Walking in the light
1 John 1:5-10
Prayer-
Introduction-
Good morning! The last few weeks we have looked at the eye witness accounts of Jesus.
Those people who have heard, seen and touched the hand of Jesus.
1 John 1:1-3
“That which is from the beginning, which we heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched- this we proclaim concerning the Word of life. The life appeared; we have seen it and testify to it, and we proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and has appeared to us. We proclaim to you what we have seen and heard, so that you may also have fellowship with us. And our fellowship is with the Father and His Son, Jesus Christ.”
We saw that God is love and that we cannot separate God and His love for us. It is His character. The witnesses proclaim these truths so that we could have fellowship with them as believers and fellowship with God the Father, and His Son Jesus Christ.
I want for a moment to look at the truth of us having fellowship with God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
Text this morning 1 John 1:5-1:10 Read from Bible
We saw God is love and now we see that God is light- we quickly grab the truth that if we are in a right relationship with God that we will be walking with Him and having fellowship with Him and having communication with Him.
For some that struggle that God seems far off, it could be because we are are not walking with Him but trying to have a relationship from a distance.
We see the contrast of light and darkness and we see sin and forgiveness.
We see that God is light/good/life and we see that darkness/evil/sin and death/self righteous
His Word tells us that if we do not walk in the light (Him) we are deceiving ourselves.
If we decide we do not need Him as our Savior, His Word (Final Authority) tells us that God is not in us. Not that He does not love us but that His Spirit does not dwell in us because we have not invited Him into our lives.
The word of God recorded by John the eyewitness says that if we are not willing to confess our sins (faults) (our wrongs to a Holy God) confess first to Him and be accountable to other believers for our actions than His word is not in us.
Old Testament animal blood sacrifices covered sin and the blood of Jesus Christ forgives sin- takes it away. Eliminates. “Jesus Christ who takes away the sins of the world.”
No Fellowship
No Spirit bearing witness to His Spirit
We are lying and deceiving ourselves. (Being Deceived)
There is a difference between walking in His light and avoiding and staying out of His light and doing your own thing.
Those that dwell in the darkness do not like when light is reflected into the room. It exposes whatever is in the room and makes others aware what has been happening. It makes hiding difficult.
God is light- in Him there is no darkness! That is God’s character- that is not our character until we let God change us.
Here is where we can truly see God grace and the need of a savior.
We see how good He is and how bad we are without God.
We see that without God we cannot be good at least by the standard that God sets. There are many people who believe they are not bad people, they don’t harm anyone purposefully. God doesn’t measure good by our standard, He measures by a Holy and perfect God that cannot tolerate sin and Jesus Christ is the atonement of sin that sets us free of sin and shame.
God does for us what we cannot do for ourselves!
The light of God is not in us until we invite Him into our lives.
Not many today want to talk about sin and not many today want to talk about a God that demands that our sin be addressed.
Not many today want to acknowledge a God that says “Follow me.”
God draws us to himself and we respond- that is the simple gospel. Jesus died on the cross and we are to follow the savior that shed his blood for us. Not an occasional relationship where our paths might cross should we need him, but we purposefully invite Him to be a part of our lives every day and walk with him and communicate with him.
Light cast out darkness.
We are changed by the light of God coming in and casting out darkness or sin and death in our lives.
“I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man comes to the Father except by me.”
What we were and how we acted is replaced by our choice a God that is allowed to clean house and send packing the selfish ways and be more the image of Christ.
That is harsh, that is direct, that is narrow-minded by today’s standards but it is still the truth of God.
All the way back to the first words of the Bible “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters. And God said, “let there be light.”
His light dispelled darkness.
The earth was void and in darkness until God shed His light on it and cast out the darkness.
It can never be pitch-dark as long as some light is there. Light transforms darkness even with a little light.
That gives me hope and that truth gets me up every morning.
That tells me that every one of us can make a difference with god’s Spirit dwelling within us and attacking the darkness.
He is Love and He is light…that is not our character without Him.
We are the opposite. In fact, out spirits are in conflict with Him until we come to His light.
Just like the movie from Robert Lewis Stevenson Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde there always seems to be a beast that must be conquered in us.
The conflict inside is our flesh (self) against what God desires to do in our lives. We do not go peacefully.
As Christians, we have to allow God to do what He desires and tame the flesh.
The flesh will try to convince us that what we want to do is okay even if it does not line up with God’s Word.
The flesh will rationalize that we are not too bad. Compare us to someone that is worse than ourselves.
Listen to the words of the apostle Paul as he battled his flesh
“I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. For I know that good itself does not dwell in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I do not carry it out. For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do-this I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.”
Don’t raise your hands,
How many struggle with that battle?
Battling conflict inside wither you will follow the Lord or follow your own desires.
It was easy before you came to Christ, you thought only of your own personal desires.
You may not have even realized that you were in darkness because it was the only thing you had known.
Then the Lord began working in your life and shared with you a savior that paid the price for sin and showed you that you were living in sin and the only way that you could have your sins forgiven was to accept what Jesus did on the cross.
Then all hell broke loose in your life…literally. You began to see what sin was in your life and the Lord began to convict you of them and desiring to get them out of your life.
Your head said yes and your body and mind did not agree quite as fast and the battle begins.
What do we do? How do we win those battles?
Determine to walk in the light
Walking in the light is to have fellowship with God on His terms not ours-
To walk in obedience-
Jesus said “Follow me” it is a mistake to think that saying a few words once or merely saying I surrender all will accomplish what the Lord wants.
That is the simple way of accepting Jesus- it is all about what Jesus did for you. But… if you are going to obey and follow it will take determination to follow him and surrender your life to Him.
He desires us to determine we will walk with Him. It is to say to the Lord that even at times when it is uncomfortable following Him that we will follow.
Those times that we struggle and stumble and get out of the light that we will quickly get back in the light.
Being in His light is allowing God to shed that light on us and give Him permission to change those things that He finds in our life that does not line up with His word and His ways.
God purifies as we walk with him. Cleansing is what He does and also what allows us to be obedient as we walk with Him.
Illustration-
Tommy Lasorda the former Los Angeles Dodgers manager describes his inner battle-He said,
I took a pack of cigarettes from my pocket…stared at them…who’s stronger…you or me…I stopped smoking.
I fixed a vodka Martini…who is stronger…you or me? I stopped drinking.
He looked at a big plate of linguine with claim sauce…who’s stronger…you or me? The little claim looked at me and said I am!
We all have things that we struggle with- We need to determine we will walk in the light and allow God to help us beat the struggles.
Quickly confess your sins
“If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.”
Confession gets us back on track- confessing our faults does not allow a barrier to be set up that makes it more comfortable to stay in the dark than come back into His light.
If we are not willing to confess our sins, we make God out to be a liar because we say we don’t need a savior.
By confessing, we are not letting God know something that He already didn’t know. We are surrendering the sin and wanting Him to eliminate the desire to do that sin again.
By confession we are not letting anything become more important than our relationship with God.
We do not have to teach a kid to sin, they are born with it and even as adults, we often get caught with our hands in the cookie jar.
Stand on God’s Word and His promises
Standing on the promises of God my Savior! Jesus is Truth and his Word is truth!
John 1:4-5
“In Him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.”
If we believe His truths, we will live His truths. We will stand on His promises and live it daily.
1 John 1:6-
“If we claim to have fellowship with Him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and not live out the truth.”
To continually walk in the darkness as a Christian is to not live as we have professed with our mouths.
We all stumble at times, but to continually live in darkness is to avoid the light and not allowing the light of God to change us.
The individual that receives God’s truth lives by His truth, worships in Spirit and truth, and is sanctified by the truth.
The truth of God will set you free.
Christ not only reveals truth- He is the truth.
If we believe it we live it.
“If you hold to my teachings you are really my disciple, then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”
Closing,
“Spirit is willing but the flesh is weak.”
We need to say an amen to this-
We will determine we will walk in the light.
We will quickly and honestly confess our sins before God so that He can help us overcome them.
We need to stand on the promises of God.
We need God’s help! Every day every minute of the day.
We are broken and we cannot fix ourselves.
We can be determined that we will walk in God light and His Spirit
Amen.
Prayer-
