On Or Off Series

On or Off

Series: Turn on the light

Sunday Sermon / November 18th 2007

Intro: Frame the series title: Jesus illuminates – darkness blinds.

On or Off – sin separates us from God. A true Christian doesn’t want to live in darkness.

Read along; read ahead; read repeatedly

Allow the light of God’s Word and the Power of the Holy Spirit work on you. Determine right now to follow Jesus where ever he wants to take you. Drop the natural resistance to defend yourself. Open you hearts.

Thanksgiving – We can know we are truly saved. We can have relationship with Jesus.

You can be sure / many religions say, “You can’t be sure until the end”

John gives us three tests to take to see if we are true Christians

1) Theological Check - last week. All theology is about Jesus.

2) Moral Check – Do you love correction? Christians want to obey God’s commands and they see God’s corrections as protection.

3) Social Check – Our relationship will prove our faith.

Text: 1 John 1:5-2:11 “5 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. 6 If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. 7But 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. 8 If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.

I. God is light

“God is light, and in him is no darkness at all.”

John wants us to see Contrast: The contrast between light and darkness; Holiness and Compromise; Sin and Righteousness.

If you take a photograph and you increase the contrast enough, eventually you will have only a white and black image. No shadows or shaded areas.

a. God is not like us.

i. He is trustworthy, faithful, good and honest. ALL OF THE TIME!!!

ii. God’s most mentioned attribute: Holy (apartness, sacredness, separateness)

1. He is completely undefiled.

2. He is uncompromised

3. He is completely pure.

The Contrast is not within God; the contrast is between God and us.

iii. He is Holy; we are unholy.

iv. He is undefiled; we are defiled.

v. He is uncompromised; we are compromised.

vi. He is ON; we are OFF

People want to believe that human beings are basically good and the bad things we do are a lack of education. John doesn’t give humans any credit. He gives God all the credit. God is the only good, holy and righteous Being.

vii. Darkness comes from Sin / God has no part, portion with the wicked.

viii. Light comes from God not man. We have no natural, inherent light.

1. The world looks to each other for inspiration

2. The Christian looks to Jesus for inspiration.

b. We are not like God.

John combats three erroneous claims concerning Light and Darkness:

1. If you claim, “I am a Christian who embraces sin.”

“6 If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth.”

• Habitual, present tense. I am a Christian and I am a _______.”

• (Drunk, adulterer, homosexual, liar, thief…)

1 Corinthians 6:9-12 Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor male prostitutes nor homosexual offenders 10nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. 11And that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.

• A good tree does not bare bad fruit.

• “Since you have met Jesus what has changed in your life?”

• “I am an unrepentant sinning Christian.” No such thing.

• “I am ________ … but that’s okay, because God loves me.”

• God is not darkness, and God doesn’t bless the darkness. Many Christians don’t understand this. God I know that I am in sin, but will you bless me.

• If God blessed darkness, then God would be training us to live in darkness.

• Things you used to do begin to bother you.

Sir Alexander Fleming, upon introducing his newly discovered drug,

penicillin, warned against taking too little of it. An under-dose, he said would permit germs to remain in the system thereby allowing one to build up an immunity to the drug. These immune germs could be "passed on to other individuals so that the thoughtless person playing with penicillin treatments may be responsible for the death of another" if not himself as well.