INTRODUCTION
• SLIDE #1
• How many of us were afraid of the dark when we were little? How many of you still are?
• In interview, Stephen King, horror author, was asked about daily writing routine. Said only wrote in morning. When asked if ever wrote at night, replied, "Are you kidding? Not with the stuff I write!" Apparently even he knows the power of darkness. (Lanny Carpenter Sermon on 1 John from sermoncentral.com)
• Have you ever watched a scary movie at night, and as you were watching the movie something happened to make you jump out of your skin!
• Have you ever walked through a dark room and tripped over something we did not see?
• I have done that before, it is both frustrating and painful.
• Could you have avoided the problem if you simply turned on the light?
• Think about your life for a moment. How many times have we tripped over something in our lives because we were walking alone in the dark?
• In our spiritual lives could we have avoided tripping over some obstacle that caused us to stumble simply by shining the light of Jesus upon it?
• During John’s time there was a wide range of belief’s concerning how one should life in Christ.
• One of the false views John deals with in this letter is that moral behavior has no impact on one’s relationship with God.
• Another false view is that immoral conduct is not sin for the one who knows God.
• The final one is that knowledge of God removes sin as even a possibility in the life of the Christian.
• It is interesting to me that we still have these same thoughts floating around us today. WE may say them a bit different, but the practice is the same.
• There people who when they give their lives to Jesus make no effort to grow because they feel the one-time act of submission covers them no matter what they do.
• Last week we looked at how John was a reliable witness to Jesus and therefore can be trusted.
• Today we are going to look at his message!
• We have a choice in life, do we walk in the light of Jesus, or do we allow ourselves to walk in darkness? Today we are going to see why we should make the conscious choice to walk in the light of Jesus.
• Let us begin with verse 5.
• SLIDE #2
• 1 John 1:5 (HCSB) Now this is the message we have heard from Him and declare to you: God is light, and there is absolutely no darkness in Him.
• SLIDE #3
Let us walk in the light because…
SERMON
I. God is light.
• What is light?
• Light enables people to do their work. It produces growth in crops; it reveals beauty and provides safety. Light represents what is good, pure, true, holy, and reliable. Light reveals; light shines.
• Light also relates to truth because light exposes whatever exists, whether it is good or bad. In the dark, good and evil look alike; in the light, they can be clearly distinguished.
• If you want to see where you are going, we will walk in the light.
• In the Bible, light represents what is good. It represents enlightenment. When we are in the light, we are wise to what is before us, nothing is hidden.
• God is light!
• God is light means that God is perfectly holy and true and that he alone can guide people out of the darkness of sin.
• God is of the character of light, it sums up the divine character on the intellectual side of God. God is love sums up His moral nature.
• God is the creator of light (Gen 1:3).
• Where ever God is, the light of His truth shines brightly, the light of His purity and Holiness shines brightly.
• John does not say God is A light, but God IS light.
• What is darkness?
• In the Bible, darkness is used to represent ignorance, superstitions, and sin. If you are in darkness, you are in one of these areas.
• To my knowledge, any measure of darkness is actually a measure an absence of light. This is like measuring cold, we measure cold by measuring the absence of heat. We measure silence by the absence of noise.
• SLIDE #4
• Psalm 82:5 (HCSB) They do not know or understand; they wander in darkness. All the foundations of the earth are shaken.
• A measure of ignorance is a measure of lack of knowledge.
• Satan and his servants are the rulers of the dark. Eph 6:12
• SLIDE #5
• Ephesians 6:12 (HCSB) For our battle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the world powers of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavens.
• The heathen deities promoted immorality much of which took place during the dark of night.
• How do you feel when you have to walk around in the dark? It is hard to see things that are in your path. Have you ever sat in a class where you had no idea what was being taught? We would say that we are in the dark.
• Being in the dark is not something that you want to do.
• There is no darkness in God at all.
• When you see that darkness represents ignorance and sin, John emphatically states that God IS light. This means there is no darkness in God. This means there is not one spot of sin in God, there is not one spot of ignorance in God.
• God is perfectly Holy and perfectly just.
• God has NOTHING in common with the dark!
• Ignorance is the absence of knowledge, immorality is the absence of good.
• There are growing segments of our society who want to eliminate God.
• When we remove the light of God from the world, do you really think people will be happy with the results.
• Be careful what you wish for.
• Next let us look at verse 6
• SLIDE #6
• 1 John 1:6 (HCSB) If we say, “We have fellowship with Him,” yet we walk in darkness, we are lying and are not practicing the truth.
• SLIDE #7
• Let us walk in the light because…
II. Christians are called not to walk in the darkness.
• If God has no darkness in Him, neither should we.
• SLIDE #8
• Colossians 1:13 (HCSB) He has rescued us from the domain of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of the Son He loves.
• For the Christian to walk in darkness would be like a person who has been saved from a burning building to decide they are going to run right back in the burning building to stay.
• We have been rescued from the darkness of sin and ignorance, why would we want any part of it?
• There are too many of us who are trying to walk in the light yet still stay in the dark. We need to realize that our God is pure and holy, therefore we are called to be the same way.
• SLIDE #9
• 1 Peter 1:16 (HCSB) for it is written, Be holy, because I am holy.
• We need to avoid every APPEARANCE of evil in our lives.
• I believe a lot of the problems we have in our lives come about because we are trying to walk too close to the line of sin, we walk too close to the edge of the cliff, trying to do as much as we can without sinning.
• Why not stay as far away from the edge as possible?
• Our walk should match our talk.
• If we say, “We have fellowship with Him
• To claim to belong to God but then to go out and live in sin is hypocritical.
• Here John was confronting the first of three claims (see also 1:8 and 1:10) of the false teachers: that people can have fellowship with God and still walk in sin.
• John uses some very strong words to describe the one who claims fellowship yet walks in the dark.
• Remember that fellowship means, “a partnership, joint participation.
• Since there is no darkness in God at all, what partnership can we have with Him if we walk in darkness?
• Once again, there is a difference with struggling with your faith and walking in darkness. What John is speaking of here is people who habitually walk in darkness.
• There are times as we struggle with our faith, as we are growing in Christ that we will walk down a few dark alleys.
• SLIDE #10
• Ephesians 5:8 (HCSB) For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light —
• Truth properly held always exhibits itself in obedience.
• A test of truth is not merely belief; it is action, deeds and conduct.
• SLIDE #11
• 1 Peter 2:9 (HCSB) But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for His possession, so that you may proclaim the praises of the One who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light.
• Let’s turn to verse 7
• SLIDE #12
• 1 John 1:7 (HCSB) But if we walk in the light as He Himself is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sin.
• SLIDE #13
• Let us walk in the light because…
III. The blessings of walking in the light.
• We will have continual fellowship with other Christians and with Jesus.
• The verb tense of “walk” means to KEEP walking in the light and we will have CONTINUAL fellowship with God.
• Our fellowship is conditional; it is conditioned on us habitually, continually walking in the light.
• I do not want to infer that at every stumble we experience we are in and out of fellowship with God, but that if we are not habitually walking with God, there should be some room for concern on our part.
• When you think about it, this makes sense.
• Since God is light and there is no darkness in Him, He cannot have me bringing darkness to Him because I refuse to walk in the light.
• If my agenda and focus on life is not the same as God’s, what do we have in common? Me wanting to go to heaven is not enough to tie us together.
• As I stated before, we all walk down some dark alleys at times, but that is where God’s grace shine upon us.
• If the element of our daily walk is the same as God’s, we have fellowship with one another.
• A positive test of knowing God is to live as to walk in the light.
• When we walk in the light, we have fellowship with God and His people!
• The blood of Jesus continually cleanses us from ALL sin.
• and the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sin.
• By walking in the light we have two things that result, first, we are in fellowship with Jesus and others, secondly, the blood of Jesus CONTINUALLY cleanses us from ALL sin!
• Cleanse is a present tense verb which means it is a constant process. It is conditioned on our walking in the light.
• As we walk in the light, the blood of Jesus operates to keep us constantly cleansed from the stain of sin and the condemnation which follows.
• The reason we have fellowship is because of the blood of Jesus.
• The great thing about the blood of Jesus is that it cleanses us from ALL sin; there is no uncovered sin with Jesus.
• The vehicle of our cleansing is the blood. It is not belief in the blood, the example of Jesus death, nor is it mere contemplation about Jesus death; it is the blood that washes away my sin!
• Only those who have been cleansed of their sins will be able to see God.
• Can I come into God’s house full of darkness? Can I live my life without the cleansing blood of Jesus then expect God to let me in?
• Since the blood of Jesus cleanses us from sin, and only the blood of Jesus, then how can I be cleansed from my sin without the blood?
• This is why Jesus can say He is the only way to God, the only way to get to heaven.
• No matter how good a person is, they are still stained with sin, it takes the blood of Jesus to cleanse us from that sin!
CONCLUSION
• John’s message is a message of encouragement, He is encouraging us to walk in the light.
• I want to challenge you to look for dark spots in your life, look for some of the dark alleys you have been wandering in and decide you will no longer walk those paths.
• We called to be in fellowship with Jesus.
• Our life should be about what He wants us to do, what His mission and calling is for our lives.
• Today if you are walking alone in the dark, there is a savoir who wants to light your path and light your life.
• Will you come in from the dark and step into the light this morning
