Praise the Lord for glorious fellowship!

1 John 1:5-7 (ESV)–

This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all. If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice 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 his Son cleanses us from all sin.

It is not uncommon to hear misunderstandings of God’s grace in salvation. The Bible teaches that we are saved by the grace of God alone, without contribution of the works of men and women (cf. Ephesians 2:8-9).

Some make the point that people come to a time where they trust in Jesus as their Savior, but they may continue in patterns of sin and selfishness that shows no discernable change in behavior from what their lives were like prior to their profession of faith. Those in this camp of belief hope that people will learn to walk in obedience. But this position says for salvation to be by grace and not by works, it is legalistic to expect that faith in Jesus will result in a life that is characterized by walking in the light (i.e. obeying the will of the Lord as revealed in Scripture).

To counter the acceptance of lives characterized by consistent disobedience by those who profess faith in Jesus, some conclude that people must be taught to fear that they could lose their salvation. Those in this camp believe that the fear of losing one’s salvation will keep them from living in consistent disobedience. The promise of “once saved – always saved” is seen by this group as a license to sin.

The problem is that both of these views are out of line with the whole of what Scripture says about gospel life for those trusting in Jesus. When God grants life and faith to sinners who are in desperate need of a Savior, this is salvation by grace alone. But this is only the beginning. The grace of God saves and the grace of God sustains by empowering His children to walk in newness of life (cf. Romans 6). True children of God are saved by grace and sanctified by grace. Although no child of God walks in perfection, every child of God is headed in a new direction, away from self-centeredness and unto Christ-centeredness and others-orientedness.

As the passage above describes, followers of Jesus do not walk in the darkness of sin and selfishness but in the light of God’s truth and righteousness. Fellowship with God provides the ability to consistently make progress down the path of truth and righteousness, as we consistently confess our sin and selfishness on the God-honoring path or our refinement in and through gospel grace. We can be assured that He who began and good work in us at the time of our salvation, will carry it on to completion through progressive sanctification until we die or Jesus returns (cf. Philippians 1:6). Praise the Lord for the glorious light of fellowship His grace establishes for us to have with Him and one another!

[Pastor Mark Landess]