Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 1986
“If we say that we have fellowship with Him, and walk in darkness, we lie, and do not the truth: but if we walk in the Light, as He is in the Light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin.” 1 John 1:6, 7.
THE Apostle warns us against saying more than we have made our own by experience. He hints at the solemn difference between empty profession and gracious reality. To have fellowship with God is a great matter—but merely to say that we have fellowship with Him is a totally different thing. John warns us that if we say that which our characters do not support, we lie. He leaves it just so, without a word of softening or excuse. Between saying and being—between saying and doing—there may be all the difference in the world. There is a tendency among men, if there is a good experience, to say that they possess it; if there is a high privilege of Grace, to say that they are enjoying it. What a folly this is! It is akin to madness! To unsound minds, a precious original suggests a desire to fashion an imitation. To the untruthful mind, the genuine is an invitation to be the counterfeit. Let us be upon our guard that we do not flatter ourselves into saying more than is true. Let us not stretch our arm beyond our sleeve, nor boast beyond our line. Every profession will be tried with fire—let us, therefore, see to it that we put in no claim which will not endure the severest test.
There were certain in John’s day who said, “We have fellowship with God.” How they had come by it they did not explain. Perhaps they claimed to have reached it by philosophical speculation, by exact reasoning, or by long-continued meditation. Whatever the road, they said that they had reached the City of God and were in communion with the Great Being. John saw that they walked in darkness, rejecting the Light of Divine Revelation from above and the pure Light of the Holy Spirit within. He also saw that they, themselves, were not true, and that their lives were not pure and, therefore, he warned them that they were speaking and acting a lie. Their life was a lie, for they were not walking in the truth. And their profession that they had fellowship with God was another lie, for God can have no fellowship with falsehood. “God is Light, and in Him is no darkness at all” and, therefore, He cannot hold any communion with darkness.
John draws the lines very tightly and judges with unflinching fidelity—he is not inclined to the boasted charity of latitudinarianism, but he curtly dismisses false claims with that plain word, “lie.” The disciple whom Jesus loved spoke like the Son of Thunder that he was when he had to deal with shams. It is the part of true love to be honest and to expose that which would be injurious to those it loves. He who will gloss over a falsehood loves but in word, only. Learn, then, that if men boast of fellowship with God and do not receive the Revelation of His Word, they lie, and know not the
Truth of God.
Let us now speak of the real thing, the fellowship with God which comes of walking in the Light of God. The Christian life is described as walking, which implies activity. Christian life feeds upon contemplation, but it displays itself in action. Fellowship with God necessitates action, since to be with God, we must “walk with God.” The living God is not inactive, motionless, aimless. “My Father,” says Jesus, “works hitherto, and I work.” Chiefly in the character of active workers or in that of willing sufferers we must maintain fellowship with God. Walking implies activity, but it must be of a continuous kind. Neither this step, nor that, nor the next, can make a walk. We must be moving onward and onward and remain in that exercise, or we cease from walking. Holy walking includes perseverance in obedience and continuance in service. Not he that begins, but he that continues is the true Christian. Final perseverance enters into the very essence of the Believer’s life—the true pilgrims of Zion go from strength to strength.
From strength to strength, did I say? This suggests that walking implies progress. He that takes one step and another step, but still stands where he was, has not walked! There is such a thing as the goose-step and I am afraid many Christians are wonderfully familiar with it—they are where they used to be—and are half inclined to congratulate themselves upon that fact, since they might have backslidden! They have not advanced in the heavenly pilgrimage—so how can they be said to walk? My Hearer, is your life a walk with God and towards God? If so, our subject has to do with you. May the Spirit of all Grace lead us into the heart of it!
The things we shall consider this morning will arise out of the text in the following order—First, the light of our walk. “If we walk in the Light, as He is in the Light.” Secondly, the communion of our walk. “We have fellowship with one another.” Thirdly, the glory of that communion. “The blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin.”