Walking In The Light - 1 John 1:5-2:2 - May 19, 2013
Series: That We May Know – Life With Jesus - #2
We are going to continue with our series from 1 John this morning, but before we get into those verses I’m going to invite you to turn with me to another of John’s writings; the Gospel of John. John, chapter 3, beginning in verse 19. And as you’re turning there let me say this: One of the great pictures that is painted for us in the pages of the Bible is this contrast that we find between light and dark. Jesus stood in the temple and said, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.” (John 8:12, NIV84)
Light and dark: It’s a theme that runs throughout God’s word. We see it again and again and again. And when that happens, you just know that God has got a purpose in it. There’s a reason He keeps going back to that imagery. There is something there that He wants us to understand, a concept He wants us to grasp. That which is light is good, and it’s true, and it’s pleasing to God. That which is darkness is evil, and it is apart from, and it has no part of, nor any fellowship with, God.
And in John 3:19 John has written these words: He says, “This is the verdict:” Underline that word, “verdict.” Now what is a verdict? It’s a judgment that is given after all the evidence has been examined. John takes a look at the world around him, the world in which he lives, the world in which we live, and He looks at all the evidence, everything that has been revealed to him, and guided by the Holy Spirit he comes to a conclusion. He says, “This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, (that light is Jesus) but men loved darkness instead of light (why?) because their deeds were evil. Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. (People oppose Jesus, people turn away from the light of the world, because light exposes, it illuminates, it reveals, the things of darkness. And when the spotlight is shone on the darkness of my soul I have only two choices: 1 – to run from the light in fear and shame and to continue as I always have, or, 2 – to deal with the things that the light has exposed, and that’s going to mean humbling myself, and repenting, and running after the things of light rather than the deeds of darkness. It’s going to mean change and people don’t like to change.) Yet John goes on to say this, “whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what he has done has been done through God.” (John 3:19–21, NIV84) If you want to live by the truth you can no longer continue in the darkness; those two things aren’t compatible. You need to come into the light.
And some of you here this morning – you’re trying to live in both worlds. On the one hand you like the idea of living in the light, but on the other hand you really don’t want to give up the things of darkness. You are sitting on the fence. And you are not going to like this message – why? - because those living in darkness don’t want to come into the light. When the deeds of darkness are exposed by the light, it demands a response. I’m going to be speaking in generalities because I don’t know the specifics of the darkness that might be flowing in your life. What you’re going to need to do, is to take these generalities that I’m speaking in, and you’re going to need to apply them to specifics in your own life.
And that’s what we want to see happen because we want to see people coming out of the darkness, into the light. We want to see them confessing and repenting of sin, and embracing God’s grace in Jesus. We want to see people delivered from bondage to sin, from slavery to addictions, and we want to see them, we want to see you, experience freedom, life and forgiveness and hope through Jesus. That’s part of why we’re here this morning. That we can be confronted with the truth of God’s word, that it might act as a mirror in our own lives, that we might see the darkness for what it is, and turn to the light.
So turn with me to 1 John, chapter 1, and we’ll begin reading in verse 5. And we’re going to take it verse by verse this morning because we need to get a handle on what John’s saying here. John is writing this towards the end of his life. He’s walked with Jesus; he’s experienced first-hand the things that he’s going to write about. He’s taken Jesus’ teaching to heart, and knows it to be true, and now he wants to share it with us. 1 John 1:5 …
“This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you: God is light; in him there is no darkness at all.” (1 John 1:5, NIV84)
The message John is sharing with us doesn’t begin with him. It’s not something John’s made up. It begins with Jesus. This is what John has heard, first-hand, from Jesus’ mouth. He’s heard it, and now he’s passing it on to us. And that’s our responsibility as well. Having heard God’s word it becomes our responsibility to pass it on to others; to declare what God has spoken. But we need to get the message right. We need to be clear.
And John’s going to start, by telling us about God. It’s a very important place for us to start. If we’re going to come into the light we need a clear understanding of who God is. And some of us have wrong ideas about God. We’ve got our own ideas about who God is, and how He should act, and we take bits and pieces of what we’ve heard in church, and we mix that with what the world tells us about God, and we stir it all together and instead of a clear portrait helping us to see who God is, we’re left with a picture that’s twisted and distorted and that leaves us more confused than we ever were before.
We need to begin with an understanding of who God is and then we can work from there. And that’s why the world and the church often find themselves having a hard time understanding one another, and coming to any agreement on ethics and morality, because we can’t agree on who God is, and all these things begin with God.
And I don’t know what you know about God. But we’re going to start with what John tells us, and this is what he says: God is light and in Him there is no darkness at all.
God is light … People look around at the world today – the misery, the heartache, the suffering, the fear, the injustice, the darkness – and they point an accusing finger at God. “If there really is a God,” they say, “how could He permit all this evil that we see around us? How could a loving God allow this to happen?”
John says, “God is light and in Him there is no darkness at all.” The misery, the heartache, the suffering, the evil – where does it all come from then? It comes from the darkness that is in us. James writes these words: “each one is tempted when, by his own evil desire, he is dragged away and enticed. Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death.” (James 1:14–15, NIV84) And again he writes asking …
“What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don’t they come from your desires that battle within you? You want something but don’t get it. You kill and covet, but you cannot have what you want. You quarrel and fight. You do not have, because you do not ask God. When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures. You adulterous people, don’t you know that friendship with the world is hatred toward God? Anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God.” (James 4:1–4, NIV84)
That darkness that so fills the world, comes from within us, not from within God. God is light. There is no evil in Him. He is holy. To be holy means to be set apart. He is set apart from us because He is light and in Him is no darkness at all. And the emphasis in that verse is that there is not even a speck of darkness in God; He is pure light; He is good through and through. You and I, we have bad days and good days, bad moments and good moments. Yet Scripture says that even our best moments are like filthy rags compared to the light that is God. God is good all the time. In Him there is no darkness at all.
We may be made in the image of God, but it’s also true that in one sense we are nothing like God at all, because there is darkness in us. And when we begin to realize that, begin to see how far removed we are from God’s holiness, we are confronted with the reality and the horror of our own sinfulness. And then we’re left with the question of, “What do I do with that?” “How do I respond to the reality of my own sinfulness?” Let’s see what John has to say about that … Verse 6 …
“If we claim to have fellowship with him yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live by the truth.” (1 John 1:6, NIV84) Last time around we talked about this idea of fellowship. Fellowship is a shared participation in something based on shared truth, beliefs, priorities and values. It is sharing in something meaningful together and having a part in it, and of it. And John says that if we claim to have fellowship with God – that is if we claim to share in the things of God – the forgiveness, the life, the hope, the future expectation of heaven, and so on – but we persist in walking in darkness, we lie, and we’re not living by the truth at all.
Earlier I said that you were going to have to take the generalities that I’m going to be speaking about and apply them to the specifics of your own life. This is one of those places where you’re going to need to do that. Generally speaking, we as Christians, have very little idea of who God is, and the life He is calling us to. It’s because in many cases we’ve gotten away from this book. [Hold up Bible]. Specifically, you need to ask if that is true of yourself. We need to be in the truth so that we can recognize error when we hear it, when we see it, and when we’re tempted to live it.
And here’s the error that John is addressing: The belief that we can be Christians and continue to live in darkness. In our weekly Bible study we’re looking at the book of Galatians. And this is what it says in chapter 5 of that book: “The acts of the sinful nature are obvious: sexual immorality, [fornication (pre-marital sex – the world calls it “living together” or “co-habitation” – God calls it sin), adultery (that’s extra-marital sex – the world calls it “an affair” – see how we try to clean up our sins by using nicer language?), homosexuality (what the world calls “an alternate lifestyle), bestiality, incest, - really anything outside the realm of one man, and one woman, in a marriage relationship] impurity and debauchery; idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God.” (Galatians 5:19–21, NIV84) And the key to understanding those verses is that phrase, “those who live like this.” The Greek words indicate an on-going, habitual life-style. There is no such thing as a Christian who lives in habitual, on-going sin. There are just people deceived into thinking they are Christians. Because if we claim to have fellowship with Him, yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live by the truth.
Listen to what Paul writes to the Corinthian church. He says, “Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: (in other words, “Don’t fool yourself”) Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor male prostitutes nor homosexual offenders nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. And 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.” (1 Corinthians 6:9–11, NIV84)
Some of these Corinthians had lived lives that were filled with this darkness that Paul is writing about. It was a habitual, on-going lifestyle for them. But when they came to faith in Jesus, that all changed. “That is what some of you were,” Paul says. There has been a transformation, because they’ve been washed, sanctified, justified, in the name of Jesus. They’ve come into the light, the deeds of darkness have been exposed, they’ve humbled themselves, and repented. They’ve received God’s mercy and experienced His grace and forgiveness. They’ve been filled with the Spirit of God and by His power they live changed lives. They no longer live like they once did.
For a number of years I was perplexed by a church in a town we once lived in. They didn’t preach God’s word, they preached the ideas of the world, and yet week after week the church was full. And I just couldn’t figure it out. And then one day it came to me. The message being preached there, was that, “You’re fine just like you are. There is no need to change. There is no sin to be cleansed from.” That’s an awesome message; that’s a message that people want to hear – it’s very popular today. The only problem is, that it is not God’s truth.
Scripture teaches us that God has loved us while we are still sinners, but it also teaches us that Jesus did not die so we could remain in sin. He died to set the captives free. To the woman caught in adultery Jesus didn’t say, “Good on you! Go and live your life as you please.” Instead He said, “Go now and leave your life of sin.” (John 8:11, NIV84)
Last time around I said that the book of 1 John is full of all these tests to see if you’re really in the faith. This is one of them. If you claim to have fellowship with God, yet walk in habitual darkness, you’re lying to yourself, you’ve deceived yourself, you’re not living by the truth and you don’t have fellowship with God. Which means you’re not sharing in God’s forgiveness, grace, mercy, nor salvation. You’re still dead in your trespasses and sins.
See, when people come to faith in Jesus, both beliefs and behaviours change. And it might not happen all at once, but it definitely begins to happen. You begin to lose your taste for the things of darkness that you used to give yourself to, and you begin to turn to things that you never had a use for before – things like prayer, and Bible reading and worship. Things like fellowship with other Christians. Things like ministering to, and caring for, others. Things that are pleasing in God’s sight.
We have a westernized understanding of what it means to believe. We think belief is merely an intellectual agreement with something. But the Bible was written in an eastern culture, and the understanding of believing something there, is very different then here. To believe, is to go beyond mere intellectual acceptance, to putting that belief into practice in daily life. That’s why James writes these words: “Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says.” (James 1:22, NIV84)
Let’s go on to verse 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.” (1 John 1:7, NIV84) What does it mean to walk in the light? To walk in this way conveys the idea of an on-going habitual life-style which is daily being illuminated by God’s truth. And it means that we respond to that truth. It means to live under Jesus: Under His authority, His teachings, His grace, His love. It means to order our values, priorities, and practices around those things that are filled with God’s light. It means to be in relationship with Jesus.
Folks, we need to understand this: God will not bless our sin. If you want to experience the blessing of God, fellowship with God, you need to walk in the light. You need to put yourself in the place of blessing. You can’t wander off into the realm of darkness, to live according to the desires of the sinful nature, to do what seems right in your own eyes, knowing all along that it is contrary to God’s word, and then ask God to bless it. People try to do that all the time because they are not walking in the light. That’s why Christians are so often accused of being hypocrites. We’re expecting God to bless our sin. But God won’t do that. God can’t do that. God is light and in Him is no darkness at all. And if He were to bless your sin, He would be encouraging more sin, and that wouldn’t be in keeping with who God is.
And maybe you’re thinking to yourself, “Well God’s blessing my sin. I know I’m walking in darkness in this relationship, or this business, but things are going great and God’s blessing it richly.” Friends, God’s not blessing that at all. You’ve mistaken material provision, and smooth sailing, for the blessing of God, and while those things may certainly be a part of God’s blessing in someone’s life, it is definitely not the most important aspect of that blessing that we should be hungering after. And if that’s how you’re living your life, you’ve wandered so far into the darkness that you don’t even realize that you don’t have any fellowship with God. You don’t realize that you aren’t connected with Him, and you’re not sharing in the blessing of the light. Or maybe you do – you sense that God is far away – that something is missing that you’re hungering for – and you haven’t been able to put a finger on it. This is what it is: You’ve chosen to walk in darkness and your fellowship with God has suffered. Folks, God will not bless sin, and so we’re told to walk in the light, for as we do so we share fellowship with God and He with us.
As we do so, we’re told that the blood of Christ, purifies us from all sin. See, Christians are not sinless. They still sin. We still sin. I still sin. But we’re not talking about on-going habitual sin here, because that’s completely incompatible with walking in the light. You cannot walk in both light and darkness at the same time. But Christians are still going to sin – and that truth doesn’t excuse our sin – it doesn’t make it alright and it doesn’t make it right - but if we’re walking in the light, as we’re meant to be walking in the light, then we’re going to respond to the awareness of that sin. We’re going to seek to keep short account between ourselves and God, and between ourselves and others, because we don’t want to break that fellowship we share in.
There is a godly sorrow that leads to repentance and if we’re walking in the light, and that light reveals the reality of a particular sin in our life, it should grieve us. It should fill us with a godly sorrow that leads to repentance. Repentance means a change. It means a turning from one thing to another. A turning away from sin and a turning to the light. To be unmoved by sin, to be un-grieved by our own sin, to refuse to change, is to choose the darkness over the light. Remember the passage that we started out with today? John said that men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil and they feared to come into the light because their deeds would be exposed for what they were.
But if we humbly walk in the light, John says we have fellowship with God, and the blood of Jesus purifies us from all sin. A Christian has been saved from the penalty of sin by the shed blood of Jesus. Scripture tells us that there is no forgiveness for sin without the shedding of blood. Jesus shed His blood on the cross that we could be forgiven and reconciled to God, that we could be delivered from death to life, from despair to hope. That is a past fact. It has already taken place. But the word that John uses, that word, “purifies,” it is in the present tense. It is an on-going thing, a currently happening thing.
One commentator has put it this way … “And while we are having this fellowship with Him, the blood of Jesus, His Son, keeps constantly cleansing us from sins of omission, sins of ignorance, sins we know nothing about in our lives and for the reason that we have not grown in grace enough to see that they are sin. These would prevent our fellowship with God if this divine provision of the constant cleansing away of the defilement of sin in our lives was not taken care of by the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. So holy is the God with whom we have fellowship.” (Wuest, K. S. (1997). Wuest's word studies from the Greek New Testament: For the English reader (1 Jn 1:7). Grand Rapids: Eerdmans.) If we walk in the light, God has made provision to purify us from the sin that would otherwise keep us from fellowship with Him and with each other.
Friends this is the message that John has heard from Jesus and that he is passing on to us: “God is light; in him there is no darkness at all. If we claim to have fellowship with him yet walk in the 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.” (1 John 1:5–7, NIV84) That’s good news! That’ God’s grace!
And what’s the proper response to the outpouring of God’s grace and mercy? It’s worship and love. Romans 12:1 - “Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God—this is your spiritual act of worship.” (Romans 12:1, NIV84)
In view of God’s mercy, turn from the darkness, and walk in the light that you might have fellowship with God – a sharing in that grace, love, hope and life that is made possible through Jesus.
And that’s as far as we’re going to go today. Next week we’re going to pick up again in verse 8 and look at the other things that John has to say. But we’re looking at some pretty deep stuff, we need time to think about it, and to respond to God’s word. And I encourage you to do that in the days ahead. Consider this: Do you have fellowship with God? Or have you been walking in the darkness and deceiving yourself? Ask God to search your heart, your life, your response to Him, and ask Him to reveal to you if you’ve made a life of walking in the darkness. And if He shows you that you have been, if He points out this darkness in your life, come into the light that you might experience forgiveness, cleansing, new life, and fellowship with God.
Let’s pray …
