I will move away from the subject of fellowship soon, but not quite yet. John says, “That which we have seen and heard declare we unto you, that ye also may have fellowship with us; and truly our fellowship is with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ.” Notice “that ye also may have fellowship with us,” rooted, of course in our mutual fellowship with the Lord. “And these thing write we unto you that your joy may be full.” There is joy in this fellowship; joy which you never have in any other relationship. BUT – in that regard, “This then is the message which we heard of him, and declare unto you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all.” If you want the fulness of joy and highest form of fellowship, you must “walk in the light as he is in the light.”
I will come back to John’s words, “declare we unto you,” and “this then is the message which we heard of him, and declare unto you…” But in the mean time, I’m going to wander all over the map. As your tour guide, hopefully you’ll be able to follow my trail and see the sights I’m trying to point out.
There are requirements in order to have fellowship with God and His people.
If someone wants to be a “friend” of God, he or she must be friendly. Solomon said in Proverbs 18:24, “A man that hath friends must shew himself friendly: and there is a friend that sticketh closer than a brother.” Maybe Solomon was thinking mostly of the second half of that couplet, but let’s focus on the first. “A man that hath friends must shew himself friendly.”
How many friends did Solomon have? We don’t have an answer for that question, but as I said, he may have been focusing on the divine friend who sticketh closer than a brother. I am not sure that as a powerful man, he had the opportunity to have many genuine friends. Kings don’t have a great many peers with whom to fellowship. It is likely that David, Solomon’s father, had more friends than his son had, but David’s friendships began before his coronation.
“Solomon, what do you think we should do in order to show friendliness?” He says, why don’t you check out a couple of Biblical examples. Did the prodigal son have friends after his money ran out and the riotous living came to an end? Friends can’t be purchased, bribed, or drafted, but pretend friends and temporary acquaintances can. On the other hand, do you suppose the man whom the Good Samaritan befriended, later tried to find his benefactor? What is the likelihood they could eventually have become been friends? If so, it was because the Samaritan first showed genuine friendliness and neighborliness. The assault victim loved the Samaritan because the Samaritan first loved him. The difference between the prodigal and his friends, and the Samaritan and his potential friend, was the personal interest they had with each other.
And in that regard, Solomon also said, “Iron sharpeneth iron; so a man sharpeneth the countenance of his friend” – Proverbs 27:17. Let’s say that the Samaritan and his new Jewish acquaintance became friends. The former might have later said to his friend, “Don’t travel alone at night and risk attacks like this.” “Don’t advertise that you are carrying a lot of cash. Don’t talk about it at the inn.” “I’d recommend that before you descend through that area known for thieves, you wait for two or three other travelers and move as a group.” “Carry a sword or at least a big stick and make sure it can be clearly seen.” A part of showing friendship involves sharing advice and sometimes even rebuke. Isn’t that what John is doing in his letter? Sharpening the iron blade of his friends?
Going back to David: he had a true friend in the son of his mortal enemy. The heart of Jonathan was knit to David, even though there was little else binding them together. Jonathan was rich; David was poor. Jonathan was a soldier; David was a shepherd. David was ordained to be the next king, but the king’s son was never to take the throne. Both those men loved God, and they both wanted the best of the nation of Israel. You might say, “they both walked in the light,” giving them the basis of solid personal fellowship. In some lovely Old Testament scriptures we see David and Jonathan sharing what they could with one another, with privileged Jonathan taking the lead in friendliness.
In the Book of Daniel, the word “friend” is never applied to the four young people who are introduced to us. The Bible describes them as “companions,” but their relationship was close. “Friends” is the word we use to describe the relationship between Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael and Azariah. “Daniel and his three friends.” I doubt that Daniel ever called his friend “Hananiah” the foreign name: “Shadrach.” How did they become friends? Wasn’t it because, at an early age, they shared the same suffering and loss? As young people they wept together at the loss of their families, their homeland and their freedoms. But, besides externally, they were bonded personally. They were more than friends; they became brothers. “A man that hath friends must shew himself friendly: and there is a friend that sticketh closer than a brother.” The four young Hebrews were friends because they prayed together. Or was it that they prayed together because they were friends? And in their prayers they were brought together in the presence of the God who meets saints’ needs. Daniel is described as a hero of the faith, and indeed he was, but so were his friends. “Then these men were bound in their coats, their hosen, and their hats, and their other garments, and were cast into the midst of the burning fiery furnace… And these three men, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, fell down bound into the midst of the burning fiery furnace. Then Nebuchadnezzar the king was astonied, and rose up in haste, and spake, and said unto his counsellors, Did not we cast three men bound into the midst of the fire? They answered and said unto the king, True, O king. He answered and said, Lo, I see four men loose, walking in the midst of the fire, and they have no hurt; and the form of the fourth is like the Son of God.” Hananiah, Mishael and Azariah were “walking in the light, as Christ is in the light, and as a result they had fellowship one with another and with God.”
With that I come back to my intended theme:
John and Solomon were heavenly matchmakers.
Maybe it would be more spiritual to call them “evangelists” than “matchmakers.” In chapter 1 of Proverbs, Solomon put words onto the tongue of his evangelist. “Wisdom crieth without; she uttereth her voice in the streets: She crieth in the chief place of concourse, in the openings of the gates: in the city she uttereth her words, saying, How long, ye simple ones, will ye love simplicity? and the scorners delight in their scorning, and fools hate knowledge? Turn you at my reproof: behold, I will pour out my spirit unto you, I will make known my words unto you.” Everything thereafter in Proverbs are a part of the wisdom we all need to hear. Including, “A man that hath friends must shew himself friendly: and there is a friend that sticketh closer than a brother.”
And a large portion of what Proverbs tells us are rebukes, exhortations and ultimately commands. That is what friend do for their friends. This Old Testament matchmaker, was not afraid to lay out the proper parameters for fellowship with God. And when he says, “Turn you at my reproof: behold, I will pour out my spirit unto you, I will make known my words unto you,” doesn’t that sound vaguely like John’s message? “If we say that we have fellowship with him, and walk in darkness, we lie, and do not the truth.” There will never be fellowship with God, and even our fellowship with other saints will be hurt, if we don’t hear wisdom’s reproof and turn, returning to the light.
So like Solomon, John says, “this we declare unto you,” and “this is the message which we have heard of him.” Because I yearn for fellowship with you, I have to be the kind of friend you need me to be. Because our fellowship must be rooted in the Saviour, I have to tell you, If we say that we have fellowship with him, and walk in darkness, we lie, and do not the truth.” If you say that you have no sin, you are deceiving yourself. If you say that you haven’t sinned, I’m telling you that you are making our Saviour out to be a liar. Johns says, “straighten up and fly right.”
Austin demonstrated to us an essential part of the ministry over the last couple of weeks. We need to hear: “You’ve got to work on yourself; you’re not where you ought to be.” We need to hear: “Jehovah is a God of loving kindness. This is a part of His light.” Walk in that light. “Be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ’s sake hath forgiven you.” Not only that, “put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness. Wherefore putting away lying, speak every man truth with his neighbour: for we are members one of another. Be ye angry, and sin not: let not the sun go down upon your wrath: Neither give place to the devil. Let him that stole steal no more: but rather let him labour, working with his hands the thing which is good, that he may have to give to him that needeth. Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but that which is good to the use of edifying, that it may minister grace unto the hearers. And grieve not the holy Spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption. Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamour, and evil speaking, be put away from you, with all malice: And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ’s sake hath forgiven you.”
As John says, “If we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another.” And when we don’t have the fellowship we ought to have, because we have contaminated ourselves with darkness, “the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin.” John the match-maker, wants us all to have fellowship with him and more particularly with “the Father, and which his Son Jesus Christ.” But it must be in God’s light, not that little 40 watt incandescent bulb we create for ourselves. “My little children, these things write unto you and the ye sin not.”