Good morning, brothers and sisters.
If you would turn in your Bibles to the last verses in the book of Ecclesiastes. If you cannot think backwards like that, then it is Ecclesiastes 12:13-14—the last two verses in the book.
Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter:
Fear God, and keep His commandments:
for this is the whole duty of man.
For God shall bring every work into judgment,
with every secret thing, whether it be good, or whether it be evil.
This Scripture is one the Lord gave me to begin the year. I was looking for some stability, some bottom-line thing to stand on as we get started.
We know Ecclesiastes is not generally thought to be a book for really spiritual people. It is about the man under the sun. Sometimes I feel more like the man under the sun; in fact, sometimes I think I was the man under the weather.
What is it that we can remember which is important, even when we are under the weather? How does this begin us off, wherever we go from here? The Lord quickened these verses to me: when you get down to the bottom, what is it all about?
Fear God. Keep His commandments. This is our duty. This is our life.
God is going to judge us according to them—even the things that are seen and the things that are not seen, every secret thing, whether it is good or whether it is evil. If we remember that, it really helps us to live.
You ever go to a class where they do not give a test? People do not seem to put much time into those classes. That is going to be a test, by the way, coming up.
I have some other verses to read—quite a few—but they are all from the book of 1 John. Keep this basic principle in mind as we read them. We will read them all, and then say something about what we think the Lord would have to say.
1 John 1:3-7
That which we have seen and heard declare we unto you,
that ye also may have fellowship with us:
and truly our fellowship is with the Father,
and with His Son Jesus Christ.And these things write we unto you,
that your joy may be full.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:But if we walk in the light, as He is in the light,
we have fellowship one with another,
and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanseth us from all sin.
1 John 2:3-11
And hereby we do know that we know Him,
if we keep His commandments.He that saith, I know Him,
and keepeth not His commandments, is a liar,
and the truth is not in him.But whoso keepeth His word,
in him verily is the love of God perfected:
hereby know we that we are in Him.He that saith he abideth in Him
ought himself also so to walk,
even as He walked.Brethren, I write no new commandment unto you,
but an old commandment which ye had from the beginning.
The old commandment is the word
which ye have heard from the beginning.Again, a new commandment I write unto you,
which thing is true in Him and in you:
because the darkness is past,
and the true light now shineth.He that saith he is in the light,
and hateth his brother,
is in darkness even until now.He that loveth his brother abideth in the light,
and there is none occasion of stumbling in him.But he that hateth his brother is in darkness,
and walketh in darkness,
and knoweth not whither he goeth,
because that darkness hath blinded his eyes.
1 John 3:10-12
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 that ye heard from the beginning,
that we should love one another.Not as Cain, who was of that wicked one,
and slew his brother.
And wherefore slew he him?
Because his own works were evil,
and his brother’s righteous.
1 John 3:23
And this is His commandment,
that we should believe on the name of His Son Jesus Christ,
and love one another,
as He gave us commandment.
1 John 4:7-8
Beloved, let us love one another:
for love is of God;
and every one that loveth is born of God,
and knoweth God.He that loveth not knoweth not God;
for God is love.
1 John 4:21
And this commandment have we from Him,
That he who loveth God
love his brother also.
Can we have another word of prayer?
Now, Father in heaven, we thank You for the Word that we have before us—the substance of that Word which is real, which is in Christ Jesus, and which is communicated to us by the Holy Spirit.
We thank You that we are not hitting in the dark, when we simply talk around things in a book. The Holy Spirit is on earth and in us, declaring the truth. We thank You and praise You. Your truth is eternal and will prevail when all else has failed.
You will be glorified. We, in faith today, stand in the fact that You are bringing us in progress to Your purpose. We commit our time together, therefore, to You in the name of our Lord Jesus. Amen.
Go back to this idea from Ecclesiastes and fit it with 1 John. Ecclesiastes says, “Let us hear the end of the story.” Well, that is my version. What is the bottom line? Fear God. Keep His commandments.
What does 1 John say? It says, “His commandment is that we should believe on the name of His Son Jesus Christ, and love one another.”
Now, we can make complicated things out of keeping God’s commandments. We think, “That is hard. We know we cannot do that. What is God going to have us do? Make us walk around in straight lines and do this and that? Sacrifice and perfection?”
But His actual commandments to us are much more direct. He says, “What you need to do is believe on the name of Jesus and love one another.”
If we would do those two things, I think all the other things we need to do would actually come along with that. We do not have to focus on what we should cook on such-and-such a day, what we should bring to the meeting, what the work group should do, or whether we should go through this chapter or that verse in exactly the right way.
Many things can make it very tedious. But the simple thing is that if we believe on the Lord Jesus and love one another, then we are on the right path. If we are not doing those two things, no matter how many other things we might be engaged in, it is vain.
We can only really be motivated to do this if we have what Ecclesiastes, the Preacher, refers to as the fear of God. That is the way you read about it in the Old Testament: the fear of God.
The New Testament has many ways of putting it, but it is still the fear of God with revelation.
The love of God does not end the fear of God; it enhances it. It tells us more about it. We should have the fear of God, the love of God, the awe of God, reverence—all these things. That is what he is talking about when he says, “Fear God.”
To not fear God is to ignore Him.
The transgression of the wicked speaks to me and says, “He has no fear of God.” When I see him transgressing, the way he lives speaks and says, “No fear.” I even put it on my pickup truck: No fear.
I wonder how many people would like to add, “No fear of God.” Is that not what you really mean? “I am my own person. I do what I want.”
The duty of man is to fear God. If we do not have this sense of His being, this sense of being unto Him, this sense that we are going to give an account to Him, then we live with no fear.
Of course, no fear is going to come to a sudden end. It could be too late. But if we fear God, then keeping His commandments is not the chore it seems to be when we have no such fear.
Moving into the New Testament, in this letter of John, John says right off that he is writing these things so that we can have fellowship with us. That is what he says this book is about: “I am telling you this so you can have fellowship with us.”
And it is not merely fellowship with people. Right in the midst of it, he says, “Our fellowship is with the Father, and with His Son Jesus Christ.”
If we invite people to come and fellowship with us, are we really inviting them to fellowship with the Father and the Son, or just with us? You see, it should be that we have fellowship with the Father and the Son, and therefore they are invited.
This fellowship spoken of by God is the fellowship of God the Father with His Son, and He has brought many of us into this fellowship. That fellowship is all the fellowship.
What I hope to do today is simply refresh us on the things that we have heard, and hopefully encourage and motivate us to trust God, keep on living, keep on going, and keep on walking.
We have read these Scriptures. I probably will not be able to say too much about every one of them, but the Lord can speak to you through them without my saying anything.
I always tell people that I can tell the Lord is in something when someone speaks, because if He is, I will hear a lot more than they say. You know what I mean? They are not limited to what they say; the Lord speaks to you, and you hear the Lord.
If you tune out to me altogether, fine. The purpose is to bring us into an encouraging word from the Lord Himself.
It goes with the conclusion that, in the end, our duty, responsibility, privilege, and life is to live before God, believing on His provision and loving one another.
I suppose I will have to harp upon “love one another.” Notice how many times John says this. It must be an important thing. It must also be something that you can do. Why would he keep telling us to do it if we could not do it?
Now, you really cannot do it yourself in your flesh, but John does not go through all those little caveats. He just tells you to do it. You can do it.
It is also very possible not to do it. If it were not, you would not have to be exhorted so many times to do it. This is one of the first symptoms of any problem with the Lord: we start showing a lack of love one way or another.
If they have love, love covers a multitude of sins. Hate exposes petty things.
How many people have children who do things—sometimes things we cannot even say are gross enough? Yet very few parents will call up the papers and say, “You know what my son just did? Put this in the paper. I want him set straight.”
Of course not. We do not think that way. Somebody may say, “My goodness, you are making excuses for him. You should expose him. You should put him out.” Love would not let them do that.
Here is the point: God does have this love. That is the thing we have to realize.
When we are called into fellowship with Him, remember that it is primarily His fellowship that we are invited into, not our fellowship that we invite Him to join.
Is this our fellowship, or is this His fellowship? Are we attending His fellowship, or did we just invite Him to come to ours?
I have been in places in my life that were so possessive of their own fellowship. I imagine somebody coming into my old Baptist church and saying, “I was just over at the Methodist church down the street, and the Lord Jesus is there in the flesh, talking with them.”
“Oh, that is exciting. I wonder if we could get Him to come to our church next week.”
Is that not often the attitude? It does not matter what the Lord is doing; will He come and do it with us where we are? Will He come to our place?
No, it is His fellowship. If we have our own thing and just invite Him to come and even be the key figure, that is not what John says we are invited to. We are invited into the fellowship of the Father and His Son, and with us.
I want to turn here to fellowship and what I call the rules of engagement. You may hear that expression on the news sometimes—whether one plane shoots another down and all that kind of thing. They have rules about when you can do this and so on.
Maybe you are really anxious to know when you can shoot down your brother’s plane, but that is not my intention.
There are certain facts, rules, principles, and things that must be observed in order to have fellowship. If these principles are ignored, the fellowship will not fellowship. The ship will not stay together.
I am going to illustrate some principles of fellowship. They are not merely a list of rules, but they are there to be seen throughout the Bible, and particularly in the Old Testament.
When the tabernacle was established among the people, after the children of Israel came out of Egypt by the hand of Moses, God gave Moses instructions for building it.
This was to be in the midst of them. Whenever they set up camp, this whole area was in the center of the camp.
The center of the camp had a wall—actually, a tent wall, a courtyard marked off. You could not just go in there and play. This was a special place.
Then there was the altar, the laver, and the tent of meeting. There were rules to be followed.
You could not simply say, “We have the Lord with us. I am going to go hide inside that tent.” No, you did not do that. Certain things had to be observed.
You cannot merely say, “The Lord is with us; therefore, we can do whatever we want.” We have to follow certain principles.
These rules were given by God. When you try to study this part of the Bible, you may get overwhelmed by the many facts. We think, “I am so glad God has made it much simpler now. All we have to do is believe in the Lord Jesus and go back to sleep.”
We think, “Why was He so tedious in the Old Testament and so easy with us now?” Mostly because I do not understand. That is why it seems that way.
The reason God makes all these rules is not to make it hard on people. The difficult thing is this: how can God come and live with this group?
It is hard for us to go and live with just anybody. There are people we would be nervous about joining for a luncheon. We do not know what they will do, what they will say, or how they will treat us. Their language may offend us. They may not smell good. Any number of things.
How hard do you think it was for God to come and live with this group? We say, “Oh, it is nothing for Him; He is God.” That misses it.
It is difficult for a holy God, a righteous God, to come and live with sinners.
But He made a way to do it. In the Old Testament picture, He made a way that is really a picture of the more permanent way. He put Himself in the midst, defined boundaries, and said, in effect, “Sin is an offense to Me. I cannot live with you while there is sin, but you are sinners. Therefore, I will provide cleansing through the blood.”
Sacrifice, sacrifice, sacrifice. This speaks of the great effort God makes so that He does not have to send them away or destroy them.
When you look at all those intricate rules, every one of them is necessary. God does not do all that just to show off. He has elaborate works in His house—in the tabernacle and later in the temple—but everything God does means something.
People may enlarge their houses and choose certain things simply because they think they look nice, or because they want people to know they are doing pretty well. We all have that tendency to show off in a nice, subtle way.
God does not do that. When you see what He does, you can say, “Wow, awesome,” and in His case it is true. But He does not do spectacular things merely to get our attention. They all have meaning.
My little pet peeve is shutters on windows. How many have you closed lately? Sometimes a window is this long, and the little shutter is only this wide. It cannot even cover the window. Once those things had a purpose, but now they are often just there because they look like they used to have a purpose.
So much of our life is pretension. God is not pretentious. The things He did in this matter of fellowship were necessary to keep the fellowship alive and keep it there.
God was not looking for an excuse to get rid of Israel. If He had wanted to get rid of anybody, He did not have to bring them in to begin with.
God was not standing there saying, “Did you do it just right? Did you bring your sacrifice? How old is that heifer? I can see that you have an evil spirit—away with him.”
If He wanted to get rid of anybody, He did not have to pull them in in the first place.
He is not trying to find something to fail us on. I have worked in situations where I became paranoid, thinking, “I think the boss is out to get rid of me.” Maybe he was, maybe he was not. Sometimes you can feel that they are looking for you to do something wrong so they can get you.
God is not looking to find us doing something wrong so He can get us out of there.
Do we look at one another that way? If He wanted to find something wrong, He could certainly do it. He knew a lot more about it than we did even before.
“Lord, let me tell You what Brother So-and-So just did. I know You do not know this, Lord, but—” No, I cannot do that. The Lord never shows pleasure when I do that. I will not go to the Lord and tell Him that; I will go to another brother, because he has a more sympathetic ear.
How are we approaching this matter of fellowship? Are we approaching it as God approaches it, or are we approaching it some other way? If we are approaching it in any other way than the way God approaches it, we are on the wrong foot.
There is no way it can continue on.
When the disciples were with the Lord Jesus, Scripture tells us clearly that He knew all men, and He even knew who was going to betray Him.
When you come to John 13, it says that those whom He loved, He loved unto the end.
It seems that the other disciples did not really pick up on the fact that Judas was a thief or that he had evil motives. The Lord certainly must not have told them anything or indicated it.
But suppose there were one or two disciples saying, “Judas, I smell a rat. I think he is not really right. I do not think the Lord knows. Maybe if we watch carefully, we can catch him in the act, show the Lord quickly, and take care of this problem.”
We might think that maintaining disciples with integrity means finding the sneaky Judas among us and getting him out. “If we have a Judas among us, we are going to sniff him out and get him out.”
Strange—the Lord did not do that. He let him stay.
It reminds me of the parable about the wheat and the tares. Theologically, this may not fit exactly, but nevertheless, they are both growing there. The time comes when there will be a separation, but you do not separate them prematurely. If you separate them prematurely, you destroy the good.
The Lord knows when to separate. When the Lord’s time to separate comes, He will do it.
Until then, what is our job? What would those other disciples have been called to do? Love one another. Does that include Judas?
Well, what did the Lord do? That is our indicator. What does the Lord do? How does He handle this?
Have we established rules of engagement about fellowship for ourselves? The Lord says, “I am holy; therefore, you be holy.” But do we basically say to our brothers and sisters, “Be ye holy, for I am holy. I have my standards. Meet them”?
Do we do that?
“If you do not quite meet my standards, it would not be right for me not to let you know that you were not meeting my standards. I would be a hypocrite if I did not tell you that I was offended by what you did.”
Or perhaps we say, “That is too harsh. How can I do it a little more subtly, lovingly, to let you know I am offended by your action?”
What about laying down your life? “Oh, you ask me to lay down my life? Well, I guess it means I should walk right up to him and tell him I am offended by his action. I hate to do that, but I will lay down my life and do it.”
Wow.
One thing I am not going to do, if I puzzle on it, is let myself appear to have been wrong. I will go and say, “I am so sorry that you did that. I am so sorry that I am offended by what you did.” But I want everybody to know that I did not really do anything wrong in the first place.
“I will forgive you for what you did, but somehow I am going to make it known that I did not really do anything wrong myself. I had good motives all along.”
Maintaining our own integrity, making sure our reputation is not soiled, holding on to our self-image—any number of things—is exactly what laying down our lives is not.
Laying down your life is looking to see what the Lord did: He came from heaven having done nothing wrong.
The Son of God came from heaven, lived among men, and did nothing wrong. He helped them, touched them, healed them, and taught them. He did good.
After all that, He did not call for a legion of angels to destroy those who came after Him. He allowed Himself to be put to death as a sacrifice for them.
That is what laying down your life is. That is the path to which we are called.
If you think about it, you say, “Oh, that is much too hard for me. I am so glad the Lord did it for me. I do not have to do it.” It is hard, but the Lord in you can do it.
However, when we think about this too much, it can make us neurotic. “What brother is going to accuse me today? How am I going to pass the next test? How am I going to lay down my life? I know I am going to be humiliated. I know I am going to be humbled.”
First of all, if you have anxiety about the fact that you are going to be humbled and humiliated, it is because you really are very proud. If you are not proud, those things do not bother you so much.
It is really a wonderful experience when somebody blasts you with accusations and you can honestly say, “Wow. You do not know the half of it. It is much worse than that. Thank God that I am so well covered.”
When we take account of what the Lord has done for us, how bad we are, and all the trouble He has gone through to call us into fellowship with Him and let us keep being there, then the offenses of others take on a different light.
Problems encountered with others, especially those that impinge on who we are, do reach critical points at certain times. That is a fact, and it is not a bad thing.
Problems come. The whirlwind comes. God has arranged these things.
If something is happening to you now, thank God that it has not been happening every single day all the time before. Why is it suddenly happening now? God is orchestrating that.
When we are presented with these circumstances, it is because it is now God’s time to deal with it.
He always has a way in which we can deal with it. It is not something we can premeditate and plan out fully.
Like a brother was saying earlier about confronting his mother-in-law concerning selling a house: if you work out every single detail rather than taking a step, you do not get very far.
“How am I going to resolve this with Brother X? Maybe I will do this. Maybe we will have a meeting first.” You can get really complicated.
Trust the Lord that He leads in these things, and obey Him in the moment. If we did not obey Him in the moment, remember the cleansing of the blood. By His grace, He may give another opportunity.
There is going to be a final opportunity, if we want to call it an opportunity, called the judgment seat of Christ. Everything that has not been dealt with will finally be dealt with.
We cannot go into eternity with things undealt with and unaccounted for.
That is what Ecclesiastes puts before us: God is going to bring every work into judgment, including every secret thing.
We can keep many things secret. Some things may be better kept secret now, but that does not mean we do not have a chance to deal with them with God.
All the secret things are going to be dealt with then, if not before. When we are before the judgment seat, there will be good and evil. It does not all have to be evil. The Lord can reward us.
The Lord speaks in the Sermon on the Mount about those who have their reward. You can receive your reward now, or you can receive it later.
There are terrible sins in my experience for which I am responsible. But I do not have a certain fear of coming before the Lord in judgment for those things, because I have already dealt with Him concerning them.
It is like going to court and something is brought up, but it has already been adjudicated. It has already been taken care of. Then you move on. But when something has not been dealt with, that is what must be discussed.
Every thing we do not want to come out—is it not good to deal with it now?
The Washington, D.C., parking-ticket policy is a nightmare. You can get a ticket, send in the check as a good citizen, and think you have done your duty. Six months later you get a letter saying you have not paid, and they have doubled it.
You learn that you do not just send a check and hope it gets there. You better take it in and get a receipt. Otherwise, it keeps doubling, and eventually they get you when they get you for something else.
I hate to compare the judgment seat of Christ with the D.C. government, but in that sense it is true: nothing is going to be forgotten.
Things that are dealt with will be put away, but things that are not dealt with are not going to be forgotten. They will come up.
Just because nobody has talked about it lately, or because you decided you do not need to think about it anymore, does not mean it is gone. If it is undealt with, it is undealt with. It is going to come back.
But thank God, we can deal with it. If you know it is going to keep getting worse and worse, what do you want to do? Deal with it as quickly as possible.
The matter of our love and response to our brethren is the vehicle, the instance, by which God deals with us on a multitude of other things.
If we respond to the situations He gives us with our brothers and sisters, then many things lingering around and waiting for judgment will be judged right then.
When problems occur, they are a great opportunity for us. If we follow the Lord in any one of these things, that will be all in our favor.
There are other things where it is quite all right not to demand payment right now. If you have something coming to you in credit, you do not have to make sure everybody knows what you did.
Do some things without being known, without getting any credit. “I am never getting any credit for the things I do.” If you are doing things before the Lord and getting no credit for them, God does not forget.
At the judgment seat of Christ, nothing will have been overlooked.
But what about the great things you did and got credit for? “What about when I did such-and-such?” You have already got your reward for that. You can get it here, or you can get it later.
It works both ways. Good secret things are waiting, you might say, drawing interest. They are in a bull market. Your millennium fund is going up.
Do not withdraw the credits early. There is a substantial penalty. But do pay the bills. Pay off all the liabilities. You will be so glad you did.
Love the brethren. We can put all these things into an hour and miss a lot, but love for the brethren may seem like a chore only when we view it wrongly.
If you follow along with the Lord in this, as He takes us through steps, we actually experience His life. His love begins to come through, and we experience it. We say, “You know, I actually love this brother.”
But I know it is not me; it is the Lord. Yet it is me. It is Galatians 2:20.
The Lord is leading us along a path of progress. I wrote this word down so I would not forget it: progress. It literally means stepping forward.
A walk with the Lord is progress with the Lord. When we follow the Lord, we are stepping forward, not back.
We are stepping toward His goal, toward the promised land, toward an inheritance, and toward being conformed to His image.
When we reach a certain point and balk—“No, I am not ready to go there yet”—well, you will be ready to go there sometime.
When you finally get there, you will see that it would have been much better to have done it earlier. But thank God, you pay it, and it is over with.
When we love the brethren and know the Lord, these things go together. You cannot love the brethren if you do not know the Lord, but you cannot know the Lord if you do not love the brethren.
It is a two-step thing. You have to take a step on this one and a step on that one. You cannot just take one.
“Oh, Lord, know the Lord, know the Lord.” Then, “Now I will love the brother.” It will not work. This one, this one, this one, this one.
We know so much more in our heads than we experience. Do you realize that? Is it true with you too?
What I know about the Lord in my head, what I can talk about with my mouth, is fairly substantial. But how much actually becomes real to me in experience?
I liken that to your head and your feet. Your knowledge of the Lord is your head. Your obedience to the Lord, your love for the brethren, is your feet.
As I know more, I am able to walk more. As I walk more, I know more. But if I merely know and do not walk, I can still talk.
If you keep progressing with your head ahead of your feet, after a while you fall flat on your face.
Most of our problem is not a lack of information. That does not mean we do not need more information, but our major need is not more information, more “how to,” or more of this and that.
The major thing is simply to let our feet catch up. Come through on a little thing here and there. Love the brethren—that is the key.
No making excuses for ourselves. No saying, “I know the Lord, but I do not yet love the brethren. I will one day.”
If you say you love the Lord and you do not love the brethren, you know what John said about that. I do not need to say it again.
Our simple thing is to trust the Lord, go on in the simple circumstances He puts before us, and obey His voice. He arranges the agenda.
Let me finish with this boot camp illustration. I went through Navy boot camp once, and that is supposedly not as hard as some of the others.
If you go into one of those places and think afterward, “If I had to somehow, through my own willpower, manufacture this whole thing myself, I could not do it,” that is true.
But all you had to do was do what you were told. Somebody was there to see to it that you got through. Their purpose was not to send you back; their purpose was to get you trained and send you out.
They did not bring you in merely to humiliate you and send you home. Some people will wash out, but the real mission, the real goal, is to get you through, get you trained, and get you out the other side.
They had full-time people working on that. We have full-time staff working on us. All the details are being arranged.
We do not have to write our own agenda. We do not have to make our own plan: “How will I get myself, in my Christian life, up to where I should be? Let me see. I will make a notebook.” Somebody else is already doing this.
The Lord is taking care of this. Our part is to obey on the next call: when He says it is time to get up, go here, go there, humble yourself, do this, say it, say, “I am sorry,” cover for them.
There are any number of things, but they can be summarized in the matter of love for the brethren, probably more than in any other single thing.
Lord, help us as we look and remember: what is our duty? Our duty is not to become the best Christian in the fellowship.
“If I want to be known at the end of this year as the best Christian in the fellowship, I wonder why nobody likes me. It must be because I am serving the Lord.”
If we take the attitude the Lord gives us, we will have something different. He has an agenda for us. Lord, help us to go on and remember that the end of the matter is this: fear God and keep His commandments. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and love the brethren.
So we pray.
Now, Father, we bow before You. You have arranged for us a path, and You lead us through our Lord Jesus. You connect us through the Holy Spirit.
You are so merciful, and You give us opportunity to be merciful and kind also.
Lord, help us that we might know the joy of being merciful, of being kind, of loving the unlovely, of entering into the fellowship of Your sufferings, and of knowing the joy that You know.
We pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.