10. Walking in Darkness vs Walking in Light p3

1Jn 1:5-2:11 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. (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. (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. (2:1) My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. (2) He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world. (3) And by this we know that we have come to know him, if we keep his commandments. (4) Whoever says “I know him” but does not keep his commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him, (5) but whoever keeps his word, in him truly the love of God is perfected. By this we may know that we are in him: (6) whoever says he abides in him ought to walk in the same way in which he walked. (7) Beloved, I am writing you no new commandment, but an old commandment that you had from the beginning. The old commandment is the word that you have heard. (8) At the same time, it is a new commandment that I am writing to you, which is true in him and in you, because the darkness is passing away and the true light is already shining. (9) Whoever says he is in the light and hates his brother is still in darkness. (10) Whoever loves his brother abides in the light, and in him there is no cause for stumbling. (11) But whoever hates his brother is in the darkness and walks in the darkness, and does not know where he is going, because the darkness has blinded his eyes.

II. The Privilege of the Christian

The second part of the verse states, ‘we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sin. There are differing opinions about ‘fellowship with one another’ some believe that it is fellowship among believers while others believe that considering the immediate contest it means to fellowship with God. The arguments are good for either and every time I was convinced of one, I’d look at it again and be convinced of the other side. But looking at the greater context it is not limited to one to the exclusion of the other. Earlier John said 1Jn 1:3  that which we have seen and heard we proclaim also to you, so that you too may have fellowship with us; and indeed our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ. There was no one without the other. Last month we saw the condition and practice of the one who was walking in the light. This morning we will look at the second point which is the Privilege of the Christian and there are three subpoints.

a. Fellowship with God

These days we have a very watered-down view of the term fellowship. When we hear the word, it immediately takes us to thoughts of picnics, church dinners, etc. When we read ‘fellowship with God’ it, therefore, lacks to punch it should have. Fellowship is a close association and communion with another or others who are in complete agreement. Once enemies God has reconciled us to Himself through Christ’s blood. As He is the truth and upholds the truth, we too uphold the truth, God is holy and promotes holiness, so do we. As God is promoting the gospel in the world so do we. But fellowship with God is more than association. It is absolute union. Joh 17:20-23  “I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word,  (21)  that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me.  (22)  The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one,  (23)  I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me.

Eph 4:15-16  Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ,  (16)  from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love.

Have you ever considered the union between your head and your body? We are one. The head doesn’t normally operate out of sync with the body and vice-versa. We are one with our God. Just as Jesus said - I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me.

b. Fellowship with one another

It is not only fellowship with God it is also fellowship with one another. Here again we much put off the mental images we associate with ‘fellowship’ because the reality is so much more. We have all been watching the news concerning Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Watched in frustration at the lack of action of our country. We pray for our brothers and sisters in Ukraine, not understanding what God is doing, but knowing He is sovereign in all the affairs of men and trusting in Him even while asking why this is happening. We pray for them because we are one with them. They heaviness we feel in our hearts for them is the natural affect of our being one in Christ. May God lay on our hearts how we may help practically while we lift that country up in our prayers. A friend of mine posted a letter from a woman in Ukraine that I’d like to read.

More than a call to prayer, this post praises God for inspiring, supernatural answers to prayer inside Ukraine.

My name is Ekaterina. I am a Christian and serve as an interpreter at a Christian college in Ukraine. This is a letter of thanks for you and your prayers, by which we are still alive.

On February 23, I woke up around 5 AM to the sound of explosions. Thinking that someone was merely trying to scare us, I began to get ready for college. The first call from relatives, however, dispelled my naivety: a voice on the phone said that Russia was bombing airports and aiming at strategic objects - Ukraine is on fire. Nobody could believe it. Life turned upside down in an instant. We fell asleep on February 22 in the world, and woke up on the 23rd in a new reality that no one wanted.

I will not talk about what happened after - you yourself know everything and I believe that you are following events with no less pain than we are here. The purpose of my letter is to ask you to pray and not to allow our pain to just become a part of your news feed over the next days as you return to reading culinary recipes and travel vlogs…

I sincerely believe that a sovereign God has not lost control of the world, has not become cruel to us, and has not turned into our enemy. I know that His plan is perfect and He does everything in such a way that His glory is above all. On the first day of the war, I despaired that no one believed us, no one would help us. But these feelings led me to a new realization - the weaker we are, the greater will be God's glory. Just as Gideon was once left with only 300 soldiers, so we felt the first days of this nightmare as if we stood armed with only our jugs.

What has happened since, however, has given us goosebumps. My friend's husband, an unbelieving warrior near the border, wrote that they did not understand how they managed to stop the enemy. He wrote that the soldiers were exhausted, but from somewhere they have an incredible strength, unnatural for them, unfamiliar - and they once again beat off the offensive. The unbeliever writes: "Only the God of the Bible does this!"

We are amazed how that same God’s hand has stirred the entire world to pray! They believed us and our cries for help ... I praise God!

Yesterday I read God’s plan for the Israelites - “And when you go to war in your land against the enemy advancing on you, sound the alarm with trumpets, and you will be remembered before the Lord your God, and you will be saved from your enemies” (Numbers 10:9). I realized that it is biblical to “trumpet” in our situation. Even more - this is the command of God Himself!

1. Pray for Ukraine.

- Pray for our country: we have become hostages, caught in a conflict between two giants (NATO/Russia) who are flexing their muscles. But this is no longer just a game - there are many dying, unbelieving souls going to hell ... What is happening here is a great grief, but there could be much worse ahead.

- Pray for Christians: many cease to be light! People hardly sleep, they are unable to control their emotions. I have read statements by pastors and Christian leaders, and I want to cry from their hatred, aggression and lost orientation. Where are our beliefs? When did Christ depart from our hearts?! Pray for those who are angry and for those who are in a panic.

- Pray for the salvation of unbelievers. That they will repent! During these five days, 7 souls repented in our church! Nothing will give peace and salvation either during the war or after it, except Christ. In Him alone is both peace and salvation.

2. Pray for Russia.

- Pray for the soldiers. The young soldiers were told that they were travelling to Crimea and the border for military exercises. Many of them have no idea that they are already in Ukraine when they are dropped off. When they realize that they have been thrown into a real war, they surrender because they do not want to kill! But many do not have the courage to surrender, and they listen to orders, blindly believing that they are saving Ukraine from nationalists. Eventually they realize that the country does not view them as deliverers from a yoke, but sees them as occupiers.

Yesterday, two Russian men came to the mayor's office to ask for gasoline for their car, and were surprised when they were told what was going on. There are many videos being posted of Russian soldiers, stalled on the road, who are waiting for help from the Ukrainians, asking what is going on in the world and where exactly the road they are driving leads to. It turns out that they were simply given coordinates, and they blindly followed them...

These are someone's children. Thousands of dead children...

- Pray for civilians. Innocent people suffer sanctions because of their president. Propaganda has filled their minds so much that even when they hear and see the truth, they still do not want to believe in it. A great fire is flaring up inside Russia’s country. Pray that they realize the truth and no longer send their children to death.

3. Pray for Belarus.

Today the news media is speaking about the serious possibility that the Belarusian army will invade. This is a new blow for us. Stand in the gap for us, please!

Each of your prayers is like a nugget of gold, like a drop of rain, like another minute of life. We greatly appreciate it! We turn to the same God who humbled Nebuchadnezzar, who struck down 185,000 troops with one Angel, and who delivered the faithful from the fiery furnace!

"My enemies turn back when I call on You, from this I know that God is for me. In God I will praise His word, in the Lord I will praise His word. I trust in God, I am not afraid; what will a man do to me?" (Ps.56:10-12)

May God bless you all!

The third privilege is the special cleansing of sin.

c. The Blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sin.

This is one of those phrases that brings you to the infinite expanse of the greatness of God. When I lived in the middle east back in the 70’s we would go camping in the dessert. At night, away from the glow of the firelight you would see stars without number and the feeling of awe was overwhelming. It could not all be taken in. This text is like that, we cannot make our eyes bigger to see it all, our ears to hear it all or our hearts and minds to comprehend the height, depth, and breadth of the glory of God and the love for His people we see in this phrase.

Before we go into it just a general observation. John, as he has before, is making a correction to the gnostic heresy that Jesus was only a man at His death, that the spirit of divinity left Him. John uses His given name Jesus to indeed point to His humanity but adds ‘His Son’ to punctuate that He is no ordinary man, but He is something altogether different. Fully God and fully man, He alone is only qualified to be a redeemer. In the NKJV and KJV, Christ is added emphasizing His Diety. But there are more specific points in this text.

1. The preciousness of the agent of our cleansing. Blood is, at all times, precious. Life is in the blood and in this text, blood is equivalent to a life. It is not just any life but the life of His own Son. The Son of His love. Joh 1:18  No man has seen God at any time; the only begotten God, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has explained Him. The word bosom is the same word translated as a bay, which is a body of water surrounded on three sides. The Son who is fully embraced, in the bosom of the Father, offered His blood for our cleansing. I cannot explain how the blood cleanses other than it is God’s ordained means for the cleansing our sin. It is enough to know that the blood of Jesus His Son does indeed cleanse us. Who can comprehend the mind and heart of the Triune God who loves us so much that such a terrible price would be paid for those who are worthy of only judgement and condemnation? This is the Son to whom the host of heaven sing praises of adoration, and who bow in worship casting crowns. Nothing but the blood of deity, His blood, could make atonement for human sin.

2. The horror of sin that requires so great a price to be paid. There is another name for sin – evil. If evil is the absence of good. Then evil can only ever be sin. Now if all sin is evil, then all evil is sin. Do we consider sin for what it really is? Do we see all sin as evil or have we set up for ourselves classes of sin (respectable sins like, unthankfulness, anxiety, frustration, discontentment, pride, selfishness, lack of self-control, impatience, irritability, anger, envy, jealousy, competitiveness and controlling, sins of the tongue, and worldliness. and only the worst sins are evil. All sin is evil. All sin is an affront to the holy God. Habbakkuk 1:13 says Thine eyes are too pure to approve of evil. And the penalty for sin is judgement and you will spend eternity in hell and never quench God’s wrath. But it is the blood of the eternal Son that quench’s for all eternity the wrath of God for us.

3. In this phrase there is nothing else but the blood that cleanses us from sin. There are no rites or ceremonies. There is no baptismal water that aid in our cleansing. There is no work apart from the work of Christ that cleanses us from our sin. Christ’s blood alone is sufficient. The uniqueness of this cleansing bars experience from contribution. We are not cleansed because we walk in the light. We walk in the light because we are cleansed by His precious blood. The Scriptures teach that there is no other name under by which man may be saved but by Christ Jesus alone. What it means is there is no other life, no other blood that effects our cleansing from sin. Again, we walk in the light because the blood of Jesus cleanses us from all our sin. The dying thief on the cross looked Jesus and was cleansed. No life to life for Christ a new faith in his dying breathes.

4. The blood of Christ cleanses us not from some sin but all sin. It is complete cleansing. Cleansing from original sin, cleansing from our former transgressions, cleansing from present and future transgressions. When we consider the law of God, understanding that it is not only the negative prohibitions explicitly stated but also the positive implied and then to know that it is not just the outward actions for which we are libel but the inward attitudes of the heart we stand under a volume and mass of sin that we would be surely swept away. All of these, the blood of Jesus cleanses. Now take into consideration of all the sins of God’s people everywhere, past, present, and future, and though they could not be counted yet the blood of Jesus cleanses all our sin. They are all gone.

5. The cleansing of sin is present cleansing. It is everyday cleansing; it is moment by moment cleansing. The verb cleanses is a present active verb. We are continually washed in His precious blood. There is no moment we stand before God stained by our sin. We weigh ourselves down with a guilt we are not meant to carry. Be free. Jesus said, Go and sin no more, no feel the weight and burden of the guilt of your sin and after a certain time return to me. We have been freed from the guilt of sin because we have been cleansed from it’s stain. Brothers and sisters, rejoice, shout your hallelujahs because what the Lord has done for you, cleansing you of your sin in the washing of Jesus, His Son’s blood.

May the Lord help to talk this divine truth to heart and live in the joy of our salvation.