The Sweetest Fellowship This Side of Heaven | Part 2

We'll be right back. Because, friend, there's only true joy in the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, you can look all over for joy, but you're not going to find joy until you find it in the Lord Jesus Christ. Joy is the byproduct of fellowship with God and fellowship with the family.

Welcome to Love Worth Finding, featuring the dynamic teaching of pastor and author Adrian Rogers. In order to experience and enjoy fellowship with God right here, right now, there are three things we must know beyond any doubt. In part one of today's message, we learned that we must first know who Jesus is, specifically who He claimed to be.

Jesus is fully God and fully man. When we experience His saving grace, we become partakers of the divine nature, and we have fellowship with God and with each other. If you have your Bible, turn now to 1 John chapter 1, as Adrian Rogers shares the powerful conclusion of the sweetest fellowship this side of heaven. Be finding 1 John, and that's right back near the back of the Bible, almost to the book of the Revelation, 1 John, and find the first chapter. The title of our study, The Sweetest Fellowship This Side of Heaven, because the theme of 1 John is fellowship. Look, if you will, now as we read, and we're going to share together the first four verses. The apostle John says, That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, and which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled of the word of life. Underscore the phrase, the word of life, for the life was manifested. Underscore the word life, 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. That which we have seen and heard, declare we unto you, that ye also may have fellowship with us. Underscore the word fellowship, and truly our fellowship is with the Father, and with his Son, Jesus Christ. These things write we unto you, that your joy may be full.

Underscore the word joy. Now, what is this fellowship, this wonderful fellowship? Well, it is a fellowship that comes through the life that we have with the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, not everybody here has life. You say, if I don't have life, how could I be listening? Because you can be existing and not have life. Jesus spoke of an unsaved woman, or the Bible says this, She that liveth in pleasure is dead while she lives.

The walking dead, dead while they live. That's the reason Jesus said in John chapter 10 and verse 10, I've come that you might have life and have it abundantly. Now, he was talking to people whose hearts were already beating, blood flowing through their veins, but Jesus said you don't have life, you have an existence, and oyster has existence, but it certainly doesn't have life as we consider life today.

The life that is full and free in the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, in order to experience this life, the apostle John tells us three things in these few verses that we've looked at. And first of all, he tells us that there is a fact, a fact, an F-A-C-T, a fact established, and he's saying here that Jesus is an eternal fact.

Look, if you will, that which was from the beginning. He is the Christ of the eternities. And John had already written in his gospel in John 1-1, in the beginning was the Word, in the beginning was the Word. Before anything began to begin, Jesus was there. All of the revelation of God is wrapped up in the Lord Jesus Christ, and he is a fact, he is an eternal fact. He's the Word that existed before anything else was created. He is the expression of the invisible, spiritual God. But not only is Jesus Christ an eternal fact, but write this down, Jesus is a physical fact.

That's very important that you understand this. Now, notice what John is saying. That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled of the Word of life. Now, John says he wasn't a phantom, he wasn't a ghost. He said we had the audible evidence. We heard him.

Had they had tape players back in that day, you could have taped the voice of the Lord Jesus. And then not only was there audible evidence, there was physical evidence. John says we saw him. That which we've looked upon, and John uses the word theomai.

It's the word we get our word theater from. It means to look carefully. John said, look, I was with him for three years. I watched him. I saw him. And not only was there the audible evidence, not only was there the visible evidence, there was the physical evidence. He said we handled him.

We touched him. He was as much a man as if he were not God at all. Now, let me tell you this. It's as much a heresy to deny the humanity of Jesus as it is the deity of Jesus.

Now, you have to understand that. He was God, very God. He wasn't half God and half man. He wasn't all God and no man. He wasn't all man and no God. He was the God-man, never another like the Lord Jesus Christ.

But remember the humanity of the Lord Jesus Christ, and if you deny the humanity of Jesus, you're denying Christianity. That's what John is saying. Look, listen, we saw him. We heard him.

We touched him. The word of life. He is an eternal fact, but he is a physical fact. Thank God for his humanity. You see, apart from his humanity, I couldn't be saved.

I came a man to die on the cross, and apart from the shedding of blood, there's no remission of sin. Apart from his humanity, I have no example. I can't follow as an example the God in the glory because I'm a human. He's not a human, but I can walk as Jesus walked, and I want to tell you something, friend.

When Jesus Christ was upon this earth, he did not pull rank on me. Every miracle he did, he did not as God would do a miracle. He did the miracle as man, until the Holy Spirit would do the miracle. All of the life that he lived, he lived as a man, and he depended upon the same power that Adrian can depend upon day by day and moment by moment. So he is my Redeemer because he's a man. He's my example because he's a man, and I want to tell you, he's my comforter and friend because he's a man.

I don't have a high priest who cannot be touched with a feeling of my infirmities. He was tempted in all points like as I am, and thank God he knows and he cares and he understands. So what is John talking about when he's talking about this life? He is talking about an established fact, but I want to tell you something else. Not only is he an eternal fact, and not only is he a physical fact, but I want to say something else about him.

He is a spiritual fact. Now, what do you mean by that? Well, look and see what John is saying.

That which was from the beginning, the eternal fact, which we have heard and which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon with our hands, our hands have handled of the word of life, a physical fact, for the life was manifested, and bear witness and show unto you that eternal life. Now, wait a minute. These other people haven't seen.

No, that's right. John says, I am going to tell you what I have seen so that you can believe. I have never seen Jesus.

I've never heard Jesus. I've never touched Jesus, not with my hands, but I believe in him, because Jesus Christ is also a spiritual fact. He is not here now in a physical body, but the Holy Spirit of God reveals him, and as John heard him, faith now becomes the ear of the soul. As John has seen him, faith now becomes the eye of the soul. As John had felt him, faith now becomes the hands of the soul. We can know him through the Spirit. Let me give you a verse. John says over here in 1 John 5, beginning in verse 9, If we receive the witness of men, the witness of God is greater, for this is the witness of God, which he hath testified of his Son.

You see, God sends the Holy Spirit now to testify through the words of the apostles, and we have the words of the apostles. There was a college professor who was an atheist, and he loved to ridicule his students, and so he asked his students, Have any of you ever heard God? Nobody answered. Have any of you ever seen God? Nobody answered.

Have any of you ever touched God? Nobody answered. He said, So, there is no God. And the class sat there, all of them cowed and so forth, until one student lifted his hand and said, Professor, may I ask a question to the class?

He said, All right. He said, Have any of you heard the professor's brain? Nobody answered. Have any of you touched the professor's brain? Nobody answered. Have any of you seen the professor's brain?

Nobody answered. He said, Then we can conclude the professor has no brain, according to his logic. No, you see, John said, That which we've seen and that which we've heard, we declare unto you. And then the Bible says, If we receive the witness of men, the witness of God is greater, and today I am not dependent upon oratory or illustration or logic to convince you. Thank God the Holy Spirit of God is here to say what he's saying is true.

That is the witness of God. Jesus is an eternal fact. Jesus is a physical fact. Jesus is a spiritual fact, and the Holy Spirit of God testifies unto the Lord Jesus Christ.

So what is this life? The first point, it is a fact established. Second point, it is a fellowship experienced.

Not only a fact, but a fellowship. Now look, if you will, in verse 2. 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, and that which we have seen and heard declare we unto you, that ye may have fellowship with us. Now, John wants to share it. John said, I saw it, and now I want to share it. And anybody who sees it hears it and knows it wants to share it, amen? That's the reason why we're called witnesses and not lawyers.

A lawyer argues a case. A witness tells what he's seen and heard, and the only person who can't witness is a person who hasn't seen or heard anything. And he says, I do this, that you might have fellowship. What is fellowship? Fellowship is not coffee and donuts. Fellowship is not, as some people acutely say, two fellows in the same ship.

What is fellowship? This is a very technical word, that you may have fellowship with us. It is the Greek word koinonia. Now get that word in your heart and in your mind.

That needs to be in your vocabulary. It is the Greek word koinonia, and it means the whole things in common. That is, this Jesus, because of this established fact, there is a fellowship that is experience that we can have fellowship one with another. It literally means to have something in common. Now notice who we have fellowship with.

Notice he says in verse 3, our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ. Well, that brings up a real question. What do I have in common with the Father? Nothing.

Nothing. He's holy. I'm unholy. He is almighty.

I am a worm. And how can Adrian have fellowship with God? But yet the apostle John says, our fellowship is with the Father.

I have nothing in common with the Father. Notice in verses 5 and 6, this then is the message which we have heard of him and declare unto you that God is light and in him is no darkness at all. If we say that we have fellowship with him and walk in darkness, we lie and do not the truth. We're in the dark.

He's in the light. There's a great chasm between us and Almighty God. So how can I have fellowship with Almighty God?

Here's how. This God, who knows there's a chasm between Adrian and himself and between you and himself, sent the Lord Jesus Christ to take something that is common between us, human flesh. Jesus becomes a man.

And now he never discards his deity. But now he takes humanity. And now we begin to have likeness.

We come together. He takes on the nature of man that I might take on, the nature of God. And he says in 2 Peter 1, verse 4, you're going to love this, we are now have become partakers of the divine nature. And the word partaker that is translated there is exactly the same word that is translated fellowship over here in 1 John. We have the fellowship of the divine nature. You see, Jesus took humanity. And therefore, he became like I am that I might become like he is. He took the very nature of man that we might take the nature of God. And so I have fellowship with God through the Lord Jesus Christ. I mean, a worm like I am can walk and talk and fellowship with him and can sing I come to the garden alone when the dew is still on the roses and the voice I hear falling on my ear, the Son of God discloses. And he walks with me and he talks with me and he tells me I'm his own. That's the fellowship, the koinonia that we have with him because of the incarnation. And that's the reason old John is saying, look, he's a man, he's a man. We saw him, we touched him, we heard him. He took the nature of man that we might take the nature of God.

And we have become partakers of the divine nature. And by the way, let me say a word. How many of you are unmarried? Let me see your hand.

Unmarried, hold them up. Let me look. All right, now, look around, folks. All right, I mean, if you're looking for somebody.

All right, maybe we ought to do that again. All right, you're unmarried. Now, let me tell you something. Let me tell you something. Don't you ever marry an unsaved person.

Don't do it. For the Bible says you're not to be unequally yoked together with unbelievers. And then he asks this question, for what fellowship, what koinonia hath light with darkness? Don't you realize that you're twice born, you're a child of God? And if they're not twice born, they're a child of Satan?

You talk about in-law problems, you got the devil for father-in-law. I mean, you think about it. There's no fellowship. There's no common life. I thank God for the fellowship I have with my wife and not just the love, but the fellowship that I have with her, the things that we share in common. You see, listen, you marry an unsaved person, you want to go to church on Sunday, they want to sleep in on Sunday. It's hard enough to get to church when both of you are saved, amen? The Christian wants to give. The pagan says, I don't want to give. The Christian wants to make Sunday a holy day. The pagan wants to make it a holiday. The Christian wants to pray when a crisis comes. The pagan ridicules prayer. The Christian wants the children to be taught all the things of God. The pagan doesn't care. Before long, friend, you're going to be acting like the pagan rather than the pagan acting like you. You're going to have a division in your home, and that's so many times the reason that divorce comes.

There's no real koinonia. There's no real fellowship. You're three times more likely to get divorced. The Bible says a threefold cord is not easily broken. What are you going to do about the children when you marry an unsaved person and that unsaved person doesn't share the things of God with your children?

The children are confused and mixed up. No, you just marry only a saved person. Let me say something else. Don't ever marry a person to reform them.

And I'll tell you something else. Don't even date a person that you would not marry if you fell in love with them. Just don't do it.

Just don't do it. I'm telling you, folks, that listen, our fellowship is with the Father and with one another. When I have the nature of God in me and I am born of the Spirit and when I am a partaker of the divine nature, I have this fellowship with God, then I'm to seek out for a partner for life, somebody else who has that same koinonia, that same fellowship with the Father and therefore with me.

So you see, folks, that is koinonia. The Jesus in me is going to love the Jesus in you. And when we love Jesus, we're going to love one another. And so listen, listen to this fellowship.

It's a fact established. It is a fellowship experienced. And now here's the third thing. It is a fullness enjoyed. Look, if you will, now in verse 4. And these things write we unto you that your joy may be full. There is no joy like the joy of knowing one another in the Lord Jesus Christ. And that's the reason we call this book the sweetest fellowship, This Side of Heaven. Now, I don't know about all of you.

I don't know about all those folks up there, but I know one thing about every mother's child in this building. You want joy. I mean, you want joy. And this is where joy is found.

This is why I wrote this book, that you might have joy. A woman lost her house keys. She couldn't find them. She looked all over the house, and she couldn't find them. She looked in her purse, and there they were. You know why she didn't find them before she looked in her purse?

She looked in the wrong place because the keys were in her purse. Now, you can look all over for joy, but you're not going to find joy until you find it in the Lord Jesus Christ. Joy is the byproduct of fellowship with God and fellowship with the family. Psalm 16, verse 11. Thou wilt show me the path of life, and thy presence is fullness of joy. At thy right hand are pleasures forevermore. You know, sin promises joy, but it never delivers it.

Many of you have maybe 100 television channels coming into your house right now. We have more entertainment, more amusement, more restaurants, yet more loneliness and more depression and more alcoholism and more drugs and more divorce and more suicide than ever. Why? Because, friend, there's only true joy in the Lord Jesus Christ. You can be a lost person and be happy for a while. We're not talking about happiness. We're talking about joy. Happiness depends upon what happens. Joy depends upon the Lord.

The Bible says rejoice in the Lord. If you live for happiness, you're a prisoner of circumstances. Because if the circumstances change, then you're not happy anymore.

But Jesus never changes. Happiness is a cosmetic. It's on the outside. Joy is character.

It is on the inside. Happiness only meets your surface needs, but joy meets your deepest needs. Therefore, happiness is like a thermometer.

It just registers conditions. Joy is the thermostat that controls the conditions. Happiness evaporates in a crisis. Joy many times intensifies in a crisis. Happiness is wonderful. But let me tell you something, friend. Happiness is at its fullest when it is mingled with joy. When you know the joy of the Lord. And so what John is saying is, look, look, let me tell you about this life.

This life, it comes from God. It is real. It is a fact. It is established. And it results in a fellowship experience.

There's a koinonia. We have fellowship with God and fellowship with one another. And then there's a fullness in joy. We have joy unspeakable and full of glory.

Now let me say this. Jesus, friend, is the Word of God. He is the Word of God. And he's speaking here today. He's communicating.

He's the Word of God. Let's just say that he's broadcasting today on station W-O-R-D. He's broadcasting.

And he's broadcasting because he loves you. Now would you say in the physical realm that there's no music in the air just because your radio is turned off? You see, just because you've turned off the radio, wouldn't you be a fool to deny the music? I mean, would you say it's not there just because the radio's not on? No. Let me ask you a question. Do you have your radio on today?

Do you have your antenna up? Jesus is here. He is here. Don't say he's not here. He's here. He's here.

There are a lot of folks tuned in. The station W-O-R-D. He is the Word of life. It's life that you need. And John said, I wrote these things that you might have fullness of joy. I'm going to tell you something. I believed what I believed when I started preaching it. But I believe it's so much more now. I was saved as a teen, and he's kept me all these years. But I can honestly and sincerely say this, and I know that God is listening. He means more to me today, far more, than when I first met him.

I'm not finding hidden flaws. To know God, to know our brothers and sisters in Christ, friend, that is fullness of joy. That is fullness of joy. Now today, if you have questions regarding your faith in Jesus, we would love to offer you an insightful resource. Go to our website. You'll find our Discover Jesus page. You'll find answers there that you may need about your faith.

We have a response section as well. Share how this message or others have made a difference in your life. Let us hear from you today. Go to lwf.org slash radio and click the tab that says Discover Jesus.

Again, we can't wait to hear from you. Now, if you'd like to order a copy of today's message, call us at 1-877-LOVEGOD. Request the title The Sweetest Fellowship This Side of Heaven. This lesson is also part of the insightful series of the same name, Sweetest Fellowship This Side of Heaven. For the complete collection, all 11 powerful messages, call 1-877-LOVEGOD or go online to order at lwf.org slash radio.

Or you can write us at Love Worth Finding, Box 38600, Memphis, Tennessee 38183. Are you in sweet fellowship with other believers? Have you experienced the fullness of the joy that you can have when you're in the presence of other Christ followers? We hope you'll join with us next time for more timeless truth from Adrian Rogers, right here on Love Worth Finding. A listener recently reached out to us and told us a little bit of her life story. She said, I have been struggling and this ministry has given me newness in my walk with Jesus. May you continue to be blessed in all that your team does.

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