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.
Something similar to this carelessness takes place in the spiritual realm where masses of people seem to be playing with religion - taking in just enough of it to become immune to the real thing.
2. If you claim, “I am a Christian who has never had a sin problem OR who no longer has a sin problem.”
8 If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.
In a View from the Zoo, Gary Richmond, a former zoo keeper, had this to say:
“Raccoons go through a glandular change at about 24 months. After that they often attack their owners. Since a 30 pound raccoon can be equal to a 100 pound dog in a scrap, I felt compelled to mention the change coming to a pet raccoon owned by a young friend of mine, Julie. She listened politely as I
explained the coming danger. I’ll never forget her answer, “It will be different for me. . . .” And she smiled as she added, “Bandit wouldn’t hurt me. He just wouldn’t.”
“Three months later Julie underwent plastic surgery for facial lacerations sustained when her adult raccoon attacked her for no apparent reason.”
• None of us are immune to sin.
• People are deceived. They think that they have their stuff all together.
• You should be able to walk up to any true Christian and ask what sin are you wrestling with?
• This person is the one who has been a Christian for sometime. They have cleaned up their lives. They have victory over many things that used to really control them.
• Having one area of your life in darkness still is a major problem.
• Deception is what happens over in darkness, bring that over in the light and we’ll truly see what it is.
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.
• Name your sin for what it is. Don’t sugar-coat it / don’t soften the language.
o Affair/adulterer; Gay/Homosexual; Bend the truth/Liar; I just need a little something to relax/you’re an addict-drunk.
• Don’t name your sin in a way that the Bible does not.
• Mark Driscol, “Use good words for Good things; bad words for bad things.”
o Take it out of the darkness and drag it into the light!
o Name it / agree with God.
o This is necessary in order to see the contrast. On or Off
Text: I John 1:9-2:6 “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. 10If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us. 2:1 My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. 2 He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world. 3And by this we know that we have come to know him, if we keep his commandments. 4Whoever says "I know him" but does not keep his commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him, 5but whoever keeps his word, in him truly the love of God is perfected. By this we may know that we are in him: 6whoever says he abides in him ought to walk in the same way in which he walked.
II. We step into God’s light by agreeing with Him
“9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”
a. Confession is agreeing with God about your sin.
i. Confession is always about relationship, never about penance.
ii. Confession to God
iii. Confession to each other.
b. Our goal is to not sin.
2:1 My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.
i. God never lowers that goal / he never lowers his expectation.
ii. God loves us and knows that sin will always cost us dearly.
If you are a Musician then your goal is to Hit all your notes
Athlete Make goals
Mountain biker Clear all obstacles.
iii. We will not be perfect; but we must not accept or hide the imperfection
I John 2:7-11 “Beloved, I am writing you no new commandment, but an old commandment that you had from the beginning. The old commandment is the word that you have heard. 8At the same time, it is a new commandment that I am writing to you, which is true in him and in you, because the darkness is passing away and the true light is already shining. 9Whoever says he is in the light and hates his brother is still in darkness. 10Whoever loves his brother abides in the light, and in him there is no cause for stumbling. 11But whoever hates his brother is in the darkness and walks in the darkness, and does not know where he is going, because the darkness has blinded his eyes.
III. Love is the Test
5but whoever keeps his word, in him truly the love of God is perfected.
a. Love for God
i. We struggle with obeying God when we don’t know him.
ii. When we truly know him, obedience is easy. Love motivates.
iii. Our love for God is awakened by his love for us.
iv. John knew this better than anyone else.
v. Why would you want to spend eternity with someone that you don’t love?
vi. Why would anyone want to be in Heaven for eternity with Jesus the King?
vii. Everything in Heaven goes exactly as Jesus wills it to. If you don’t love Jesus, why would you want to be there? “Well, I don’t want to go to Hell.”
viii. Hell avoidance isn’t the question. Why Heaven? The answer is, “I love Jesus.”
ix. Being a Christian is so much more than right theology. Theology is about loving Jesus and loving our brothers and sisters.
b. Love for Others.
i. Loving others is the obvious test.
ii. Do we hate? Do we wish evil on people? Do we withhold forgiveness (Desire punishment?)
1. Prejudice / people who haven’t actually done anything to us.
2. Unforgiveness / people who have sinned against us.
11But whoever hates his brother is in the darkness and walks in the darkness, and does not know where he is going, because the darkness has blinded his eyes.
A couple years ago, I took a tour of a cave near Raystown. The guide taught us an interesting fact about this. A person who lives in total darkness for just a few months will become irrevocably blind. Darkness not only hinders sight, it causes blindness.
Conclusion: Reconciliation is Dependant upon our humility.
This is the real danger, when a Person ignores the warnings, ignores the Holy Spirit, ignores the Scripture that person will eventually suffer blindness. They will no longer be perceptive to the Light.
They don’t love Jesus.
ON or OFF
Will you drag sin into the darkness, repent and be forgiven.
Will you live in humility and love correction?
Do you love?
Will you love?
