Recently at Meadowview we were working our way through 1 John 1.1-4 and discussing our fellowship with the Father, Son, and Saints. This fellowship (partnership, shared life, shared commitment) is often hindered and therefore limits our joy. As I was preparing I noted these helpful diagnostic paragraphs from Lloyd-Jones on various hinderances to our fellowship:
First of all, there is sin-unrighteousness, and we shall see how he divides that up into committed acts of sin, and the refusal to acknowledge or confess sin. Those are the ways in which sin can come between us and a conscious enjoyment of the fellowship with God. John works this out in an extraordinary manner. He has told us about this possibility of great joy; then comes in a word which almost crushes us to the ground at once: ‘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'(1:5) – and fellowship seems hopeless, But then, thank God, he tells us how it can be deal with. If we do not recognize and confess sin, then there is the blood which cleanses, and God is faithful and just to forgive us our sins (1:7, 9).
The second hindrance which John talks about in chapter 2 verse 3 is the lack of love to the brethren. If there is anything wrong in my relationship to God, I lose the fellowship and I lose the joy. Yes, but if there is anything wrong in my relationship to my Christian brothers and sis-ters, I also lose the joy and John works it out in a very subtle way. You lose contact with the brethren and you lose contact with God; you lose your love to God in the same way.
The third hindrance is a love of the world, a positive love for the world, a desire after, a hankering after its pleasures and its whole sinful mentality. This again is an interruption to fellowship with God. You cannot mix light and darkness, you cannot mix God and evil; therefore if you love the world you lose fellowship with God and again you lose your joy.
And the last thing which interrupts fellowship with God, he tells us at the end of the second chapter, is false teaching about the person of Jesus Christ. Obviously if the only way to God is through Christ, if I am in any way wrong about my teaching or my doctrine concerning Him, then automatically I sever the communion and again I lose my joy.
Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Life in Christ (35-36)