The Power of Truth

I keep telling you guys that I was a good kid. I know it sounds like I’m trying to convince you, but the truth is that I know how hard it must be to believe.

So, let me tell you a story about me and my third-grade girlfriend, Donna Matthews.

We were students at a Christian school in Portsmouth, where corporal punishment was not just allowed, but encouraged by the parents.

And so, kids who got in trouble at school could expect to be spanked there. For me, that meant being spanked once I got home, too.

One day, our teacher, whose name I’ve forgotten by now, left the classroom to go to the office to make copies on the mimeograph machine. For you younger folks, that was a step or so up in technology from chisels and stone tablets.

Anyway, the teacher was gone for a while. And as kids of that age are prone to do in such circumstances, we all began to get loud and a little bit rowdy.

And as the minutes passed, we must have gotten VERY loud, because when our teacher got back into the classroom, she was pretty upset.

“Who was making all that noise?” she asked.

Well, we ALL had been making noise. And so, Donna and I raised our hands, along with everybody else.

Except that nobody but Donna and I actually raised their hands.

Everybody else just sat there with their little angelic faces, absolutely appalled at us for our poor behavior while our teacher was gone.

"Donna and Res, please go out into the hallway,” she said sternly.

And so, we went. Dead man walking.

But then something happened that blew my little 7-year-old mind.

The teacher came to the door, looked at us in the hallway, turned back to the rest of the class and said, “Because Donna and Res were honest, they won’t be punished.”

Then, she grabbed her wooden spoon and closed the door. And the punishments commenced.

As we listened to the bitter and anguished cries of our classmates, Donna and I learned an important lesson: The truth is powerful. And, as we experienced, the truth can set you free!

Now, as we continue our series, Walking in Truth and Love, we’re going to take a look today at the next six verses of 1 John, chapter 1.

You’ll recall that last week I said this message from the Apostle John gives us a recipe for fellowship with God and with other believers.

And you may remember that I said John compares and contrasts several concepts as he explores what’s necessary for us to have fellowship with God — as we share a growing and deepening relationship with Him and as we grow to share His values and His goals.

In today’s passage, we’ll see John compare and contrast Light and darkness, lies and truth.

We’re going to see him present three great truths for us. We’re going to see him describe three lies that are in opposition to those truths. And we’re going to see two corrective actions we must take to free ourselves from the bondage of those lies.

So, let’s read this passage together, and then we’ll walk through it verse by verse. We’ll pick up in verse 5.

1 John 1:5–10 NASB95

5 This is the message we have heard from Him and announce to you, that God is Light, and in Him there is no darkness at all. 6 If we say that we have fellowship with Him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth; 7 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. 8 If we say that we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves and the truth is not in us. 9 If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. 10 If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar and His word is not in us.

“This is the message we have heard from Him and announce to you,” John writes in verse 5.

This isn’t a message John and the other Apostles had come up with on their own. They’d heard it from Jesus Himself. And so, it came to John — and through him, to the recipients of this letter at the churches in Asia Minor — with the authority of God.

And the reason this was important for John to say right off the bat is that these churches were already hearing from false teachers. People who came to their churches and spoke on their OWN authority, rather than on God’s authority.

During the time John wrote this letter, there was a group of people calling themselves Christians, who were known as the Nicolaitans.

This group is referred to in Rev 2:15, in Jesus Christ’s letter to the church of Pergamum. In fact, that reference that has led many to believe that this letter — along with 2 John and, perhaps, 1 John — were sent originally to the Pergamum church.

The Nicolaitans were a heretical sect that believed Christians, saved by God’s grace and through faith in Jesus, are no longer bound to follow God’s moral laws.

They believed it was OK for a Christian to participate in any immoral behavior, because they were already saved.

This is still an incredibly popular belief system in Western Christianity.

Frankly, it’s the way I lived my own life from the time I made a profession of faith at the age of 7 until I was truly saved at the age of 37.

The Nicolaitans were already an influence among the Christians of Asia Minor when John wrote this message. And it’s believed that each of the lies I’ll point out in this passage was something they were teaching.

So, John, wanting to make sure these churches would not only recognize the lies, but also KNOW the truth, takes a moment to remind them that what he was writing came with God’s authority.

And, because the truth is powerful, he starts this part of his message with one of the truths he wants them to know: “God is light, and in Him there is no darkness at all.”

So, what does it mean that God is light?

Well, it means at least two things — that He reveals and that He purifies.

If you walk into a dark room and don’t want to stub your toe, what do you do? You turn on the light so you can see where you’re going. The light reveals the obstacles that might be in your way, the things that might injure you.

Similarly, the light of God reveals to us the dangers of sin around us. Through prayer and the study of His Word, God shows us the things around us that can injure our fellowship with Him.

But God’s light also purifies. Have you ever heard the saying, “sunlight is the best disinfectant”?

This saying was coined by Louis Brandeis, a U.S. Supreme Court Justice during the early part of the 20th century. When he wrote about this in Harper’s Weekly in 1913, Brandeis was talking about transparency in government.

But it turns out that the ultraviolet light in sunshine IS a good disinfectant. It kills a wide range of bacteria and viruses and serves as one of nature’s great purifying agents.

Similarly, the Light of God — and here, you should be thinking about both God’s Word and His Holy Spirit — is what purifies believers from sin in their lives.

As we pursue deeper fellowship with God, His Word and His Spirit reveal sin in our lives, and — to the extent that we WALK in His light — they purify us from it.

And God’s light isn’t mixed with darkness. There is no darkness within Him at all, so when we are in perfect fellowship with Him, we will be perfected.

That’s what’ll happen to each of us who follows Jesus in faith when we get to heaven. There, in perfect fellowship with Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, we will finally have the experience of life without darkness, life without sin.

So, the truth John presents here is that God is light. But the Nicolaitans were saying that we can have fellowship with God while walking in darkness.

That’s what we see in verse 6:

1 John 1:6 NASB95

6 If we say that we have fellowship with Him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth;

Remember that fellowship is sharing things in common with one another. And I want you to understand that the Greek word translated as “walk” here means “to make one’s way” or “to live in.”

The idea behind “walking” in this letter is to make something your way of life.

John wrote this message to believers, and so he’s not talking here about people who are still in the darkness of unbelief. He’s talking about people who have been exposed to the Light of God by His grace and through faith in Jesus.

He’s writing to people who have a relationship with God to encourage them to pursue and have fellowship with God.

But the sad fact is that even those who have a relationship with God through faith in Jesus Christ can be out of fellowship with Him because of their sins. And the even sadder thing is that so many people who profess to follow Jesus are content living out of fellowship with Him.

After all, the abundant life He said He came to give us can be had ONLY in fellowship with Him. Otherwise, we’re just living amidst the brokenness, waiting for death and resurrection.

If there’s no darkness at all in God, and we are walking in darkness, how can we have things in common with Him? How can we claim to be in fellowship with Him?

John says here that if we’re claim to be in fellowship with God, but we make our way in darkness — in other words, in sin — then we’re lying about our fellowship with God.

We’re not practicing the truth. In other words, we’re not living the truth.

When we who have followed Jesus in faith live like those who are still in darkness — when we live like we’re still lost — we fail to live out the truth of our salvation.

We fail to show the presence within us of the Spirit of Truth, the Holy Spirit, whose purpose is always to point to Jesus — the Way, the Truth, and the Life.

If we are walking in darkness, we might have a relationship with God in Jesus, but we’re not in fellowship with Him, because darkness can’t mix with light.

So, the truth here is that God is light. And the lie is that we can walk in darkness — in sin — and still have fellowship with God.

Verse 7 gives us the corrective that rescues us from bondage to the lie: Walk in the Light.

Zane Hodges, a Bible commentator, wrote that “to walk in the light must mean essentially to live in God’s presence, exposed to what He has revealed about Himself. This, of course, is done through openness in prayer and through openness to the Word of God in which He is revealed. By contrast, to ‘walk in darkness’ is to hide from God and to refuse to acknowledge what we know about Him.” [“The First Epistle of John.” In The Grace New Testament Commentary, 2:1191–1229. Edited by Robert N. Wilkin. 2 vols. Denton, Tex.: Grace Evangelical Society, 2010, 60-61.]

Does walking in the Light mean that believers will never again sin? I don’t think so. And this verse gives me two reasons to believe I’m right.

First, John didn’t say that we must walk ACCORDING to or in consistency with the Light.

The Greek word from which we get “according to” was normally the choice when an author wanted to convey the idea of one thing being perfectly consistent with another. But that’s not the word John chose here under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.

And second, look at that clause at the end of the verse — “and the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sin.” This only really fits here if John has in mind that even we who walk in the Light will still commit sin from time to time.

What he’s telling us is that Jesus’ sacrificial death for us and in our place paid the price in full for all past, present, and future sins of those who place their faith in Him.

We need to walk in the Light to have true fellowship with God and with one another.

But even when we step out of the Light and commit some sin of commission, omission, or thought, Jesus — in His death, burial, and resurrection — has already paid the price for ALL our transgressions.

Which leads us to the second lie being told by the Nicolaitans: that we who follow Jesus in faith don’t still have sin within us.

If we believe that lie, John says in verse 8, we’re deceiving OURSELVES, and the truth isn’t in us.

Instead of being controlled and having our behavior influenced by God’s Word and what He says about us there, we’re fooling ourselves into thinking we’re better or more holy or more righteous than we really are.

The only way to believe such a thing about yourself is to redefine for yourself what sin is. In other words, to disagree with God about what your sins are. To judge yourself innocent of what He calls sin.

I find it interesting that near the end of his long ministry — after he’d been on three missionary journeys that we know of and had planted and ministered to churches throughout Greece and Asia Minor and even into Europe — after he’d suffered persecution for the gospel — after he’d brought thousands of people to Jesus — Paul called himself the chief of sinners.

In Paul’s life, there was no room for sanctimony, because he recognized himself for who he was: a sinner saved by grace, but still a sinner. Paul wasn’t deceiving himself.

So, the second truth is that walking in the Light is necessary for us to be in fellowship with God. And the second lie is that we’re not guilty when we sin.

And verse 9 gives us the corrective to free us from bondage to that lie: Confess your sins.

The Greek word that’s translated as “confess” in Scripture means “to say the same thing.”

In confessing our sins, we are agreeing with God about what He has said about us — that we are sinners. That our hearts are deceitful and desperately wicked.

This also means that we are agreeing with God that the sinful things we do, say, or think ARE sins. “That that they are indeed sins, offenses against Him, and not just mistakes, blunders, or errors.” [Tom Constable, Tom Constable’s Expository Notes on the Bible (Galaxie Software, 2003), 1 Jn 1:9.]

The issue here isn’t salvation. Remember that John wrote this message to believers, people who no longer faced God’s condemnation because of their sins.

The issue is the one that’s the theme of this whole letter: fellowship with God.

The moment we place our faith in Jesus Christ, the condemnation we deserve for our past, present, and future sins is taken away. That price was paid in full by Jesus at the cross. He bore our condemnation so that we would not have to.

What’s at issue here is fellowship. We can’t have fellowship with God while we walk in darkness, while we have unconfessed sin.

And so, we must keep short accounts. Don’t wait until Sunday to confess your sins to God. Don’t even wait until bedtime.

When you realize you have sinned, confess it THEN. Put yourself in agreement with God that very moment that you have committed an offense against Him.

Resolve yourself then and there to turn from that sinful behavior. And submit yourself to the Holy Spirit, who will enable you to run from the temptations that once enticed you.

And don’t miss the promises from verse 9. When we confess our sins, God will forgive us for the sins and “cleanse us from ALL unrighteousness.”

Keep short accounts with God regarding the things you recognize as sin, and He will begin to reveal to you the sins in your life that you never noticed before.

As you participate in your own sanctification, God will be working through the Holy Spirit to bring ALL your unrighteousness into His light.

He’ll be working to purify you, even in ways you didn’t realize you were impure. All so you can be more like Jesus, who is completely pure.

So, the truth here is that confessing our sins is necessary for us to restore our fellowship with God. And the lie that John warns about in verse 10 is the worst of the three he presents in this passage.

The lie is that we haven’t sinned. This is the worst of the three lies, because it makes GOD out to be a liar. It denies what He has told us in His word — that ALL have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.

This lie says that our sins aren’t really sins. In believing this lie, we we are taking the authority to proclaim good or evil for ourselves.

That’s just what Adam and Eve did in the Garden of Eden, when they ate from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.

They wanted to decide for themselves what was good and what was evil. But only God has the authority to do this.

Since only God is perfectly righteous and holy, only He has the understanding necessary to define good and evil with unfailing accuracy.

Our culture wants to tell us that right and wrong are relative concepts. Be true to yourself, they say. Speak your own truth.

But the problem there is that, without some standard for right and wrong, there is no basis for declaring ANYTHING to be out of bounds.

Culturally speaking, there was nothing wrong with Vikings murdering and raping the inhabitants of the towns they raided.

Culturally speaking, there was nothing wrong with the genocides of Africa. Culturally speaking, there was nothing wrong with American slavery.

Each of those cultures in those times saw nothing wrong with subjugating or even murdering the weak.

The same thing is largely true in our own culture today in regards to abortion. Those without a voice are murdered by those who wish to live their lives unfettered by new responsibilities.

Only when we look to the standards set by God in His Word do we find a firm and truly objective standard for moral behavior.

Love God with all your heart, soul, and mind. And love your neighbor as yourself. If THIS were the standard the world lived by, we’d never have had these atrocities.

But from the time of Adam and Eve, we’ve wanted to define good and evil for ourselves.

And this is at the bottom of the spiral of lies that John warns about in this passage.

If we say we have fellowship with God but live as though we’re still sinners, we’re lying. If we have a relationship with God in Jesus and say we no longer have sin within us, we’re deceiving ourselves. And if we say we haven’t sinned, we’re calling God a liar.

So, John has given us three truths, and he’s warned us about three lies, each one worse than the other. And he’s given us two corrective actions to counter the first two lies.

But he doesn’t give a corrective action for the last of the lies. And that’s because there IS no corrective action for this lie.

The fact that we are all sinners is a foundational statement of faith that speaks of our total depravity. We are spiritually bankrupt without Jesus. We are lost in our sin without Him.

And we cannot come to saving faith in Him until we recognize and admit our lostness. Before we can be saved from the penalty we owe for our sins against God, we must first admit that we ARE sinners.

That’s the bad news. But the good news is that Christ Jesus died for sinners. God Himself, in the person of His sinless Son, took upon Himself the punishment that each one of us deserves for our rebellion against Him.

The innocent died for the guilty. He who knew no sin became sin so that we might become the righteousness of Christ in Him!

So that we might have eternal life — everlasting fellowship with Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, the way it was always meant to be.

Have you been set free from the lies? You can be today. But you've got to acknowledge the bad news AND the good news.

Truth is powerful. And the Truth WILL set you free.

If you’re looking for freedom today, I can help. If you would like to be set free from any of these lies, come and see me during this next song or after the service, and let’s talk about truth.

[Acknowledgement is due to Tom Constable for his chart comparing the truths and lies of 1 John 1:5-10, which formed the basis for the outline of this message. Constable, Tom. Tom Constable’s Expository Notes on the Bible. Galaxie Software, 2003.]