1John 1:1-10, 2:1-6
We all know that relationships can be tough things. For every person we may have in our life who we seem to get along perfectly with, there seems to be a dozen more hellbent on stepping on our last nerve. For every decent, functional ongoing interaction we have, there seems to be at least one that is purely dysfunctional.
In the confines of my ministry work, relationships are placed in upheaval by things like codependence and enabling. Addictions, infidelities, inattention. What feeds into these relationship challenges once we dig into them a bit is that there has typically been a very clear turning away from Jesus. In the minute that we push Him out of the center of our life, when we strip Him of His Lordship, Satan attacks. And once we give the enemy a chance to whisper his lies to us, the greater the divide he can create between us and Jesus.
And therein lies another challenge. As a pastor I’m going to constantly encourage anyone I counsel to nurture their relationship with Jesus. As a good friend and fellow pastor pointed out to me recently, we want to grow that relationship to the point where it transcends something relational and instead becomes a fellowship. Once we’re in fellowship with Jesus, we find that we are of the same mind as He is. The message of His Gospel becomes very accessible. Our desire to be an imitator of Jesus grows. We feel led to pray and study His Word consistently. We allow the grace of our Savior to transform us in such a way that sin loses its appeal while at the same time realizing that when I do sin, I can confess that to Jesus and the stain of the transgression is washed away.
But let’s keep it real. We have a hard enough time maintaining the relationships that are a part of our day in, day out lives. How in the world do we develop an intimacy with Jesus when we can’t physically, see Him, touch Him or hear Him?
Towards the end of the New Testament, the apostle John has written 3 very short but incredibly encouraging letters that help us to know Jesus better. I would encourage you to make a study of all of them. In the first of those letters, 1 John, he starts us off by pointing out that he knew Jesus intimately. He says, “We (John and his brother apostles) proclaim to you the One who existed in the beginning (Jesus) whom we have heard and seen. We saw Him with our own eyes and touched Him with our own hands. He is the Word of Life.”
In Jewish culture, when you would mention the term “The Word”, it was understood that you were talking about God. John wants to be very clear with His readers. Jesus is God. He goes on to share that it was God the Father who revealed Jesus to them and made clear to them that Jesus the Son is the embodiment of eternal life. If you know Jesus as the apostles knew Jesus spiritually speaking, eternal life becomes available to you, just as it had been made available to them. John adds this…
“He, Jesus, was with the Father, and then He was revealed to us. We proclaim to you what we ourselves have actually seen so that you may have fellowship with us. And our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son, Jesus Christ.”
Here’s what I love about this. John had the experiential relationship with Jesus that we would all love to have, and he celebrates that. But then he makes clear to us that what d revealed to him, and the other apostles is that we are all welcome to join in that same level of fellowship. God wants us to know that we can engage in the same sort of fellowship with Jesus, minus the touching, seeing, and hearing. And yes, that offers challenges for us but with faith in this ability to be connected to Jesus, John tells us we’re then placed in God’s light where we can enjoy this blessed fellowship with one another and understand that the precious blood of His Son continues to cleanse us all from sin.
When we accept the Biblical definition of faith, that is, confidence that what we hope for will actually happen; we gain assurance as to the things we cannot see. Faith makes Jesus tangible to us and once He’s tangible, we can establish the relationship. And once we establish the relationship, we can enjoy fellowship with Him.
And it’s in that fellowship that we can celebrate the confident hope of eternal life with Jesus in Heaven and give thanks for the wonderful truth that from the cross Jesus atones for our sins and sins of all the world.
This is a fellowship that joyfully welcomes everybody.