Walk in the Light
September 2, 2007 Morning Service
Immanuel Baptist Church, Wagoner, OK
Rick Boyne
Message Point: Walk in the Light
Focus Passage: I John 1:5-10
INTRODUCTION:
1. Four groups of people who will find this sermon helpful:
a) Those who are afraid to become Christians because they feel they are unable to live up to God’s expectations.
b) Those Christians who struggle with (false) guilt because they imagine God demands sinless perfection from them.
c) Those persons (Christians and non-Christians alike) who may be excusing a sinful lifestyle.
d) Those persons who become weary with the struggles they face.
2. Everyone one who is struggling to live the Christian life needs to be encouraged.
3. The Holy Spirit has given us a book that provides us with that encouragement.
I. Assurance of Forgiveness (v7).
A. The problem: keeping God’s grace and the need for our obedience properly balanced.
B. Even those persons who are walking (John 8:12) in the light are not sinlessly perfect.
C. But we have the assurance that, if we are walking in the light, Christ’s blood will cleanse us of our sin. Note: Someone has compared this to "windshield wipers" removing rain from windshield.
II. Awareness of Faults (v8).
A. Sin is a fact! Consider Romans 3:23.
B. In order to recognize sin in our lives, we must be able to recognize sin (that is, know what it is). Consider I John 3:4. Everyone who practices sin also practices lawlessness; and sin is lawlessness.
C. Why do some people fail to recognize sin in their lives? Denying responsibility for their actions (Hebrews 3:11-12), Take care, brethren, that there not be in any one of you an evil, unbelieving heart that falls away from the living God. comparing themselves with others (Luke 18:11-12; "The Pharisee stood and was praying this to himself: 'God, I thank You that I am not like other people: swindlers, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector.
'I fast twice a week; I pay tithes of all that I get.' II Corinthians 10:12 GNB). Of course we would not dare classify ourselves or compare ourselves with those who rate themselves so highly. How stupid they are! They make up their own standards to measure themselves by, and they judge themselves by their own standards!
III. Admission of Failures (v9).
A. Forgiveness of our sins is dependent upon confession of our sins (Matthew 6:12; James 5:16).
B. God is merciful (Luke 6:36; 18:13; Hebrews 8:12).
C. This confession serves to remind us of our need for God (Acts 8:22).
