May we look to the Lord in prayer?
Our heavenly Father, our hearts do rejoice before Thee. Thou dost so love us as to give Thy only begotten Son to us. He is in us as our life, as our everything.
Oh, our Father, we do thank Thee for this precious gift. We ask Thee that we may discover Him more and more; that we may know His power within us; that we may know His character, His nature, within us; that by Thy Spirit, daily, we may be transformed and conformed to His image.
Thou dost get all the praise and the glory. We just commit this time into Thy hands and ask Thy Spirit to give us revelation and utterance. In Thy precious name. Amen.
We are studying together the first letter of John. We mentioned at the very outset that the Gospel of John is on life—eternal life, the life that comes by believing in Jesus as the Christ, the Son of the living God. The life of Christ: Christ, He is that life.
The first letter of John is on fellowship—life in action. This life has been given to us. We who have received that life are called into the fellowship of God’s Son, Jesus Christ. We are to fellowship with the Father, with the Son, and with one another.
Now, we mentioned also that the fellowship we are called into is a fellowship of God’s Son. He is the substance of our fellowship. We fellowship with Christ—with the Christ that has been revealed and experienced by us. We fellowship on the basis of Him, that is, of His life.
This fellowship has no other ground but the ground of life, or the ground of Christ. We do not try to make any other thing the ground of our fellowship. Therefore, this fellowship is most inclusive: it includes all God’s people who have His life. Yet it is very exclusive, because anything that is not of life, that is not of Christ, does not enter into that fellowship.
When we come down to the matter of the reality of fellowship—the practice of fellowship—we find there are three conditions that must be met.
The first we mentioned yesterday morning: for fellowship to be real and living, it must be in light. By light, it does not mean understanding of the Scripture. It is life. By light here, you will find, it is that God is light.
In Him was life;
and the life was the light of men.
We have the life of Christ in us, and this life within us is our light. It shines upon our path, and by this light we walk.
But if we walk in the light, as He is in the light,
we have fellowship one with another,
and the blood of Jesus His Son cleanseth us from all sin.
As we walk in the light that has been given to us, we begin to grow in life—from children to young men and to fathers.
This morning, we would like to continue with the second condition of fellowship. If we want to see that our fellowship is real, living, unhindered, and full, fellowship must be in righteousness.
Let us read 1 John 2:29 through 1 John 3:11.
If ye know that He is righteous, ye know that every one also that doeth righteousness is begotten of Him.
Behold what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called children of God; and such we are. For this cause the world knoweth us not, because it knew Him not.
Beloved, now are we children of God, and it is not yet made manifest what we shall be. We know that, if He shall be manifested, we shall be like Him; for we shall see Him even as He is.
And every one that hath this hope set on Him purifieth himself, even as He is pure.
Every one that doeth sin doeth also lawlessness; and sin is lawlessness.
And ye know that He was manifested to take away sins; and in Him is no sin.
Whosoever abideth in Him sinneth not: whosoever sinneth hath not seen Him, neither knoweth Him.
My little children, let no man lead you astray: he that doeth righteousness is righteous, even as He is righteous: he that doeth sin is of the devil; for the devil sinneth from the beginning. To this end was the Son of God manifested, that He might destroy the works of the devil.
Whosoever is begotten of God doeth no sin, because His seed abideth in him: and he cannot sin, because he is begotten of God.
In this the children of God are manifest, and the children of the devil: whosoever doeth not righteousness is not of God, neither he that loveth not his brother.
For this is the message which ye heard from the beginning, that we should love one another.
There is no fellowship if we are not of the same kind. As light has no fellowship with darkness, so righteousness has no fellowship with sin.
We are told that God is righteous. This is His very nature. Just as light is God’s nature, God is open and transparent, full of light. There is nothing hidden—no shadow, nothing dark. That is the very nature of God.
To have fellowship with God, there must be the same kind of condition within us. There must be openness in us, transparency as far as our light goes. There should not be anything hidden.
If we are of the same kind of light, if we walk in the light as God is in the light, then we have fellowship one with another—not only with the Father and the Son, but also with one another.
Likewise, God is righteous. Therefore, for us to have fellowship with God, we must practice righteousness.
Now, what is righteousness? Righteousness simply means that it is right; it is just; it is without prejudice and without partiality. It is the quality of God.
God is righteous in all His ways. God is righteous in all His doings. God is righteous in all His judgments. Righteousness is the very nature of God. He is right. He cannot be but right.
Whatever He thinks, whatever He feels, whatever He does, whatever He says—everything of God is just right, just what it ought to be. There is no compromise. There is no accommodation. He does not deviate from anything, but is just what He should be.
That is what our God is: He is righteous. Therefore, anyone who desires to have fellowship with God must practice righteousness. Righteousness simply means the quality and character of being right and just.
But, dear brothers and sisters, we all know there is none righteous, not even one. What sometimes we consider as our righteousness, according to the prophet Isaiah, is as filthy rags.
They are not only rags full of holes; they cannot cover our nakedness before God. They are even filthy in the eyes of God.
The best that we consider we have—the merit, the good deeds, the good actions that we consider to be some pride to us—they are as filthy rags in the eyes of God. We have no righteousness. We do not practice righteousness. We are not right at all.
But thank God, in Romans 3 we are told that there is the righteousness of God that comes upon all who believe in the Lord Jesus.
What does the righteousness of God mean? It simply means that in forgiving our sins and in justifying us, God is just. He is just, and He justifies us. Now, that is the righteousness of God.
How can a just God justify us sinners? If God simply said He would forgive our sins, that would be merciful and very gracious, but there would be compromise involved. But He has a way to justify us sinners, and yet He remains just. That is called the righteousness of God.
Of course, we know that He accomplishes this by giving His only begotten Son to us. He Who knew no sin was made sin for us. That is the way the righteousness of God comes upon all who believe in Jesus Christ.
As we believe in the Lord Jesus, we are clothed with a robe of righteousness, and this robe of righteousness is none other than Christ Himself. In other words, we who believe in the Lord Jesus, we who are justified by God, are clothed with Christ. Christ is made unto us righteousness.
What does it mean that Christ is made unto us righteousness? It simply means that He gives us a right standing before God.
Formerly, we could not come into the presence of God without being slain. No one can enter into the presence of God without being judged, because He is just, He is right, and we are full of sin and iniquity. God has to judge us.
But now, as we are clothed with Christ, Christ is made righteousness unto us. We can boldly enter into the holiest of all. We can boldly come to the throne of grace. We can approach God with a holy boldness—not because we have merit, not because we are worthy. We are never worthy, but because we are clothed with Christ.
As God looks at us, He sees Christ, our righteousness. He does not see us, and that gives us a standing before God. This is a permanent standing.
To put it in a way that we may understand: our righteousness never changes.
Sometimes, you know, dear brothers and sisters, if you get up in the morning, have had a good night’s sleep, the sun is shining, and you feel very happy, when you go to God to pray you feel full of confidence, knowing that you can stand before God.
But if you wake up in the morning and you had a bad night’s sleep, you have a headache, and it is gloomy outside, you do not feel as much confidence as the other day in approaching God. Why?
Because somehow we still have this concept that if we approach God, there must be some merit in us. But, dear brothers and sisters, it has nothing to do with that. We have no merit, but forever Christ is our only merit, and He never changes.
No matter how you feel, He is the same yesterday, today, and forever. Therefore, our standing before God—our approach to God—never changes.
But here, brothers and sisters, that is our position. When you come down into our daily experience of fellowship, then you find there is an “if” there.
If we have fellowship with God, Who is righteous, we must practice righteousness.
What do you mean by practicing righteousness?
Here you find it is more than just once in a while doing something right. The one who practices righteousness—the word “practice” is a word of continuation.
If you continue to do right, if you live in righteousness, if you practice righteousness as a habitual thing, then you have fellowship with God. It is not just isolated, single acts of right, but it is a continual life in righteousness.
That is the meaning here: he who practices righteousness is begotten of God.
How can we live a righteous life so that we may have fellowship with God, Who is righteous? You cannot live such a righteous life unless you are begotten of God.
In other words, to practice righteousness is not a condition for becoming children of God. On the contrary, to practice righteousness is the consequence of being children of God.
Thank God, we have no righteousness in ourselves. We are not able to live a righteous life. But thank God, we are begotten of God. Not only do we have a right standing before God because we are clothed with Christ, but Christ is within us as our life.
Oh, dear brothers and sisters, we have not only a positional standing, clothed with Christ our righteousness; Christ within us is righteousness unto us. This very life of Christ is a righteous life. His very life has a habit of doing just the right thing.
Not that we can do the right thing, but He always does the right thing. Because He is our righteousness, he who is begotten of God practices righteousness.
What is the standard of righteousness? In this world, you find people take the law of the land, the custom of the country, and the public opinion of the people as the standard of righteousness.
If you keep the law of the land, follow the custom of the country, and are considered all right according to public opinion, then in the eyes of men you are righteous.
But men can be righteous in the eyes of men and yet be very sinful in the eyes of God. What is the standard of righteousness? The standard of righteousness is none other than God Himself. He is the standard of righteousness.
That is the reason why sin is lawlessness. Sin is not only a transgression of the law. Sin is lawlessness. In other words, sin is an affront to the very character of God. It is rebellion.
How can we be righteous? How can we practice righteousness with God Himself as the standard? Again, we have to go back to Him. It is not us; it is Christ. He who practices righteousness is begotten of God.
When the apostle John comes to this point, suddenly he breaks out in worship. He says:
Behold what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us,
that we should be called children of God.
That is the secret. When you come to the point of practicing righteousness and you know that you cannot do it—it is just impossible with you—then suddenly you realize that you are a child of God.
See what manner of love the Father has bestowed upon us, that we are called the children of God. We are not only called the children of God, but we are the children of God because we are begotten of Him.
In other words, it is the love of the Father that begat us, gave us a new life, and gave us Christ as our life. With this life in us, doing right is now available to every child of God.
Is it not true that when you first come to the Lord Jesus, there is not only an outward change in our position—from being condemned to being justified—but there is also an inward change?
Anyone who is begotten of God has a constitutional change within him. Formerly, you loved sin. Sin was your very life. You got pleasure out of sinning.
But after you believe in the Lord Jesus, there is an inward change within you. You begin to hate sin, and you begin to love righteousness.
A change has come upon you within. Anyone who says he is saved, and yet still loves sin and does not abhor sin, it is very questionable whether he is born again.
It is more than an outward change of position. There is a constitutional change. Even though through weakness you may still fall into sin, within you there is an abhorrence for sin. You do not want to sin anymore. You consider sin a horrible thing to do.
On the other hand, you find that you have a desire to be right. You have a desire to do the will of God. What is righteousness? It is none other than the will of God.
No matter how weak you are, you may not have the strength to do the will of God. To will is in you, but to do may not be in you. Yet you do will to do the will of God because you want to please the Father.
To do right is no longer a matter of trying to appease your conscience. To do right becomes a matter of trying to please your Father. That is the difference. It is a great difference.
Formerly, sometimes we tried to do a few good things in order to appease our conscience—to bribe our conscience. But no longer. Today, we do want to do right. We do want to do the will of God. There is a desire within us because we want to please the heavenly Father.
Think of our Lord Jesus. In Psalm 40, we are told that our Lord said:
Lo, I am come;
In the roll of the book it is written of me:
I delight to do Thy will, O my God;
Yea, Thy law is within my heart.
This is a family likeness. Our Father is righteous, and all who are begotten of the Father love righteousness.
If we do not practice righteousness, if we do not live a righteous life—by that I mean, do the will of God—where is the family resemblance? How can people see that we are like the Father?
Thank God, the life is in us. We are able to do what is right in the sight of God.
Beloved, now are we children of God,
and it is not yet made manifest what we shall be.
We know that, if He shall be manifested, we shall be like Him;
for we shall see Him even as He is.
We are the children of God. We are born of God. We have the life in us. Therefore, there is a willingness, a desire, to do right, to do the will of God, and to please our Father.
As we are living a righteous life, we do not know what will happen in the future, but we do know that when He is manifested, we shall be like Him because we shall see Him as He is.
This is our blessed hope. What is our hope? Our hope is that one day we shall be like Him. As our Lord Jesus is, so we shall be like Him.
As He lived on this earth, what a righteous life He lived. As our brother already mentioned, His whole life on earth was, “I can do nothing of Myself.” Whatever I do, I do it because I have seen the Father do it. “I cannot say anything of Myself.” Whatever I say is because I have heard the Father say it.
The whole life of our Lord Jesus was to do the Father’s will. The Gospels say He went around everywhere doing good. By doing good, it does not mean simply that He did some good deeds. No, doing good simply means that He did the will of the Father.
Everything He did was doing the will of the Father. That was His delight. That was the way He lived. If it was the Father’s will that He should go to Calvary, that He should go to the cross, then, “Thy will be done.”
This is a righteous life. This is practicing righteousness.
Now, dear brothers and sisters, we have this hope before us: one day we shall see Him as He is, and we shall be like Him. With this blessed hope before us, it should purify us. It should give us additional incentive to press on and to live a righteous life as He does.
Today, we are only a little bit like Him. There is a little family resemblance that can be seen. But one day we will be like Him as He is. We will be conformed to His image, fully grown into sonship.
Oh, brothers and sisters, think that one day we shall be like Him, conformed to His image. His characteristics, His personality, will be fully manifested through us. What a glorious hope it is! And all because life is already in us and the process has already begun.
As the life of Christ begins to live in and through us, we begin to grow in likeness to Him, until one day, when we shall see Him, we shall be like Him. This hope ought to purify us.
Everyone who practices sin practices lawlessness, and sin is lawlessness. You find a contrast here: on the one hand is righteousness; on the other hand is sin.
The practice of righteousness leads us to holiness, to be like Him. Sin is lawlessness; it is rebellion against God.
The Son of God has provided salvation for us. In the following verses, you find several things. The first is that we know He has been manifested that He might take away our sins.
We who are full of sins live a sinful life, and yet the Son of God has been manifested. The reason He was manifested is to take away our sins.
When He was born, He was given the name Jesus, for He would save His people from their sins. Behold, the Lamb of God, Who takes away the sin of the world. He bore in His body our sins on the tree, that we may be dead to sin and alive to righteousness.
He Who knew no sin was made sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God. Our Lord Jesus came into this world to destroy sin and to take away our sins. He bore our sins in His body on the tree. Therefore, our sins are forgiven. That is the first thing.
The second thing is this: in Him, sin is not. There is no sin in Him. Because He is sinless, He can bear our sins on the cross. But it is more than that: in Him, sin is not, and this Him is now our life.
Dear brothers and sisters, we need to realize that today, as children of God, we have within us a sinless life—a life that knows no sin. It has not only never sinned, but it does not even know what sin is, because it has never rebelled against God. It always pleases the Father, and this life is now in us.
The third thing is this: whoever abides in Him does not sin. Because we have Him in us—He Who is sinless, Who has overcome and destroyed sin itself—whoever abides in Him does not sin.
Now here comes our responsibility. He is in us, and yet if we want to practice righteousness, if we want to overcome sin in our lives, we must abide in Him.
The word “abide” simply means to make our home in Him. We must make our home in Him. We must fellowship with Him. We must commune with Him. We must stay with Him. We must remain with Him. We must continue with Him as the branch abides in the vine.
If we abide in Him, what is the result? We do not sin.
If we do not abide in Him—positionally, never, but in our experience—if we begin again to walk in the flesh and to live by our own old life that was already crucified, if we do not live by the life of Christ, then there is still the possibility of sinning.
But if we are abiding in Him, we do not sin. Why? Because we live by His life, and His life cannot sin. His life never knows what sin is. It always does the right thing and pleases the Father.
The fourth thing is this: whoever sins has not seen Him or known Him. If anyone should sin, it simply means that at the time when you sin, you do not see Him or know Him. It does not mean that you have never known Him, but it comes down to your current experience.
As a momentary experience, you have not seen Him and you do not know Him. If you see Him, if you know Him, you cannot sin, because He is your life and He lives in you.
You know, brothers and sisters, some people have problems with this passage. So far as our experience goes, thank God, sometimes we are able to overcome sin and do not sin. But at other times, we still sin.
Yet the apostle John says, “He who practices sin is of the devil.” He who practices righteousness is of God. This is the way we know who are the children of God and who are the children of the devil.
Now, brothers and sisters, we do find a problem here. Are we children of God, or are we children of the devil? We know we are born again. We know we are children of God. But how is it that we live in a gray area?
With the apostle John, it is either light or darkness; it is either righteousness or sin. There is no middle ground. Why? Because if we look with God’s eyes, truth is absolute.
With God, there is no middle ground and no mixture. It is absolute. It is either this or that. Either it is truth or a lie. Either it is light or darkness. There is no twilight. Either it is righteousness or sin—lawlessness.
If you look from God’s viewpoint, truth is absolute. But, of course, when you look at it from our experience, things begin to be relative. Yet no matter what our experience is, the truth has not changed. The truth remains the same.
We have two problems here. Some people read this portion and think, “He who is begotten of God cannot sin because the seed of God abides in him. He does not sin. Thank God, I am a child of God. I am begotten of God. Therefore, I cannot sin. I am sinlessly perfect.”
You find among Christians there is a teaching of sinless perfection. When I was saved, I was saved among holiness people. Even though I was a Methodist, I was saved among holiness people.
The holiness people had the teaching of the eradication of the root of sin. After you are converted, you should go through a second experience, a second blessing, and have the root of sin eradicated. From then on, you will never sin. You are sinlessly perfect.
It is a very attractive teaching. But right at the conference where I was saved, I saw the leader of that work lose her temper in public. Yet she said she did not sin; it was just a weakness.
Only Christ is sinlessly perfect. The life that is in you, Who is Christ, is sinlessly perfect. It never sins. But so long as we still have the flesh and still live in this world, there is yet the possibility of sinning.
When we sin, call it sin. Do not try to cheat ourselves. We are not sinlessly perfect. There is Christian perfection, but not sinless perfection.
What is Christian perfection? Christian perfection is this: if we are abiding in Him, we do not sin.
But here you find another problem. Some people go to the other extreme. “He who sins does not see God nor know Him; therefore, you can become unsaved again.”
You are saved; now you sin; you have not seen God and do not know God; therefore, you are unsaved. Then you have to be saved and unsaved, saved and unsaved, going up and down between heaven and hell all the time. You do not know where you are.
They are going to the other extreme, because the apostle John is not teaching about our initial salvation. So far as our initial salvation is concerned, it is already established. It is already finished. It is already settled in Christ.
What he is trying to tell us, instead of telling us that our salvation can be lost, is that our salvation can be secured in our experience. If you are abiding in Him, you do not sin.
But, dear brothers and sisters, practicing righteousness is shown in two different areas.
How do we know that we practice righteousness? How do we know that we live a life as He the Righteous One lives? We know that we practice righteousness because we do not sin. We are not lawless before God.
We know that we practice righteousness because we love the brethren. We love the brethren.
He Who is righteous loved us so much that He gave His life for us. As our brother quoted this morning from John 13, He loved His own, and He loved them to the end—to the uttermost.
He Who is righteous gave His life for us. As He loved us, we ought to love one another. As He laid down His life for us, we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren—not in word only, but in deed and in truth, in practical matters.
By loving, we know that we are doing the right thing. We are doing the will of the Father. We are pleasing Him.
So, dear brothers and sisters, here again you find how we need to live righteousness before God and before men.
Then he comes to the matter of the heart. You find in 1 John 3:19-23:
Hereby shall we know that we are of the truth,
and shall assure our heart before Him:
because if our heart condemn us, God is greater than our heart,
and knoweth all things.Beloved, if our heart condemn us not,
we have boldness toward God;
and whatsoever we ask we receive of Him,
because we keep His commandments
and do the things that are pleasing in His sight.And this is His commandment,
that we should believe in the name of His Son Jesus Christ,
and love one another,
even as He gave us commandment.
As we walk in the light, as He is in the light, we find that the Holy Spirit will enlighten our intuition. The Holy Spirit shines upon our spirit, which is our intuitive power, and allows us to know Him.
Now, if we practice righteousness or if we sin, the Spirit of God will touch our heart. By the heart here, it simply means conscience. Of course, the heart means more than conscience, but here particularly it means our conscience.
How do we know that we practice righteousness? How do we know that we have sinned? The Holy Spirit within us will touch our conscience. If our conscience condemns us, then we have sinned. If our conscience approves, then we have done right before God.
Dear brothers and sisters, our Christian conscience is very, very important for our practical living. Before we were saved, our consciences were not dependable. Even though they were not dependable, at the time we were saved, the Holy Spirit touched our conscience and convicted us, bringing us to repentance.
But now our conscience is purified; it is made new.
How can we walk rightly before God? Be careful to walk according to the dictate of your conscience. Why? God is speaking through your conscience.
If anyone should lose his conscience, he is like a shipwreck. His faith will leak out. If we have a good conscience before God, it gives us boldness and confidence, and we know that our prayers will be answered.
You know how important it is for Christians to maintain a good conscience—a conscience void of offense, a conscience cleansed by the precious blood.
If our heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart. Of course, our conscience is not perfect yet. Our conscience needs to be developed.
Just as enlightenment needs to be developed, our conscience gradually becomes more and more sensitive as we follow our conscience. Things that we are not conscious of, we begin to be conscious of. Things that we think are all right, we begin to see are not right.
As the Spirit of God works and life grows within us, our conscience ought to grow in sensitivity. If we walk with our heart uncondemned before God, we are accepted.
That does not mean our heart is complete. It simply means that according to the degree of life in which we are, we can stand before God with a clear conscience. Then you find our fellowship is unhindered.
Oh, how important that we maintain a good conscience, so that our fellowship with the Father and with the Son is uninterrupted. How we need to maintain a good conscience, that our fellowship with our brothers and sisters will not be under any cloud.
Whenever our conscience is under a cloud, you avoid your brothers and sisters, and you avoid God. You know it.
So, dear brothers and sisters, how we need to live before God and live righteously. But thank God, it is not by ourselves. It is the life of Christ within us.
The Holy Spirit is just working out the life of Christ within us and patiently incorporating Christ into us, so that finally we are clothed not only with a robe of righteousness, which is Christ our righteousness, but over and above it with a garment of embroidery.
The Holy Spirit is patiently weaving righteousness into our lives. As He does the work, of course, with every needle there may be a little pain there. But after the work is done, you find a beautiful garment of embroidery.
In Revelation 19, the bride has made herself ready, and she has been given a garment of fine linen, bright and pure, which is the righteous acts of the saints.
This is what John is talking about. He is talking about practical righteousness. He is talking about how we need to live righteously before God in this world, and thus our fellowship will not be hindered.
I think we will just stop here. Shall we pray?
Oh, heavenly Father, how we praise and thank Thee that Thou Who art righteous hast justified us. Thou hast given Thy Son to us as our righteousness, as our life.
How we praise and thank Thee that the Holy Spirit is working Christ continuously in us, that we may be transformed and conformed to Thy nature; that we may practice righteousness, that we may not sin, and that we may do Thy will.
Oh, how we praise and thank Thee that all these things are open to us and available to us. We just cast ourselves upon Thee, and, Lord, perfect Thy work in us, that Thy name may be glorified. In Thy precious name. Amen.