I Know That Christ Lives In Me Series

What Do You Know?

I Know that Christ Lives in Me!

1 John 1:5-2:11

April 22, 2001

Intro:

A. The apostle John has been referred to as the apostle of love and rightfully so.

1. The reason he has been called this is because he talked about love so much.

2. In the book of 1 John the word "love" is used 33 times in the NIV.

3. But I was surprised to find that the word "know" is used 33 times in 1 John as well.

4. So for this series, I’m going to preach it from the perspective of what we can know.

5. There is no way to get around talking about love, but we are going to talk about it in the context of what we can know.

B. So for the next six weeks, I’m going to preach from the book of 1 John with a series that I’m calling: "What Do You Know?"

1. So I’m going to ask you to do something over the next six weeks.

2. I’m going to ask you to read the book of 1 John every week.

3. I’d like for us to read the book of 1 John six times in the next six weeks.

4. And I’m going to ask you to read it in one sitting; take 15 minutes once a week and read the book of 1 John.

5. Can you do that? Can you take a few minutes to read 5 chapters each week.

6. I believe that we will benefit by doing that and asking God to give us understanding!

C. So this week I want to start in the first two chapters, I want us to see that we can know that Christ lives in us…

1. You see, we really need to start thinking of our bodies as just a shell.

2. There are things that lives in us, like our soul; our spirit; the HS—and, of course demons can live in us as well.

3. We can’t see these things so it is hard to describe them.

4. There are some things that we can’t really see, but you can see the results of them.

5. So today I want to look at what the book of 1 John has to say about how we know when Christ is in us; first…

I. Because Christ lives in me, I walk in the light.

1 John 1:5-7, This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you: God is light; in him there is no darkness at all. 6 If we claim to have fellowship with him yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live by the truth. 7 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, purifies us from all sin.

A. John says that if we walk in the light, we have fellowship with God.

1. To walk in the light simply means to live like God wants us to.

2. How does God want us to live? Its all recorded in this Book.

3. We read and study this book to see how God wants us to live.

4. And when we live the way God wants us to live, we have fellowship with God.

5. That is, we have a relationship with God.

6. And that is exactly what we want: we want a relationship with God to get us through this life as well as the next.

B. But let me talk a little bit about walking in the light.

1. I mentioned this briefly in the sunrise service last week.

2. John’s thinking for this teaching clearly comes from Psalms 119:105, Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light for my path.

3. The Psalm says that God’s Word is a lamp to my feet and light for my path.

4. When you walk down a path in the dark with a flashlight, that flashlight is a lamp to your feet and a light for your path.

5. We can shine that light directly in front of our feet and see that we don’t trip over anything.

6. We can shine that light out in front of us a little and possibly see where the next few steps are going to lead us.

7. We can shine that light to the left or right of the path and see the briars and thicket that are set to trap us if we leave the path.

8. But that flashlight will not give us a clear picture of all the twists and valleys, it will not give us a clear picture of the hills and creeks, it will not show us if their are wild animals or fallen trees along the path, and it certainly won’t tell us where the path winds up.