Opening Illustration: This line between truth and falsehood is blurred in our society. We pick up newspapers and read touching stories and later find out that the stories were complete fabrications. We are used to politicians making us promises to get our votes, only to forget those promises once they get into office. Political ads regularly take quotes out of context to try to influence the electorate. We are so used to seeing realistic dramas on television that we often find ourselves forgetting that what we are watching is just pretense. People stand up and make passionate arguments and we simply accept that what they are asserting is true is actually true.
This carries over into issues of faith. It seems like every day someone is developing a new religion. Most of these religions contradict each other. In other words, it is impossible for them all to be true.
Let me give you some everyday examples. You can’t be pregnant and not be pregnant at the same time. You are either one of the other no matter how passionate you are. If two doctors come out of surgery and one says your family member is dead and the other doctor says, he is alive, the one thing you know for sure is that they both can’t be right even if they are both passionate and sincere. It is the same thing with faith. Jesus says he is the only way to Heaven. Islam says it is the only path to Heaven. Mormonism says that only those who hold to the teachings of the book of Mormon will rise to the highest Heaven. These could all be false, of course, but they can’t all be true. They are contradictory. People say, “We are all headed in the same direction.” No, we’re not. Some are walking with God; some are walking away from Him.
The Word of God must be seen, heard and lived out in order for it to bear witness for itself and come alive. Let us turn to 1 John 1 just to see and experience that …
Introduction (v. 1): The apostle is not weary of describing faith’s various acting’s in the soul. And it is for our edification that he sets before us his own experience in this matter. It is in order that such of us as have heard and seen Jesus may still fix on Him the eyes of our understanding with an intent and protracted gaze. And can one view of “the King in His beauty” satisfy the spiritual eye? No; it will rest with a mingled feeling of sorrow and joy on Him whom our sins have pierced. When Jesus has been seen as “full of grace and truth” — “fairer than the children of men” — the believer will surely look upon Him with a steady contemplation of the soul and fixed devotion of the heart, It may be that it is not given to all believers to attain to the full experience of the beloved disciple, or to realize all He felt when He says “which we have looked upon”; but in a measure the same contemplative faith is proper to all the saints. And without it there could be no due assimilation to the image of Christ.
It is by the contemplation of Christ’s Person that we become in a measure changed into His likeness. Christ looked upon as a wondrous spectacle, steadfastly, deeply, contemplatively.
How is the Word of God manifested in our lives?
1. Seen (v. 2, 3a)
John had witnessed, as he believed, the supreme manifestation of God. The secret of the universe stood unveiled before his eyes, the everlasting fact and truth of things, the reality underlying all appearances, “that which was from the beginning.” Here he touched the Spring of being, the Principle that animates creation from star to farthest star, from the archangel to the worm in the sod:
“The life was manifested, the life eternal which existed with the Father, was manifested to us.” If “the life” of this passage is identical with that of the Gospel prologue, it has all this breadth of meaning; it receives a limitless extension when it is defined as “that which was from the beginning.”
So the most fundamental assertion of this text is that Christ our Life has eternally existed with the Father. Everything else flows from this. We do well to meditate often and deeply on the majestic reality that Christ has existed without beginning from all eternity.
Illustration: It is said of Moses that "the Lord spoke to him face to face, as a man speaks to his friend." Now there is an important sense in which the words may be applied to every true believer. He is favored with intimate and endearing fellowship with his Heavenly Father. View him on his bended knees, in the secrecy of his closet, having shut out the world for a while, with its manifold anxieties. How sweet the privilege he enjoys — that of making all his requests known by prayer and supplication unto God! Is he conscious of his own weakness, of the temptations which surround him, and the many foes which beset him? His earnest cry is, "Hold me up — and I shall be safe!" Well, God is there, being ever near to those who call upon Him in truth, and says to him in return, "Do not be afraid, for I have ransomed you. I have called you by name; you are mine! When you go through deep waters and great trouble, I will be with you. When you go through rivers of difficulty, you will not drown! When you walk through the fire of oppression, you will not be burned up; the flames will not consume you. For I am the Lord, your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior!" (Isaiah 43:1-3)
Does he feel sorely perplexed as to the course he should pursue, when conflicting claims are pressing upon him? He looks upward, and says in the language of the Psalmist, "Teach me your way, O Lord; and lead me in a plain path because of my enemies." And what answer does God unto him? "I will instruct you, and teach you in the way which you shall go; I will guide you with my eye." "I will lead you in paths that you have not known; I will make darkness light before you, and crooked things straight; these things will I do unto you, and not forsake you."
2. Heard (v. 3b, 5)
There are three statements in the Bible which stand alone as revelations of the Nature of God, and they are all in the writings of John: ‘God is spirit’ (John 4:24); ‘God is light’, and ‘God is love’ (1 John 4:8). We are not told that God is the Spirit, or the Light, or the Love: nor (in all probability) that He is a Spirit, or a light. But ‘God is spirit, is light, is love’: spirit, light, love are His very Nature. They are not mere attributes, like mercy and justice: they are Himself. They are probably the nearest approach to a definition of God that the human mind could frame or comprehend: and in the history of thought and religion they are unique. The more we consider them, the more they satisfy us. The simplest intellect can understand their meaning; the subtlest cannot exhaust it. No philosophy, no religion, not even the Jewish, had risen to the truth that God is light.
Walking in the light is the opposite of walking in darkness. It means seeing reality for what it is and being controlled by desires that accord with God's light. If God is light, and in him is no darkness at all, then he is the bright pathway to the fulfillment of all our deepest longings. He is the deliverer from all dark dangers and obstacles to joy. He is the infinitely desirable One. If in His own light He shines forth as a Being of infinite worth, then He is the star of glory that we were made to admire and cherish. If God opens the eyes of our hearts to see all that, then our desires are captured by the surpassing glory of God over everything that the world has to offer, and we walk in the light as He is in the light. There is a walk; there is a lifestyle that necessarily results from the miracle of new birth when we are given eyes to see the surpassing worth of the light of God. First John is written to describe what that lifestyle looks like and how it results from God's light and our new birth.
Illustration: Eating in the dark is no fun. Low light in a restaurant is one thing; eating in a room with no light at all is another. The same is true in our walk with God. Unless we take advantage of the light He gives, we will miss seeing what He is doing for us.
We have an Old Testament picture of this - the tabernacle. As the priest entered a room called the Holy Place, he could see only by the light of a golden lampstand (Exodus 25:31-40). Like everything else in the room, it had been carefully fashioned according to the pattern God gave Moses (v.40).
The lampstand is a picture of spiritual light. The gold speaks of value. The oil symbolizes the Holy Spirit. The six branches coming out from the center shaft portray unity in plurality. The symbol of the almond blossom is linked to God’s anointed priesthood (Numbers 17:1-8). When all this is combined with a New Testament reference that uses a golden lampstand to represent the church (Revelation 1:20), we have the complete picture. God gives light through the Spirit, who works through His congregation of anointed people (1 Peter 2:9).
Yes, the Holy Spirit provides us with the light we need. Are we daily spending time in prayer and reading God’s Word so that we can take advantage of it? (Mart De Haan, ODB)
3. Lived out (v. 4, 6-7)
John is saying, “What I want to see in the life of the professing believer is testimony that there is a life that is bent towards God.” God’s promises are the desires of our hearts. God’s commands we love; we long to do the duty that He has given to us; we long to be like Him; we want to be like the Lord Jesus Christ; we don’t want to simply conform in the way we dress or the way we think or the way we act to the prevailing attitudes of the world around us. We want to march to the beat of a different drum. We want to march to the beat of God’s drum. We want to be like Him. We want to think after His thoughts. We want to behave as He has called us to in this word. And so John is pressing home the point that if your profession of faith points one way and your life points the other way, it is an infallible proof that you’re a hypocrite.
Now John, I want to say very quickly, is not saying that if you are not sinlessly perfected, you’re not a Christian. He makes that point very clear in the very next verse. The Christian life is not a life of sinless perfection. It is a life of struggle within and without, with temptation and sin. It is a life in which we continue to need the forgiveness of God. He speaks about it in verse 7 too. But is your life bent in that direction? Is your desire to grow in grace? Do you long to be godly? Are you unhappy in your sin because you know that that sin is displeasing to God, and it fractures your fellowship with Him and with others? Is sin something that you cannot rest in, you cannot be satisfied in, but you long to please Him in the way you live? If so, your life is bent towards God.
But if being like God, if being Holy, if being separated out and committed to Him and to His people, even if it costs you in this life - if that’s not your concern, then John says, You’re contradicting your profession. John is asking us to search our lives and see whether our lives measure up to our profession. His catch phrase - if we wanted to give him a catch phrase here in verse 6 - would be, “Do the truth.” He’d say, don’t tell me that you believe the truth; do the truth! Now John’s not playing down the importance of believing the truth. What’s his gospel about but believing the truth? All through the gospel of John, what does he say to you? “Believe the truth, believe the gospel, believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and you shall be saved.” But here he says, don’t just tell me that you believe the truth; do the truth - practice the truth. John is saying, you are what you do. Your lives, he’s saying, your lives will reveal whether you really believe the truth that you claim to believe. Your lives will show if you really have fellowship with God. Your lives will show if you have real fellowship as brothers and sisters with fellow believers.
Illustration: Something More to Give (1 John 1:7) - When evangelist John Wesley (1703–1791) was returning home from a service one night, he was robbed. The thief, however, found his victim to have only a little money and some Christian literature.
As the bandit was leaving, Wesley called out, “Stop! I have something more to give you.” The surprised robber paused. “My friend,” said Wesley, “you may live to regret this sort of life. If you ever do, here’s something to remember: ‘The blood of Jesus Christ cleanses us from all sin!’” The thief hurried away, and Wesley prayed that his words might bear fruit.
Years later, Wesley was greeting people after a Sunday service when he was approached by a stranger. What a surprise to learn that this visitor, now a believer in Christ and a successful businessman, was the one who had robbed him years before! “I owe it all to you,” said the transformed man. “Oh no, my friend,” Wesley exclaimed, “not to me, but to the precious blood of Christ that cleanses us from all sin!”
John Wesley really did have something more to give the thief that night - the good news of salvation. And we have the same responsibility to share the gospel with those who cross our paths. (Henry G. Bosch, ODB)
Application: You answer the question for yourself. Do your actions, your faithfulness show you are a part of God's program or does it show that you are outside of it looking on? For you is worshipping the Lord a matter of service to others and obeying Him. This is what honors Him and gives us our purpose.
Jesus says if you are an onlooker … then you are not in fellowship with the Lord.
Over the years I have met many people who say they love God, but they do not live for Him or let Him direct their lives. They profess to have salvation, but there is no evidence of Christ's influence in their lives. Clearly they have not considered the Lord in the choices they make in their lives. They are not living for God, and are often in sin, yet the chasten hand of God is also not in their lives. God says he chastens his children, yet many who profess to be in the family of God live disobedient sinful lives and are not chasten. God says in Hebrews 12:8, that He does not chasten the Devil's children.
To keep spiritually fit, walk daily with Christ.
