Adrian Rogers: Obstacles That Hinder Fellowship with Jesus

1 John 1 speaks of our fellowship as Christians, which comes through the life that we have in Jesus Christ. In this message, Adrian Rogers shares three things we must know in order to experience and enjoy the sweetest fellowship this side of Heaven.

Now what I want you to do today is to check up on yourself and see if there is in your heart and in your life something that is keeping you from having the sweetest fellowship this side of heaven.
That something is most likely sin. It is secret faults that cause moral earthquakes.
ProFound Truth simply stated. This is love worth finding with pastor, teacher, and author Adrian Rogers.
Would you take god’s word and be finding first John? That’s back near the book of the Revelation.
And we’re studying the book of 1st John. It’s a short book, only 5 chapters.
We’re entitling this, uh, study, the sweetest fellowship this side of heaven.
And when you do what John tells you, the only way that it can get sweeter is for us just to cut out and go to glory.
But we’re learning how to have fellowship, the sweetest fellowship this side of heaven.
And today, we’re gonna be looking at things that hinder fellowship.
And, uh, you know, we can have the potentiality for fellowship But we can let things come into our lives, uh, that will defraud us of the fellowship that is our heritage in the lord Jesus.
Look, if you will, now chapter 1 in verse 5.
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, who 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 cleanses us from all sin.
If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves. And the truth is not in us.
If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all.
And I love that word all, from all unrighteousness.
If we say that we have not sinned We make him a liar, and his word is not in us.
My little children, these things write on to you that you send not.
And if any man sin We have an advocate with the father Jesus Christ, the righteous, and he is the propitiation, fire sins, and not fires only.
But also for the sins of the whole world and hereby, we do know that we know him if we keep his commandments.
He that sayeth, 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 as the love of god, perfected, hereby, no way that we are in him.
He that saith he abideth in him, ought himself also so to walk, even as he walked.
Now we’re talking about things that keep us from fellowship and, uh, primarily secret faults, hidden sins, You know, the Bible is the only book in the world that has the answer to the problem of sin.
And the way to deal with sin primarily with specificity is to recognize sin, uh, for what it is.
We have a generation today that doesn’t even like the word sin.
This the word sin is out of date about the only sin today is to call sin sin.
We wanna call sin anything. Uh, we wanna call it a mistake, a misjudgment, but Jesus did not die for errors.
He did not die for mistakes. He did not die from misjudgments Jesus died for sin.
Thank god for this word. I’m telling folks, listen to me. Listen to me. The only book. The only book.
The only book. The only book. The only book. That has the answer to the sin problem is god’s word.
Now this is what we’re dealing with today is is the sin problem.
It is the secret false that cause the moral earthquakes. Now how does god deal with sin?
Well, when I receive Jesus Christ as my personal lord and savior when I repent of my sin, I trust him.
I receive my faith. The lord Jesus Christ. I am born again.
And then as a result of that, sin judicially, Judicially.
Now, listen to the word judicially legally is dealt with forever and ever.
Hebrews 8 verse 12 for I will be merciful to their unrighteousness and their sins and their iniquities I will remember no more.
Now when god says, that he will remember our iniquities no more.
Does that mean that god cannot recall them? No. No. No. God is not talking about an intellectual remembering.
God says, I will remember their sin against them no more.
God remembers our sin, but he remembers them as sins that have been forgiven and therefore forgotten as sins.
And in the same way, I can never forget the sin that I have committed intellectually But when I remember that sin, I don’t remember it as a sin held against me.
I remember it as a sin forgiven and forgotten by the grace of god. Thank god for that.
Now that’s the way god deals with us judicially, but then how does god deal with our sins day by day?
If I’m saved by grace and kept by grace, and no sin will ever be brought up against me anymore, and my sin is buried in the grave of god’s forgiveness.
How does god deal with me, Adrian, day by day when I’m proud or arrogant or when I tell a lie when I exaggerate when I have a lustful look?
How does god deal with me day by day?
Not as judge, but as father as father.
Now we’re not talking about legal judgment, but we’re talking about in this chapter, god dealing with us in a parental way.
For example, look, if you will, uh, in verse 3, that we have seen and heard declare we under you that you may have fellowship with us.
And truly our fellowship is with the father and with his son, Jesus Christ.
So he’s not talking about judicial or legal forgiveness here. He’s talking about parental forgiveness.
Even as Jesus Christ taught us when he taught us to pray, our father, forgive us our trespasses.
You see, this is a family prayer. We’re talking now about how to have fellowship with God.
Many of you are saved. You’re on the way to heaven, but you’re going 2nd class because you are not enjoying that fellowship that Cornania that we were talking about so long ago.
Now having set the stage, I want us to see now how we can restore that fellowship, how we can get rid of those secret faults, those hidden sins that divide us from, uh, that the father smile in the father’s face and have that sweet, wonderful fellowship with god.
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Now the first thing I want you is how god convicts of sin. How the father convicts of sin.
Notice in verse 5, look at it.
This then is the message which we have heard of him and declaring to 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.
Now take your Bible, and I want you to look at some verses here.
Uh, look at the times, he he talks about lying here.
Uh, look, if if we can In verse 6, if we say that we have fellowship with him in walk in darkness, we lie.
Just underscore that. Then look, if you will, in verse 8, if we say that we have no sin we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.
Then look in verse 10. If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar.
Each time he says, if we say, if we say, if we say. Now what are you saying is this?
We’re saying one thing and doing another.
We are pretending here And what he’s talking about here is what I want to call the evolution of a lie.
I want you to notice the three steps that follow each one of these, if we say.
First of all, we may say, uh, we may lie to deny sin versus 56 if we say we have no sin.
Uh, if we say we have fellowship with him in the walk in darkness rather, we lie.
Now that’s what happens this morning in church. Look around.
I mean, here we are in this morning, in this building, thousands and thousands of people in one building.
Everyone of you look so holy. Everyone of you look so clean.
Each looks so happy in Jesus.
But do you think everyone has his or her heart right with god this morning? They’re not.
If we say we have fellowship with him and walk in darkness, we lie.
There’s some living lies sitting on seats in this building this morning.
And and you know in your heart that you are playing a game. You’re playing the church game.
You’re playing a role. But that’s what happens.
We get we get sin in our hearts, may be big, it may be small, but it is there, and we come to church We go to Sunday school.
We teach the class. We sing in the choir. We do whatever we do.
But there’s that secret fault. There’s that secret fault.
If we say that we have fellowship with him and walk in darkness, we lie.
Now what happens when a man does that?
After he does that for a while, do you know what happens to him?
He gets to believing his own lie. Now notice what what what he says here.
Look at the next step here in verse 8. If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves.
When you set out to deceive somebody else, do you know who you’re gonna deceive most of all?
You are going to deceive yourself.
And a man who deceives himself is, Well, he’s on the verge of a mental breakdown.
When a man cannot even believe himself, when he blurs the distinction between, uh, light and dark between truth and the lie.
And there there are many of you who have begun to say to yourself, after you’ve stonewalled uh, god for a while.
And after you have, uh, moved in and out of the fellowship and and nothing seems to happen, you still sing in the choir.
You still teach the Sunday school class. Uh, you still are in the congregation. You still shake hands.
You still buddy with all the people? What do you say?
Well, maybe it’s not sin at all. Uh, may maybe I’m alright.
Maybe it was just an error.
Maybe it’s a maybe it’s a psychological idiosyncrasy, or maybe god doesn’t call that a sin.
And and maybe I am a pretty good fellow. And so you begin to smooth over your sin.
And, uh, first of all, we deceive others, then we deceive ourselves.
And then finally, Uh, we lie to god.
We lied to others, then we lied ourselves, and then we lied to god.
Look, if you will hear uh, down in in verse 10, uh, he says he if we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar.
And his word is not in us.
Well, you see when we call god a liar, we’re the ones who’s lying in that truth because god cannot lie.
And so god says god brings us under conviction. And we say, oh, no. No. God, uh, you’re wrong.
Uh, uh, uh, it was a mistake. It was an error. Yeah. It was a glandular malfunction.
It was the environment. It is legitimate uh, resentment. It is righteous indignation. Whatever it is.
And we don’t let the Holy Spirit of God, convictions of that sin.
First of all, We lie to others, then we lie to ourselves, and then we have the unmitigated goal and audacity to stonewall god and to lie to almighty god.
We lie to deny sin. We lie to deceive self, and we lie to defy the savior.
Now when we do that, When we do that, fellowship is completely broken.
It is gone. We’ve stepped out of the light. We’re over in the darkness.
Now How does god bring us back?
Well, god will not bring us back unless we expose ourselves to the light.
You stay over here in the darkness. There’ll never be any conviction.
But if you as a child of god will just step back into the light, god will shine the light of his holiness upon your life, and god will bring you under conviction.
Now it is very important very important. Listen to me.
It is very, very, very important as a child of god that you learn the difference between holy spirit conviction and satanic accusation.
Now the devil is the accuser of the brethren.
The Holy Spirit is the one who loves us and convictions.
And so many times people do not know the difference between holy spirit, conviction, and satanic accusation.
Now the devil is very clever. Before you send, do you know what the devil tells you?
The devil says, go ahead and do it. You can get away with it.
And after you send, you know what the devil tells you, you’ll never get away with it.
That’s exactly what he’ll do. He will entice you to sin and then condemn you because you did.
Oh, you can get away with it. You’ll never get away with it. That’s accusation. That’s accusation.
That’s not the Holy Spirit of God. Let me tell you how the Holy Spirit of god convicts you.
When the Holy Spirit of god shines that light upon you, and there’s nothing pure than light.
God is light. And and when the Holy Spirit of god, who is light, shines upon you, you will come under conviction as a child of god.
If you will just turn to the light and face up to the light, he will pull the veil of darkness back of those lies that you’ve been telling others and telling yourself and telling god, he will expose that sin.
Now let me tell you how the Holy Spirit of God will convict you.
And and first of all, and listen very carefully.
First of all, the Holy Spirit of god will convict you legitimately. Legitimately.
And you say, what do you mean by that pastor?
He will never convict you over any sin that has been confessed and cleansed.
If it comes up again, it is not the Holy Spirit of God doing that.
It is the devil who is going back into your past, bringing up some sin that has been cleansed forgotten and put in the grave of god’s forgetfulness, and he brings it up again.
Number 2, not only will the Holy Spirit of God convict you, uh, uh, legitimately, but the Holy Spirit of god will convict you specifically.
Now if the devil can’t go into your past and drag up something that’s already been dealt with, the devil the devil will just convict you vaguely.
Just make you feel bad. Just make you feel unworthy. Just make you feel no good.
So many times you hear Christians pray.
Well, I’m I I know I’m just a I know I’m just a poor, worthy, unworthy center.
Where’d you get that? You’re not some poor, unworthy center.
You’re the righteousness of god in Christ. You’re a you’re a child of god. Your prince and a king.
Your next of kin to the holy trinity. Jesus is not ashamed to call you his brothers.
The devil wants to just make you feel that you’re no good, that you’re unworthy.
You feel bad, mostly all over. That’s just accusation. You don’t have to take it.
Let me tell you how the Holy Spirit of God will convict you.
The Holy spirit of god will convict you with specificity.
If you do something and it has not been cleansed and forgotten and buried in the grave of god’s forgiveness, the Holy Spirit will say, Hey.
That was a lie you just told. Hey.
Adrian, you were rude to Joyce just then. No. Yes. You were. Yes. You were.
And he, like a good doctor, will put his finger on the sore spot and push Does it hurt that?
Believe me. It hurts right there. That’s the way the Holy Spirit of God does.
With with legitimacy and with specificity, he will convict you of that particular thing. That’s holy spirit.
Conviction. But not only will he convict you legitimately and with specificity, but he will convict you redemptively.
You know what accusation does? It discourages. Accusation drives you away from god.
Aquis accusation says there’s no way. What was me? I’m done for. I might as well quit. I’m finished.
I’ve had it. Holy Spirit conviction says, here’s what you’ve done.
But if you come to Jesus, he’ll forgive you cleanget it and come on back into the fellowship you’re loved.
That, my friend, is the way that god convicts of sin.
And and, uh, you don’t have to take this mess from the devil who wants who is the accuser of the brethren who is accusing you night and day before the throne and is accusing you to your own face that dirty devil.
Thank god for the precious holy spirit who is light Now we talk about the conviction of sin.
Let’s talk a little bit more about the cleansing of sin.
What’s the Holy Spirit of god shows you uh, that this particular sin in your heart and in your life, and he does it now with with specificity, and he does it legitimately.
Uh, and not condemningly, he to draw you to Jesus. Now notice what he says here in verse 9.
Take your bibles and look at it. Look at it. Verse 9. If. Here’s another if.
You know, as he says, if if we say if we say if we say, but now he says another if, if we confess our sins.
Not stonewall god, not deny our sins, but if we confess our sins, he god It’s faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
Now notice this is not the judicial cleansing that we got when we’re saved.
This is this is talking about fellowship with god. This is talking about god dealing with us as as children.
Now let me tell you how to confess that sin and let’s just break it down a little bit more.
Because since we broke down conviction with specificity, let’s just break down confession with specificity.
How should I confess my sin? I need to confess my sin immediately immediately.
Write down the word immediately, at least write it in in in your mind.
If we confess our sin, that in the Greek language is in the present tense.
It’s not talking about something that you have done. It is something that you do.
Uh, I looked it up in one translation, and it literally it literally says if we are continually confessing our sins.
That is it is to be a a a habit of our lives.
You don’t you don’t just confess your sins at the end of the day, much less at the end of the week, much less during the annual revival meeting.
If we make a habit of confessing our sins, if you get a speck of dust in your eye, when do you try to get it out at the end of the week?
No. Immediately. Be sensitive to sin. And number 2, you do it specifically, specifically.
You see, look, He says, if we confess our sins, not our sin, our sins, he puts it in the plural.
We’re not talking here about the sin nature. We’re not talking about the whole body of sin.
We’re talking about what you did particularly. Call it by name. That’s the painful part.
You know, Yeah. But at least prayer means, I said, lord, if we sin, forgive us, or forgive us all our sins.
From my opinion, you’re just wasting your breath to pray that kind of a prayer.
I’ll tell you if you wanna do business with god, just say god, Forgive me for reading that dirty book.
I dishonored you. I dishonored my wife. I dishonored my own body. God, I put filth in my mind.
I’m so sorry. God, I shouldn’t have done it. God, I won’t do it again. Forgive me. He will.
Forgive me lord for that lie. Forgive me lord for that selfishness. Forgive me lord for that pride.
You name it and nail it. Listen.
You do it immediately and you do it specifically.
The kind of con and, uh, let me tell you another thing. You do it confidently. Confidently.
Look, if you will, in verse 9.
If we confess our sins, he is, listen to this, faithful, and just to forgive us our sins.
Fateful and just, if he didn’t do it, he would be a liar and a crook He would be unfaithful and unjust.
If you agree with god, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins.
And to cleanse us from all in righteousness, not some, all, all, all, all, all, all.
You like that? I do.
Sometimes the devil tell you you bought you’ve done something so bad now. You can’t get forgiveness.
That’s a lie out of hell. There’s no sin that the blood of Jesus Christ cannot cleanse.
Uh, listen. Listen to what the Bible says.
The blood of Jesus Christ, god’s son cleanses us from all sin. That’s verse 7.
He is faithful and just to forgive us our sin.
And to cleanse us, to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. I have that confidence.
Thank god for the precious double detergent of the precious blood of the lord Jesus Christ because not only does he forgive, he cleanses.
He cleanses. He washes out the stain. He does takes the inward part.
It is gone for god washed wider than snow.
Well, I’ve I’ve run out of time.
I’ve got a third point to this message, and we only own 2. First is the conviction sand.
Secondly, the cleansing of sand, let me give you the third one just that much.
It’s the conquest of sand. Look in chapter 2 verse 1.
Do you think because cleansing and forgiveness is by grace?
And all you have to do is ask for it that god is just encouraging us to sin by writing this down.
No. He’s not encouraging us to sin. He is encouraging us not to sin. Look at it.
My little children, these things write I under you that you send not. He’s not saying to sin.
He’s saying don’t sin. But he says, if any man sinned, we have an advocate with the father, Jesus Christ the righteous, and that word advocate, that’s just a fancy word for lawyer.
I have a savior who’s interceding from me, and the Bible says he ever lives to make in a session for us presenting his precious blood.
Thank god for that, hallelujah, for that.
He at at and see, and the Bible says, and here’s the propitiation for our sin and not fires only, but also for the sin of the whole world.
That’s the reason I don’t believe in any limited atonement. He died for everybody.
Everybody the whole world he died for. And here’s the propitiation Our sin.
What does that word propitiation mean? It means he’s he’s the satisfaction for it.
He satisfies the demands of a righteous and the Holy God And that’s the reason he says in verse 9, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins.
Why? Because he is the satisfaction. He is the propitiation for those sins he died.
Thank god for that.
But he’s he isn’t saying, therefore, just to be life and cavalier about your sins.
You read on down there a few more verses he talks about when we When we live with him in us, the love of god is perfected.
A slave serves because he has to. An employee serves because he needs to.
A child of god serves because he wants to. I mean, there’s the love of god.
That god would save me to begin with and then cleanse me.
Do you think that encourages me to sin? No, my friend.
The desire of my heart is never to sin again. I mean, never.
Never again. But if I sin, thank god, I have an advocate.
And he’s the propitiation for my sin. Don’t we have a wonderful savior? Hallelujah.
What a Jesus? What a savior that we have?
You know, it seems to me if people under what we have in Jesus. You couldn’t keep them.
We’ll wait with a machine gun. But yet, the old stubborn heart says so many people, just stonewall.
Self against god. John is saying in verse 4 chapter 1, I’m writing this that you might have fullness of joy.
That you might have fellowship with god. And fellowship with 1 another.
The sweetest fellowship this side of heaven.