If you’re in fellowship with God as a practice, you walk in the light. That doesn’t mean you’re perfect yet, and there will be sin. It doesn’t mean you practice sin. Practicing sin is to walk in the darkness. But there is sin. We recognize there’s sin. And when we fall, we need to take it to our Father. We need to run to our Father. Don’t fall for the lies.
I’m telling you. This is one of Satan’s favorite strategies – is to come at you and tell you when you sin: Christ wants nothing to do with you. But when you see your sin, you know your sin – Look, you’re going to sin! “I write to you that you don’t sin.” Little children – this is what John’s all about. I write to you that you not sin. I want you to walk more fully, more fully, more fully in the light. But if you sin… What? You walk in the darkness and you have no fellowship with Him and you don’t know Him? No! We have a Christ! The Christ – Jesus Christ. He is the Righteous One. He made propitiation for us. We can plead the blood. We can go and we can confess it. Our access is there. There’s no condemnation. We have full free access. You go to Him.
And just remember the fellowship. Oh, this is fellowship to be at one with God and to recognize the sin I just did, the sin I just committed against my wife, the sin I just committed against my children, the thing I just did, the misuse of my tongue – God sees it for what it is. The best thing to do – go out with Peter and weep bitterly and confess it. And you know, the next thing you’ll find is He’ll come alongside and He’ll say, “Joe, do you love Me?” “Yes, Lord, You know that I love You.” Well, He sends us to His work.
Remember this, brethren. He did not design perfection to happen in this life. And He did that on purpose. And because He did, part of our fellowship with Him is going to be on a regular basis the picture of the man or the woman with the head bowed before God confessing because they see their sin as God sees it. They know it’s exposed to Him and there’s no sense hiding it and they want fellowship more than they want to go on not acknowledging that sin. If they know that it’s going to grieve Him and bring some snare in there and some shadow over the fellowship, I want my fellowship more than I want to go on in my sin not confessing it.
Do you not want that? Nothing between – is that not what the song says? Nothing between my soul and the Savior. Don’t let it go there. Cherish this fellowship above everything else. Oh brethren, I’m telling you there are depths that God has swept His people into this fellowship. Some of you likely – you can’t put words to.
I can remember Charles Simeon. One of his friends came into his room and the lights were off and there was the picture of the penitent. He had been there confessing his sorrow for his sin. And God came to him in such ravishing fashion, as his friend found him, all he could say is, “Glory. Glory. Glory.” That’s the only word that could come out of him. Don’t you want that? Nothing between, brethren. Nothing between.
Excerpt from the full sermon, “What Does Fellowship With God Look Like? (Part 1)“.
