Recent Sermons:

1. Recent Sermons: • “Fellowship With God.” • “Fellowship with Each Other. • Greek Words: koinonia, koinonos, metache, defined as: “association,” “joint participa-tion,” “partnership,” “communion,” “fellowship,” etc. • “Fellowship with God” encompasses the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit!

2. If We have Fellowship With God, We Can: • Petition Him at any time, I Thessalonians 5:17 • Be Partners with Him in a common cause, 2 Corinthians 6:1. • Partake of the divine nature, 2 Peter 1:4-9. • Anticipate receiving a new body, I Corinthians 15:49-53! • Live in Hope, Titus 1:2. • Die in Peace, Revelation 14:13!

3. Observe: • In view of the blessings of fellowship with God, every accountable person should desire to be in fellowship with God! • However, most people are not in fellowship with God! Matthew 7:13,14,21-23. • A basic lesson on “How An Alien Sinner Can be Brought into Fellowship With God” is certainly in order!

4. To Have Fellowship With God One Must: • Deal with that which Destroys Fellowship – sin! Romans 3:9,23; Isaiah 59:1,2. • Three Basic Ways to Deal with Sin: • Blame someone else, Genesis 3:9-13. • Deny Personal Guilt. • Seek God’s forgiveness. • All sin is against God, Genesis 39:9; Psalm 51:4. • Hence, forgiveness takes place in the mind of God!

5. Consider “Alien Sinners:” • Alien: “a resident foreigner – not a citizen, a person belonging to a different ethnic or social group, a person excluded.” Worldbook Dictionary. • The Bible: from allotrious, primarily belonging to another; hence came to mean foreigner, stranger; not of one’s own family, alien, an enemy.” Hebrews 11:34; Ephesians 2:12,19.

6. Two Kinds of Sinners: • Alien Sinners – those who do not belong to God’s family, John 8:44. • God’s children -- those who do belong to God’s family, I John 1:8,19 • The question, “how can an alien sinner have fellowship with God, may be reworded to: • “How can one who is Satan’s child become God’s child?” Cf. Matthew 13:38; John 8:44 versus Galatians 3:26; I John 3:10.

7. Important Fact: We Become God’s Children by Process of Adoption! • In the domestic realm adoption involves prospective parents seeking a prospective child. It can be an involved process. The adopted child: • Gets a new home. • Gets a new name. • Gets new parents. • Becomes in line to inherit accordingly. • The child, when adopted, is brought into a relationship with special parents, often with other siblings, and blessed accordingly.

8. Adoption in the Spiritual Realm • The Process began with God, John 3:16. • Christians are God’s Adopted Children, Ephesians 1:5; Romans 8:14-17; Gal. 4:4-7. • From huiothesia, a compound of huios (son, child, descendant), and thesi, and “signifies the place and condition of a son given to one to whom it does not naturally belong.” • “The spirit adoption,” Romans 8:15 is contrasted with “the spirit of bondage.”

9. Fact: Through a Spiritual Birth Aliens become God’s Adopted Children! • In the O.T. Sonship was based on a national calling, Genesis 12:1-3; 21:12; 35:10. • Sonship is now based upon a spiritual calling. • We are called by the gospel, 2 Thessalonians 2:14. • The gospel is that spiritual “seed” by which we are called, I Peter 1:22,23; James 1:18.

10. This Results in a New Birth, John 3:3-5! • Jesus presented the plan of salvation under the figure of a birth. • One Birth Consisting of Two elements. - “Water.” - “Spirit.”

11. But How may one be “born of the water and the Spirit?” • Consider “Spirit” First. • The Holy Spirit revealed the word, the “seed” by which one is begotten, John 16:132; I Peter 1:22,23. • Consider “water.” • What does “water” mean? Note John 3:23. • Acts 2:36-41; 8:35-38; 10:47,48. • Ephesians 5:25,26; Titus 3:5; I Peter 3:21.

12. Conclusion: • The only way an “alien sinner” can have “fellowship with” God is to cease being an “alien sinner” through obedience to the gospel of Christ. • Through obedience to the Gospel one becomes God’s adopted child. • By “walking in the light,” I John 1:7, he enjoys fellowship with God!