1 John 1:1-2:6
“The Freedom to Walk as Jesus Did”
My first apartment out of college left much to be desired.
It was one room in an ancient building.
The refrigerator was in the closet.
And the only sink was the one in the bathroom.
I had no furniture, and I slept on my boss’s old army cot.
Now, I knew there were roaches ‘cause I would catch them scurrying around…I just didn’t know how far the problem reached.
One night I turned out the light and got in bed, but then remembered something I had forgotten to do, so I got back up and flipped the light back on.
What I saw was a bit startling.
The walls were literally covered in cock roaches which were quickly scurrying back to their dark hiding places in the cracks in the walls.
“This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you: God is light; in him there is no darkness at all.
If we claim to have fellowship with him yet walk in darkness, we lie and do not live by the truth.
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.”
How many of us are truly walking in the light of God?
Now this doesn’t mean that we are perfect and do not sin, it doesn’t mean that at all.
What it does mean is that we are authentic.
When we fall short and sin, we admit our error…
…we don’t go hide it in the darkness…
…we bring everything to the light of Christ!
Our desire is not to sin, and so we don’t hide from God when we do sin.
How many of us think we can hide things from God?
Is there anything more ridiculous?
Adam and Eve, hid from God in the garden…did they really think that would accomplish anything?
The same goes for us.
It is so easy for us to excuse our sins, to try and rationalize them rather than bringing them to the light where God can and will deal with them!
I remember a colleague of mine, several years ago, telling me that he had gone to visit a church member.
Sitting in her living room she told my friend, “I have secret sins, and I like my secret sins. I don’t want to let them go.”
That is not walking in the light—that is not true repentance…
…that is not trying to change.
How many of us are not too terribly different than those cock roaches in my first apartment?
We hate being exposed by the light, so we run and hide from it…
…lest we be ‘found out’, ‘exposed’…
I remember a neighbor we once had.
He had had a heart attack and must have been told that he could no longer smoke.
I remember driving up into a nearby grocery store parking lot, only to see him smoking.
He was retired and he lived at home with his wife.
It was pretty obvious that he was doing this to hide what he was doing from his wife.
I felt sorry for him.
I’m not trying to trash smoking or anything…
…I’m just saying that when we are in hiding, we are not free, and we are not walking as Jesus walked.
Everything Jesus did was out in the open for the entire world to see.
He didn’t try to hide a thing.
He was an open book for all to read, and continues to be—quite literally.
1 John 2:5-6 informs us, “if anyone obeys his word, God’s love is truly made complete in him. This is how we know we are in him: Whoever claims to live in him must walk as Jesus did.”
Jesus walked 100% of the time in the perfect light of God the Father.
When we do this, unlike Jesus, we are not going to be without sin.
But we will live as if we did not sin—in the eyes of God.
For Jesus Christ is “the atoning sacrifice for our sins…”
John Wesley, the Founder of Methodism, and a believer in something called Christian Perfection, made it quite clear that no Christian will ever be without sin.
We will continue to live in ignorance, and thus we will sin out of ignorance.
We will make mistakes, and thus sin.
And since Wesley himself never claimed to have achieved Christian Perfection, I would add that we will have moments when we wander…and thus sin…
…but if we are walking in the light as this occurs…
…God, Who is faithful and just, will forgive us our sins, and Lord willing use our mistakes to mold us more and more into the people God has created us to be!
Authenticity is vital to our spiritual health.
It is also vital that, we as the community of faith, accept, rejoice and embrace one another’s authenticity!!!
We must be open to the trials and tribulations that our brothers and sisters in Christ are facing and having to deal with…
…without judging them.
We need to empathize with one another when rough times hit, and mistakes are made…
…for this happens to us all.
We need to be here for one another with love, forgiveness and support.
In order to ‘walk as Jesus walked’ we must love one another unconditionally.
Verses 9-11 of Chapter 2 read: “Anyone who claims to be in the light but hates his brother is still in the darkness. Whoever loves his brother lives in the light, and there is nothing in him to make him stumble.
But whoever hates his brother is in the darkness and walks around in the darkness; he does not know where he is going, because the darkness has blinded him.”
Have you ever felt so lost that you felt as if you were spiritually blind?
Have you ever spent any amount of time stumbling around in the darkness of hate?
It eats you up, does it not?
It kills your joy.
It wreaks havoc on your relationship with Christ…
…could even ruin it completely.
What a horrible prison the darkness is!
Whether it is our own secret sins that bind us, and our unwillingness to be authentic…
…or whether it is our own prejudices, and judgmental attitudes…
…or whether it is our inability to forgive someone we feel has wronged us…
…these things are all darkness!
And the darkness is a miserable place to be.
It’s not even a good vacation spot.
For we are not free in the darkness; we are not free to love God and our neighbors.
We are not free from those things that only do us harm…
…those things which are out to deceive and destroy us.
In John Chapter 8 verses 34 and 36 Jesus declares, “I tell you the truth, everyone who sins is a slave to sin,”
And He goes on to say that, “if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.”
We cannot break free from sin’s grip by our own strength—Jesus Christ is the only One Who can open that prison cell.
In Romans Chapter 6, Paul instructs us, “Don’t you know that when you offer yourselves to someone to obey him as slaves, you are slaves to the one whom you obey—whether you are slaves to sin, which leads to death, or to obedience which leads to righteousness?
But thanks be to God that, though you used to be slaves to sin…
…You have been set free from sin…”
John Wesley’s definition of Christian Perfection was to have a ‘habitual love for God and neighbor’…
…habitual…
…that is, through walking as Jesus walked, our love for God and other people becomes our natural state!!!
What a shift this is from living in a state of selfishness, arrogance and hate.
“Behold, if anyone is in Christ he or she is a new creation! The old is gone, the new has come.”
Having a habitual love for God and neighbor, which can only come through an abiding moment by moment walk with Christ means that we are free to be ourselves…
…we are free from worrying about what others think…
…we are free from competing with the Jones’…
…we are free to live within the will of God!
And that is the only way to find real peace and real joy…real freedom!
Following the Last Supper, on the night Jesus was to be arrested, Jesus knelt down and prayed.
Jesus knew what faced Him.
Judas had already left to betray Him.
So, Jesus prayed in anguish, and as He continued to pray “his sweat was like drops of blood falling to the ground.”
One thing He prayed was, “Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done.”
Have you ever tried to pray like that?
Jesus was completely and totally sold out to the Father.
Christ turned everything over to the Father’s hands.
Jesus was able to completely and 100% trust in the Father’s goodness and love.
And when we are able to completely and totally trust in God’s goodness and love, then we are able to walk as Jesus walked—in real freedom and truth!
Please find the insert in your bulletins.
This is a Covenant Prayer in the Wesley Tradition.
I’ve been praying this prayer most of my life, or shall I say, mouthing the words to this prayer most of my life.
I say it this way because I don’t think I have ever prayed it completely and honestly.
I now carry a copy of it around with me in my wallet.
I try to look at it and pray it everyday.
I like to think of this prayer as the Prayer to Perfect Freedom.
For in this prayer we are praying, “not my will but yours be done.”
The closer we get to praying this prayer for REAL, the closer we are to truly “walking as Jesus walked.”
So, please, after the service…
…don’t leave this prayer on the chair.
Instead, put it in your purse or wallet or pant’s pocket.
Take it with you wherever you go.
And when you feel tempted to follow the lead of some other master besides Jesus, take out this prayer, and read it…
…and pray to God that you will be able to pray it for real!
Let us now, pray it together.
