God.

22:13 So we have here, and then we're going to speak about the, if we say, all those are subjunctive. Let's say here, if we say or should say, we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. The apostle included himself, isn't he? Oh, you don't think he sinned after he became an apostle? Well, try again what he said in other places.

22:36 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Why did he bring the blood first? If we confess our sins, he is faithful. Faithful to who? Faithful to his own son's work on the cross.

22:58 And he's just in doing it because it doesn't say go ask for forgiveness, does it? Because it means a sinner, a believer, his sins are still here. He needs forgiveness. It says if we confess it, God is faithful and just or righteous and to claim... Because he already has mentioned what the blood does, its characters, and that was done long ago.

23:25 So now therefore that's all you have to do, confess your sin. I've said that many times. It's grievous to say something the scripture does not say. It does not say and ask for forgiveness, oh, if your brother sinned against you and all that. But when it comes to the sinning against God, he brings the blood first and he brings why God can forgive.

23:53 He is righteous And he's just, he's faithful to the work of Christ. He never goes back on his word and so on. But the remedy here in chapter two, it says, for fellowship broken, my little children, these things write I unto you that ye sin not. And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the father, Jesus Christ the righteous. And he is the propitiation for our sins and not for ours only, but for those...

24:25 The intercession of Christ at the cross... At... In heaven. The work of the cross, he is our high priest standing in the presence of God. He makes intercession for us.

24:35 He makes continuous intercession for us before we even know it. And his work you have is very important because without that, you see, he's there. You see, I bore their sins at the cross and they make intercession for us. He's an advocate, our defender, taken from the law, Roman law. But he is there, our advocate, with the father.

25:19 So he wants the fellowship of the Son and the Father and the Son and the Apostles. If we go to one Corinthians one, First Corinthians, and we'll go to chapter one, and we'll read at verse nine. Here's what he says. Verse nine. God is faithful.

25:51 Here again, God is faithful in this too. God is faithful now by whom you were called unto the fellowship of his son, Jesus Christ our Lord. By whom you were called unto the fellowship. We didn't have anything to do with that call. It was divine.

26:09 It was on us, given to us. I had nothing to do with that, did I? He calls us unto the fellowship. Why is he saying that here? Because some of them were going eye of Paul, eye of Paul, eye of Steve, eye of Christ, is Christ divided?

26:23 Is Christ one fourth and the other three one fourth each? That's what he means. He doesn't mean Christ is not divided into four parts. No. It's a Christ alone.

26:33 We were called not unto Peter's fellowship with Peter or any church or anything. We have been called into the fellowship. God did the calling, divine call, fellowship of his son. And the other thing we have to remember is that the word fellowship we have in Acts chapter two. Acts chapter two forty one and forty two.

27:15 Peter has preached the gospel, that sermon, 3,000 souls were saved. As I said before, at the preaching of the gospel, 3,000 souls were saved. At the introduction of the law, 3,000 souls were dead. 3,000 people died. Now here's what he said.

27:34 He said, then they that received gladly or accepted his word were baptized, first of all. It says here, and the same day were added unto them were added about 3,000 souls. And they continued steadfastly in the Apostles' Doctrine. That's what we were talking about. The apostles' doctrine exposed...

27:59 Expositioned that doctrine about the fellowship to us. That we have fellowship with the apostles and with the son... With the with the father and the son. But this is here, it says that they continued steadfastly in the apostles' doctrine and fellowship and in breaking of bread and in prayer. They continued steadfastly.

28:20 I'm going to talk about the now. This is the first local assembly here. They continued steadfastly in the apostles' teaching. The New Testament shows us what the teaching of the apostles left for us. Guided by the Holy Spirit, divine inspiration, verbal inspiration, divine inspiration.

28:40 It says here, those who accepted were saved. They were baptized first. Secondly, they continued steadfastly. After excuse me, they received the word, were baptized, and the same day were added unto about 3,000 souls. After they were saved, they're gathering into the group now, like you have a local assembly.

29:15 And they continued steadfastly. There was no deviation, the apostles teaching. And the apostles teaching, one of the fellowship is probably was told them, is the same as you say, we already talked about. They continue or they persevere in the apostles' doctrine and fellowship and in the breaking of bread and in the... Before in any...

29:38 Either one of those statements, can put the word the, the definite article in there. We have here, they continue their words. What is the local assembly does? It gathers in the name of the Lord Jesus. That is the teaching of the New Testament.

29:54 That's taken in no name. Where two or three are gathered together unto my name, there am I in the midst of them. As mentioned a few times in that. And the believers Testament, they were baptized and they were added. They were taken into the fellowship of the assembly.

30:28 And he says, the Lord's direction was, this do in remembrance of me. His death, it shows of death, not of his life, of his death. As often as we eat this bread and drink this cup, we do proclaim the Lord's death until he comes. What a horrible thing and it was for me. It was for you.

31:01 And they also continued the apostle teaching was many, many facets. Of course, we have it here. So an assembly that has the New Testament direction or doctrine, not gathers in the name of the Lord Jesus, where two or three are gathered together unto my name. There I might have missed that. They are set up as the two ordinances, the breaking of bread and baptism.

31:32 And the other thing is each assembly has elders. Paul went everywhere appointing elders. There was no one person in charge of the assembly. There were several, but there was one person who was the holy spirit. And the New Testament assembly, they are given gifts to various persons, so these various persons can exercise them.

32:03 Otherwise, no one man has all the gifts and one man should be in charge of a local assembly. They appointed elders in every church. They even sent emissaries, Paul did, to places so they can appoint elders and all that. And they preached proper doctrine, the coming of the Lord, the gospel, and it says, and the prayers. And all that was apostolic doctrine.

32:34 And they did not write the instruction that we should deviate from it. The saints are very dear to the heart of God. And it's in the breaking of the bread the fellowship is mentioned very strongly. First Corinthians ten sixteen, the death of Christ is given as the basis of our fellowship. The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the fellowship of the blood of Christ?

33:10 The bread which we break, is it not the fellowship of the body of Christ? It's an important thing. And the definition of an assembly or local church assembly is a gather out group. It's ekklesia, it's the word gather out group or assembly and call it church. But there's one more, the fellowship of the spirit.

33:34 That's another fellowship. And we are... Have things in common with this spirit if we walk in this spirit. It says here, if there be any consolation in Christ, if any comfort of love, if any fellowship of the spirit, if any bowels and mercies, fulfill ye my joy, yet be like minded, having the same love being of one accord. Fellowship of the spirit.

33:58 This is what being in one accord, walking in the light and so on. Second Corinthians thirteen and fourteen, the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Ghost be with you all. Amen. Fellowship of the Holy Spirit. And that's why walk in the spirit that you will not fulfill, You may not fulfill the lust of the flesh.

34:30 I call it forbidden fellowship. And I'll read it. Second Corinthians six fourteen to 18, you can follow me on that. Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers. For what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness?

34:51 Yoked together whether... And we refer to that a lot in marriage, especially, save and unsave. One has the world and the other one has the Lord. One has no interest in Christianity, the other one does. So be ye not.

35:10 It's not saying you may. He said be ye not. So we can break this fellowship if we want and do against the spirit of God. But we're the losers. But it is a forbidden thing.

35:22 What communion or fellowship? The word for communion is the word fellowship. Did you know that? That's it. And in here it should have been...

35:30 And here it says, And what communion hath light with darkness? We were talking about the light. God is light. We are light in the Lord. And so the unsaved is in darkness.

35:43 The darkness is satanic darkness, as dark as can be. Condemn and go into hell. And they have refused to take this step and take Christ who died for them, suffered, bled, and died as their savior. So what communion hath light with darkness? And what conquered hath Christ with Belial or Satan?

36:04 Or what part hath he that believeth with an unbeliever? You tell me. I'm asking you as a question mark. There is none. And what agreement hath the temple of God with idols?

36:17 Ah, Israel was rejected, sent to captivity because of idolatry, didn't they? Their idols are silver and gold, the works of man's hand. Well, he's talking about what kind of idols. The temple of God is spiritual. The temple of God, what does it say in first in first Corinthians chapter three?

36:35 Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that God... That spirit of God dwelleth in you? Don't you know you are the sanctuary of God, the inner shrine? That's what it means in there. And then looks at it.

36:51 For ye are the temple of the living God as God has said, I will dwell in them and walk in them or among them, actually, those words. And I will be their God and they shall be my people. Wherefore, come out from among them and be ye separate, saith the Lord. That's separation. It's not don't work with a guy at work.

37:12 Don't visit a person that's unsaved. He says don't be yoked together. And that many applies it and the greatest expositors even took to go in business with an unsaved. I don't know how I would think. I'm telling you some do, you see.

37:31 And I I I haven't believed that, you see, because we are the right here. Wherefore come out from among them and be separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing. And I will receive you and will be a father unto you and you shall be my sons and daughters, said the Lord Almighty. Ephesians five and one says, have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness. No fellowship, no association, no let us remember, we are Christians first.

38:05 We are Christians last. We are the ones that the apostle spoke about. He said in his charge to the in the epistle to trying to remember which epistle now, but maybe somebody can help me. He said he was he has the fellowship of the afflictions of Christ. The afflictions of Christ.

38:44 Share in rejection of Christ. Share in the you know, if they don't like us for some reason or not, we don't want to be brokenhearted if they're not saved. We want to try to talk to them about salvation. And the affliction, I think it's Philippians, but I'll find it quickly. Colossians one twenty four.

39:12 Oh, here, here's another one. Yeah, that's right. And here's another one, that I may know him and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his suffering. And that one, Colossians what, brother? One twenty.

39:25 Could you read it to us? And now rejoice in my

39:28 sufferings for you, you fill up in my flesh for the sake of his body.

39:49 That is, we are all in the Lord's, in the body of Christ, and we are in fellowship with the Father and the Son. We have things in common with them. We share things. Let us remember that. I skipped a lot of different fellowship, but I wanted to read the Forbidden Fellowship.

40:09 Our gracious God and Heavenly Father, we thank thee for the place we occupy as children of God, heirs of God, and loved by God as he loved the son. And we thank the Our Father for the fellowship we are in. Sometimes, Our Father, we can hardly go into it in full, but it surpasses our intelligence that God has called us into the fellowship of His Son and that we have our Father, our fellowship with the Father and with His Son. Help us to always remember that and to walk in the light of that fellowship. So part is now with thy blessing.

40:52 We ask it in the name of the Lord Jesus.