1st John -- 1 John 2:7-11

Intro -

What a week! All this snow has really thrown off so many things this week and has disrupted so much.

But during this week my kids heard some of their favorite words… SNOW DAY! They were pumped this week to hear no School after just having 2 full weeks off of school. They just looked forward to more days of chilling at home and enjoying hanging out.

As much as a break is nice, I’m always glad to get back to normal rhythms & patterns if it’s possible.

So no matter how crazy your week has been I’m glad you are here to keep this time as a habit, or rhythm of your week.

Last week Dave shared that in the Book of 1 John there would be a few truths shared over and over. We should keep a good lookout for these Truths.

Right Belief

Right Obedience

Right love for Others

It’s as we read through 1 John that we see the truth pointed out quite a few times and it causes us to evaluate our own lives to see are these things that I have? Do my beliefs line up with God’s word? Do I live out, in action, the Right beliefs that stand firm on God’s word. And is my Love for others a part of my actions that stem from my right belief? Once we evaluate these things, and probably regularly, we can see if we better are living out this message we’ve heard from the beginning which we are all to be proclaiming!

Pray

This week we will continue in 1 John chapter 1 looking at verses 5-10. (If you have your Bible or app with you)

This section moves from knowing the truth of God and who Jesus is, to our relationship with this God when we come before Him and do our best to follow him

Fellowship — Fellowship is so much more than just hanging out, or being around others. It’s not just watching a movie next to someone, there is more depth of relationship when we have fellowship together. Fellowship is a Deep sharing of things in common or participation with, it having Communion. This is a partnership like marriage. It’s very close relationship, one that is meant to be taken seriously.

How do we have Fellowship (close relationship) and participation with a Holy God when we are far from holy. But we have this beautiful moment When Sin Meets Forgiveness.

The First thing we see as we start to read through this week from 1 John 1:5-10 is that God is Light

God is Light

1 John 1:5 (ESV)

5 This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all.

The Message we learned last week, was about the importance of Jesus, and that Christianity rests on the Person, life, death, and resurrection of Jesus!

This Message of what God has done to save us, this message (Gospel = Good News) we then are supposed to proclaim. We are to be the Herald of Good News.

Herald — Not a term we use often. But was my college Mascot while in Bible College. But a Herald is the person who comes and brings the message of the king. I imagine the guy that comes around and yells, “Hear ye, hear ye!” Then gives the message from God as they proclaim this news from the King!

We might not have that so much any more, but maybe when we have a news alert hit our phones, and simultaneously all of our phones go off and tell us of big news… if that were to happen here and now, we would all just silence our phones because we are studying God’s word! We would want to check it immediately because we know it must be important information… maybe about not parking your car on the street during a snow emergency or something like that! More often news that comes out like this is Life Changing information!

The News we proclaim is even greater than that.

The Message starts that God is “Light” — There is significance in light! Light allows us to see (even to see these things that are Right and True) We need light to be able to see…

Earlier this week, I got home just after the kids were in bed, and I went to go give them a hug and just a moment before I took a step into 1 bedroom, I stopped. I remembered that over Christmas break, there had been some gifts played with and were spread over the whole floor. I heard a voice… yeah you might want to just turn the light on… This was so I didn’t step on LEGO that was covering nearly every square inch of the floor! In this moment I was very grateful for light as to not have that painful experience… again…

We can be so thankful for light that shines and gives wisdom and knowledge of what is to come. so that we don’t fall into darkness,

Light, especially as it pertains to God, represents Holiness, perfection, and having no blemish! So as we look to who God is we see him as absolute perfection.

We can be really skeptical of people and no matter how great someone is, we can think there is more behind the scenes and flaws that no one knows about BUT NOT WITH GOD! He is absolute perfection, flawless.

John the writer of this book also wrote the Gospel of John and tells us there other times about this light as well!

John 1:1–4 (ESV)

1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was in the beginning with God. 3 All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. 4 In him was life, and the life was the light of men.

Jesus is the “Word” and it’s told that He is with God and that God and Jesus are ONE. Looking at verse 4 Jesus is life and and Light of Men. Jesus brings light to us and shines for us.

John 8:12 (ESV)

12 Again Jesus spoke to them, saying, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”

Jesus is the Light of the world, and in our following of Jesus, if we Truly and Rightly follow after Jesus we will not walk in darkness, because Jesus is light and light dispels darkness.

John 12:35–36 (ESV)

35 So Jesus said to them, “The light is among you for a little while longer. Walk while you have the light, lest darkness overtake you. The one who walks in the darkness does not know where he is going. 36 While you have the light, believe in the light, that you may become sons of light.”

Jesus again tells us that when we are with Jesus (the Light) then we will not be in darkness and the darkness can’t overtake us because we keep ourselves near Jesus (the light). Once we believe in the light, we may become sons (children) of light.

What’s cool about this verse is that we are invited to walk with the light into this fellowship we’ve talked about and then we may become children of light.

Children of Light — Like it or not, our children tend to look, and act like the parents. The Good and the Bad! But that can be a beautiful thing when we raise our children well, they see us following after Jesus and our kids grow up to do the same because they see it in us. Then they grow up and go out and live their life in light of what they have seen.

We as Children of light do the same. The idea here is that we’ve seen and come to know Jesus, the light, and because of his influence in our life, we live as an extension of Him. We live as light to the world around us.

As we continue forward, this brings us to a bit of an impasse. We are supposed to live as Children of the Light but when we said that God as Light is Holy and perfect and blameless. It doesn’t take me long to realize I am not blameless, or perfect, and Holy.

As we are called to be children of Light we wonder what should that look like, what are we supposed to do and how are we to live? Thats what these next sections look at is how we can live as Children of the Light. First of all.

Walk in the Light - 6-7

As we look at verses 6-10 take note that John shows lots of contrasts in these verses. He will make a statement one way, then show the flip side of the same statement. And all of these start with a very crucial word, a word that leaves it all in our hands… IF. If is conditional. If you do A then C is the result, But if you choose B, then D will be the result!

So as we read these, evaluate what you have chosen so far and what would happen if you changed your decisions to better walk as a Child of the Light.

1 John 1:6–7 (ESV)

6 If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. 7 But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin.

If we claim to walk with God and have this close relationship yet we walk in darkness, (darkness being living a life with sin), we make sin a regular part of our lives it’s a habitual lifestyle. We can’t have fellowship with God and make sin a practice of ours.

When we are to join in this fellowship with Christ we are told that we have to surrender our lives and live for Him. We take Jesus as our Savior (Saves us from the consequences of our sins) yet he’s also our Lord (the one in charge and giving instruction and direction)

So if we claim to have Fellowship with Christ and hold on to old sins, and refuse to give up our favored sins (whatever that is, you can categorize the sin of choice and think it’s not as bad as this other sin _____ or as bad as this other person _______ but the truth is, you are judged by your own life, not on a curve for those around you!

So to say you have fellowship with God and walk in darkness is like this. You’ve made the New Years Resolution to Eat Healthy and Work out Weekly! You even get a trainer to get you on track… This week you go in and tell your trainer how well you are doing and you tell them this morning you only had a few cranberries, an apple, and a couple almonds! Yet you seem to have powder sugar on your face from a donut! But you swear, just the cranberries, apple and almonds. You no only lie to your trainer, but you lie to yourself.

The Truth, is not in you! You can’t pull one over on your trainer and the scale they use, and you surely can’t pull one over on God either.

We can frame sin however we’d like, we can rename it, try to normalize it, and make our sin more acceptable for ourselves and to those who see us. Call a Skunk what you want, but it still stinks!

FLIP SIDE — If we stick to our habitual lifestyle of walking in the light, just as Jesus asks us to… 2 things happen

1) It says that we have fellowship with One Another - Strange to me, as I would think it would give me fellowship with God & Jesus, not one another. But it does draw us close to God as we walk as a true Child of Light and in His image but it draws you and I closer to each other because individually we each reflect Jesus light more accurately so as we look more like Him, we look like each other more and more too as we both walk close with God! So this closeness we have with each other becomes a sign that we are walking well with God.

2) Jesus blood cleanses us of our sin - Jesus blood, his sacrifice covers our sins, even in our best attempts at walking with Jesus we still sin.

Jesus blood cleanses us from our past sins, current, sins and is powerful enough to even cover our future sins. But do we then live in a way that says… I don’t have to care, I can go ahead and sin because it will be covered!? BY NO MEANS! That’s exactly what these verses are trying to go agains. Do not claim fellowship with God but just willingly continue to live in darkness!

So what happens when we come to this place when we realize that God as light is pure holiness and we want to walk in light with him yet, we are sinful. This is the moment “When Sin meets Forgiveness.”

We know that God can cover and forgive our sins, when we walk in the light and let our lives be lived for Him!

We continue to read in verses 8-10 and we see this contrast continue in these conditional (IF) verses.

Don’t Deny Sin, Confess it - 8-10

1 John 1:8–10 (ESV)

8 If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. 9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. 10 If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.

If we are just to continue to move on in living a life that acts as if we have no sin and no problems.

In our house, when a conflict has happened between kids and I can’t seem to get a straight answer out of 1 person (whom I believe to be guilty) and they dance around a question.

You realize quickly that all you have to do is ask someone else! They are ready to tattle on each other and make sure the other person gets what they deserve. That’s why when multiple people commit a crime first thing they do (at least on TV) is separate them so they cant Corroborate their story. There is going to be a difference and someone will sell out on the others.

In our case, we can say we have no sin, can say this before God who knows all things. There is no sin he isn’t aware of! We are often aware of the sins of others, oh we could sit down and make a list of the sins of others, but when we come before God and it’s time to evaluate ourselves and reflect on this thought… how quick are we to want to deny our own sins.

Romans 3:23 (ESV)

23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,

There is no fooling God, God is well aware of all your shortcomings. (And even there I speak of sin, as something not as serious, just a mess up, mistake, shortcoming rather than just confess it as what it is, SIN.)

This verse really says that if we say we have no sin, we deceive OURSELVES, we don’t deceive God, only ourselves!

We must not try and avoid the topic of sin, sin is missing the mark of what God calls us to do and how to live. When we miss the mark, we need to call it out like an archer who misses the bullseye, It’s either a bullseye or it’s sin (a miss).

If we would be so bold as to just call it out and confess our sins, as a miss. God I missed the mark, I sinned and I’m sorry. When we would confess our sin to God, He is faithful and just to forgive.

Let’s be clear… this isn’t saying … Sorry I got caught. It’s I’m sorry I gave into thinking, doing, or planning to go against your will. When we confess our failure to do what is Right, it is also a recognition that God’s plan is right.

Faithful - God promised that he would forgive us back in Jeremiah 31:34b For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.”” and he is faithful to stand true on his word and he will forgive us.

Not only will he forgive us of the mess we’ve made, he cleans us up too, he doesn’t just forgive us and send us off to clean ourselves us but instead meets us where we are and begins to

Just - if God were to fail to keep his word not only would he not be faithful but he wouldn’t be just. He Justifies us and makes us right in God’s eyes by standing on our behalf. He is able to justify us by the shed blood of Jesus.

If we say that we’ve not sinned, it means that we’ve not allowed God’s word to change our head to understand the truth of Who God is (Light) and what He’s done by sending Jesus to come and live a perfect life, take on our penalty for our sin, die in our place, and be raised again to new life, overcoming sin and death.

If we don’t know that true, it’s not convicted our hearts and turned our hearts toward him, so that we live differently with our hands. We’ve deceived ourselves and God’s word is not within us. Because a Child of Light walks in a way that understands sin and the sacrifice made to cover that sin, confesses those sin and works to live their life as evidence of the life change that has happened.

Closing — Band

Woody Allen — Actor & Comedian is an atheist and was once asked the question. “If there is a God, and if that God should speak to you, what would you most want to hear him say?

Woody Allen’s answer is one that speaks for most people, He said, “If there is a God who should speak to me, I would most want to hear him say three words… ‘You Are Forgiven.”

It’s easy for all of us to want to wait for these words and hope that somehow we will find ourselves on the receiving side of these glorious words. But John makes it clear through his letter of 1 John that in order for us to hear these words, It’s only when we don’t deny our sins, and instead we confess, them. Own up to our own sins. When we allow our sins to come before God that our sins meet forgiveness. So if you’d like to hear these 3 words of “You Are Forgiven” there are 3 words that you must first come to say, “I have sinned”.

Come before God, sins and all your imperfections, and come before the God that is perfect, holy and full of light. He can cleanse you of your sins, help you to walk in the light, and say to you those 3 sweet words. “You are forgiven.”