1 John 1:5-10

Introduction

Last week we looked at verses 1-4 of 1 John 1. Gnosticism had began to creep into churches in Johns day, so a lot of this book was written to destroy the heresy with an eye witness account of Jesus’ life, death and resurrection.

In the first 4 verses he puts the Gnosticism heresy to rest with an eye witness account of what Jesus did here on earth.

This morning we are going to look at the though “walk in the light”

Verse 5

This then is the message we have heard of him, and declare unto you

The message that John was going to declare came straight from Jesus.

We will see John declare “the message” again in 1 John 3:11 “For this is the message that ye heard from the beginning, that we should love one another.”

The message that John was about to declare wasn’t going to be a popular message, but it was a much needed message.

We need the same message today!

That God is light

The first message that John declares unto them is that God is light.

Every person of the Godhead is light

1 Timothy 6:16 “Who only hath immortality, dwelling in the light which no man can approach unto; whom no man hath seen, nor can see: to whom be honour and power everlasting. Amen.”

Henry Morris said this “ God is light and dwells in light, so he did not have to “create” light, but simply say, Light, be. He did create darkness as the initial state of the unformed and uninhabited earth. When light appeared to disperse the darkness it could thereby become a model of the shining of the spiritual light born in the darkness of innate sin.”

2 Corinthians 4:6 “For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.”

Physically God is the light of shining glory; intellectually he is the light of truth; and morally he is the light of holiness.

Jesus is the light of life

John 1:4 “In him was life; and the life was the light of men.”

He is also the light of true guidance

John 8:12 “Then spake Jesus again unto them, saying, I am the light of the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life.”

And in Him is no darkness at all

Darkness is defined as the absence of light

There can be no darkness in the presence of light and God is light so it is impossible to have darkness if you are light.

Think about if we were to turn off all the lights in the church, black out all the windows and made it pitch black in here, and then we lit a single candle, immediately the darkness would be gone. That is God in our life. Before we get saved we are full of darkness and their is no light in us but then like 2 Cor. 4:6 says, his light shines in our hearts to give us light.

Matthew 5:14 “Ye are the light of the world. A city that is set on an hill cannot be hid.”

Verse 5 tells us that God is light and because of that there can be no darkness in him at all

Verse 6

If we say we have fellowship with him, and walk in darkness, we lie

As believers we should have fellowship with God

Fellowship here means “Communion; intimate familiarity”

It is impossible to have fellowship with light, if we are walking in darkness.

We cannot have it both ways. We must choose fellowship with God or walking in darkness.

When we get saved we should start walking in the light.

Do not the truth

This is saying that we don’t practice the truth.

Notice that the truth is something we should believe and teach, but also something we should do.

Verse 6 tells us that if we say we have communion with God but walk in darkness we are lying and we do not practice truth.

Verse 7

But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another

Notice the conjunction in verse 7, it ties verse 6 to verse 7

The key thought of verse 6 is this “If we do not walk in the light we do not have fellowship with God, it’s impossible.”

The we see what we get if we walk in the light, but first lets look at what it means to walk in the light.

one commentary put it like this “ to walk in the light means that our lives will be transparent and above reproach. We will harbor nothing shady, nothing we would not want to be seen or known, for light exposes the hidden works of darkness.

If we walk in the light, we have fellowship with one another.

That is, we are in fellowship with the Lord and therefore also with other believers who are in fellowship with him.

Have you ever noticed how easy it is to have fellowship with other likeminded believers? It’s because the light unites us.

As john is penning these words I’m sure he is thinking about when Jesus was talking about how men are lovers of darkness rather than light

John 3:19 “And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.”

Men love darkness, because darkness hides sin, and light exposes sin

Think about security lights on your house, why do you have those? to light up the darkness and deter people from breaking in or stealing things

We should embrace the light and walk in the light so that our fellowship with each other might be unbroken.

And the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin

John switches gears here, he goes from talking about light which exposes sin to the blood of Jesus that cleanses sin.

What an amazing thing God did for us when He sent his only begotten Son to shed his blood on the cross for us.

In the Old Testament, they would sacrifice lambs, bulls, goats and all other kinds of animals to defer the payment of sin another year, but God sent his Son Jesus Christ, to be the final sacrifice and the propitiation for our sin!

Isaac Watts in his Hymn entitled faith in christ our sacrifice penned these words on this thought

Not all the blood of beasts on Jewish altars slain could give the guilty conscience peace or wash away the stain.

But Christ, the heav'nly Lamb, takes all our sins away; a Sacrifice of nobler name and richer blood than they.

My soul looks back to see the burden Thou didst bear when hanging on the cursed tree; I know my guilt was there.

Believing, we rejoice to see the curse remove; we bless the Lamb with cheerful voice and sing His bleeding love.

John Phillips said this “The shed blood of the passover lamb, and of the goat on the day of atonement, and of the red heifer in the wilderness were pictorial and prophetical enactments of calvary. It is the blood of Jesus Christ, God’s Son, that cleanses from all sin.”

I’m thankful for the word all

all in the Bible always means all

When we accept Christ, His blood cleanses us from all sin.

The word cleanseth here means “To purify from guilt”

He has literally taken away my guilt and replaced it with his shed blood

Hallelujah, what a Saviour

Verse 8

If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves,

if we think we have no sin we have deceived ourselves, we have believed a lie

The word deceive here means “To mislead the mind; to cause to err; to cause to believe what is false, or disbelieve what is true; to impose on; to delude.”

We are delusional if we truly believe we have never sinned

Romans 3:23 “For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God;”

When we measure ourselves against the holiness God expects, we will see how far we are from the standard, and we will see our need for a saviour.

and the truth is not in us.

If we believe we haven’t sinned the truth isn’t in us

Truth is important, we might live in a society that thinks truth is relative, but here John gives us two truths that we need to take heed too

we can’t walk in the light and have fellowship with darkness

all of us have sinned

Verse 9

If we confess our sins,

Here we find two promises if we confess our sins

Confess “To own, acknowledge or avow, as a crime, a fault, a charge, a debt, or something that is against one's interest, or reputation.”

1. he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins,

a. Forgive “To pardon; to remit, as an offense or debt; to overlook an offense, and treat the offender as not guilty.”

2. and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”

a. Cleanse - To purify from

b. Unrighteousness - Injustice; a violation of the divine law

Verse 10

If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.

If we say we haven’t sinned we make God a liar, but it goes against the very nature of God to lie so we would be the liar.

If we say we haven’t sinned, Gods word is not us

John 17:17 “Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth.”

Conclusion

As believers we should be lovers of light and lovers of truth. God is both of these things and he loved us so much he sent his son to shed his blood for us and he cleansed us from all unrighteousness