1 John 1:5-2:11 - How to Walk in the Light
Notes
Transcript
Sermon
Sermon
Exegetical Idea: Because God is light, we must walk in the light by keeping Jesus’ commands, like loving our brothers and sisters, and by confessing our sins.
Big Idea: Walk in the Light by keeping Jesus’ commands, and by confessing when you don’t.
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. 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.
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.
Sermon
1 John 1:5-2:14
There is a delima here.
God has no darkness in Him.
If we say we are if God, we should be the same.
That’s a problem
Why?
There’s darkness in us.
Do you believe that?
Here’s a test:
Have you said, I wouldn’t have done something like that when we see evil.
This is a big issue.
The Issue:
We are in trouble if we have any evil in us.
We are in trouble with God if we sin.
We are in trouble if we say we have no sin.
Wait a minute God
We can’t seem to not sin
We can’t admit out loud our sin or people will call us on it
So which is it?
Should we be sinless or honest?
To quote David Hamilton, “yes”
Do you realize how big this is?
This is a problem.
We can’t live up to this standard.
Then the one thing we have been taught from day 1,
Hide it,
May be an even bigger issue.
Jesus died for sin,
But we make a mockery of Jesus if we pretend to be sinless.
That’s an issue.
So
I have a presupposition. If you cannot be sinless, (and you can’t)
Then pretending to be sinless will make it worse.
Because of guilt.
Teach the Sin guilt cycle
So how do we know we are getting it right?
The John test:
How do we love others.
Now think about that.
There’s a lot of things that John could point to, but he continues to point to fellowship and love throughout all his writings.
Even within this passage he says it
Verse 7
Verse 9
Verse 10
Verse 11
Illustrate it:
Ways this begins to get tough
Having hard conversations
Do you look down on others?
constantly making comments about others when they are not around
Are you willing to find peace in a relationship?
you can avoid it and let the relationship fizzle
you can have the hard conversation in love and repair the relationship
Resolve not to let hot or cold anger toward people rule your attitude.
Do you have racist tendencies or thoughts?
Not saying are you a racist, but are all your views of people under the lordship of Jesus?
Would you let your child date a christian of another skin tone?
Would you allow people of different skins and cultures to stay in your home or family?
For me, it was being suprised when someone from a different culture and country was as smart as my country. (example doctor or construction engineer, hvac person)
Do you have genuine care for how those around you are doing?
Do you get frustrated when they dont check on you?
Would you rather not know how people are doing?
Do you pray for those in your circles?
Exegete
Exegete
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.
So finishing our thought from last time, the disciples did not hear from Jesus for their own sake alone. They were being taught something to teach others. We see this finalized and commanded in Matthew 28:18-20.
Jesus says go and teach it to the world.
They are being obedient even to the smallest and even to the biggest detail of what Jesus told them.
They start with elemental principles of God.
God is light.
What does this mean?
I think of Genesis 1
1 In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. 2 The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.
3 And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light.
I really do not know if the gap theory is right. I do not know if there was a consistent 6 day creation or if verse 1 was a time period and then a pause happened in creation after God created the expanse of the universe, then he began to create our solar system and earth. I do not know. That would make sense, and is actually pretty scriptural that he created the universe first as some expanse of being.
After he did, the first thing he did was add light to the mix.
Light. The darkness was already there. He created space, then a gap in space, then light to fill the space.
We do not know this in Genesis, but the light would actually come from God. I cannot take this too far because it would be pure specifulation, but it may be the only thing he did not have to create from nothing, he just spoke it out of himself.
Is it possible that God created the universe to hinge on light and darkness so that we could know a little more about him?
I can only think of a couple things that creation needs and relies on to exist. Light is one. For life on earth, there are a couple. Light, water, food.
God is compared to all of these in scripture.
Could God literally created us with a dependancy on these things so that we would understand that we need him?
I think this is a legitimate question to be asked.
Also,
Could John be being figurative here?
We do know that light will be a metiphor for goodness and dark will be a metaphor for evil.
Lets read further to find out.
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.
We do immediately see the metaphor.
We cannot walk in darkness and have fellowship with “THE LIGHT.”
We are lying if we do that.
We are hypocrites. We are not being truthful that we love light.
The more i read this passage, the more I understand it to mean habitual lifestyles of sin.
This is secured in verse 9 and 10.
If a sin had the ability to totally isolate us from God, no fellowship at all, then there would be no need to admit being a sinner in verse 10. We see God has already accounted for the fact that we are sinners. He is saying, if we pretend to be perfect, we are embracing our life of lies and the darkness is sealing our hearts. His word is not in us at that point.
So if we are supposed to only be in light, no darkness, not sin at all, and yet we cannot be perfect and we are liars if we pretend we are, how then are we to operate and function?
9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
This is the good news of Jesus Christ. No longer do we have to be pretenders. No longer do we have to live in fear if we will be just good enough to have fellowship with God.
This is true freedom.
Freedom is not getting to do what we want.
Its a release from the pressure to be something we cannot possibly be.
Its also a release from the pressure to fall in the darkness abyss because of sin and guilt.
This may be a question for the crowd to consider?
Which way do you lean? Too severe on sin or too leaneate on sin? The gospel provides freedom from both.
I may need to go over the sin-guilt cycle at this point.
This is of utmost importance to breaking a habitual sin.
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.
Is my little children a term of endurement?
Was this common to use?
Akin says in Christ Centered Commentary (p22) that John saw these folks as his spiritual children and grandchildren. He is working to be faithful to Deuteronomy 6 to train his children in the way of Truth.
More evidence of freedom. God has anchored our freedom in the work of Christ. He is an advocate for those that need to do better but cannot purely on their own.
2 He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world.
Propitiation - the action of appeasing a god, atoning for some wrong.
This is so much different than other gods. Do you notice that all the other gods have the petty qualities of humans. Their need for appeasement is always for selfish reasons.
Their selfishness is fulfilled in the giving of human beings or some lesser blood.
I think of Molech.
21 You shall not give any of your children to offer them to Molech, and so profane the name of your God: I am the Lord.
If it might help, why would it be wrong to sacrifice children?
I think an argument could be made that God loves children. We see that in scripture and in the life of Jesus.
I do not think this is the whole issue here though.
God would call the Israelites at times to wipe out men, women, and children.
I think so much of this hinges on the idea that you cannot blot out your sin with blood if you are going to keep sinning. It will never be enough. Sacrificing your children will not be enough. Everytime you murder in that way, you are directly assaulting the image of God.
God knew that he would send an adequate sacrifice, so do not even try.
Any attempt to sacrifice yourself or others, including children, was a lack of faith for God to provide and direct plan to undermine the gospel.
There is no selfishness in God’s plan.
All other gods were just a reflection of mans brokeness, the god they wanted, not a image of the God they needed, and the God that existed.
People sacrificed to Molech because Molech was a reflection of the evil in their hearts. They were selfish and so was their god.
NOT OUR GOD!!!
He does not require we kill ourselves or our children to appease his selfish anger.
He sacrifices his own son, so that we may live.
The proof that he is good is not only that he did that for his known and devote children, but the world.
I have struggled so much with verses like this. Universal language.
It seemed Paul and Peter were Calvinist and John was Arminean.
But neither are true and the answer must lie somewhere in the middle.
Many hear this passage and fall on the idea that salvation was made possible for the whole world, not that the whole world will be saved.
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.
So comes the litmus test of salvation.
I want to hang close to the idea from the beginnning that we are talking about lifestyles of sin or habitual sin.
Life cannot be measured by each individual moment.
That is my presuppostion.
If that was so, we would fluate in hell and heaven our entire lifes. Being thrown down to hell, then being lifted up to heaven with each chose or decision we make.
It also makes a mockery of eternal punishment or reward.
But some good intentioned folks try to live that way.
The hyper calvinist tend toward just living and what happens happens because Christ is our propitation in the end.
The church of christ, pentecostal and Armenian baptist hold their salvation in the balance of each faithful or unfaithful decision to Christ.
My question for myself is what brings freedom?
To walk with the assurance that you cannot fail even if you sin, all the while, immediately confessing the sin.
We are now back to the sin-guilt chart.
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:
5 But whoever keeps His word, truly the love of God is perfected in him. By this we know that we are in Him.
5 but whoever keeps His word, in him the love of God has truly been perfected. By this we know that we are in Him:
5 But whoever keeps his word, truly in him the love of God is made complete. This is how we know we are in him:
I want to further understand “truly in him the love of God is made complete.”
I texted Ben for verb tense.
I will return to this.
6 whoever says he abides in him ought to walk in the same way in which he walked.
Heres the test. We are matching what we say with what we do.
Do you say it?
Do you do it?
There is no gray here.
Although my presupposition is that there is always some gray. Until we are on the other side of glory, there will always be a little hypocrite in us all. If we say we do not, we are liars.
But habitually, as a lifestyle, do we practice what we preach?
Or do we do what we want to do?
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.
We are returning to what Jesus said. He did not come to abolish the law, but to fulfill it.
The law was never about appearing right. It was about obeying God.
But there is a new element to it, the new element is real hope for when we break the law.
Jesus is the Hope.
The hope is that darkness is falling away from your life. It is fading as the light shines in your heart.
Sometimes God takes years to fully shine in your heart and life. Sometimes it comes quicker.
John had to go and stab in verse 9.
I will need to unpack this in the sermon. I have to.
This is not just about anger. This has to be about the color of skin. Not in some woke or liberation theology way, but about the love of Christ piercing all throughout our hearts. Even the parts we do not want him to.
This reminds me of grandma. She loved Jesus, but boy was she racists.
She never connected the dots of verse 9.
Have you? Have I?
Verses 10 and 11 explain it all. You think you are totally in the light, totally committed to Jesus, but there are still parts of your life that you are blinded to light. You do not see them because you do not know they are there.
We need to pray that God would shine light on our sin.
It hurts so bad at first.
Sometimes getting caught is the best thing that can happen to you. It hurts tremendously, but to be out in the light, now able to live freely, that is so powerful.
