Walking In The Light

Who is your plus-1? Everyone should have a plus-1 for this series. We should be actively looking to find someone that doesn’t know Jesus and invite them to church. This is the perfect series for that.

Introduction

I want to start today with a question. Have you ever shared a deep dark secret with anyone? It’s pretty scary isn’t it? Have you had someone betray you and share that secret? That really hurts.

Today we are continuing our series in the Book of 1st John called True Christianity, Walking in the Light. And today we are hitting that subtitle hard as we are going to talk about what it looks like to Walk in the Light.

Spoiler Alert - It involves confession. True Christians confess their sins one to another. If you don’t take anything else home with you today, that’s the thing I want you to remember. That’s what I want you to do, ok?

Before we get there though, let’s read our text and see what God has to say about this. If you have your bible, we will be in 1st John, not the gospel of John, but the 1st letter of John. Notes are loaded in the app and words are on the screen.

Main Text

1 John 1:5–10 ESV

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. If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. 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 say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.

Let’s look at this first big statement from John…

God Is Light

Everything he is going to talk about in this passage is tied to this statement. God is light and in him there is no darkness as all. This is blunt and to the point.

But what does it mean?

Now, here’s the way I want you to see it today. I’m not saying there aren’t other interpretations of this idea, but this is the one I’m going to focus on because I think its the truest meaning to the context of this passage.

Light and dark here are talking about things that are hidden (darkness) and things that are exposed (light). Being in the light is talking about being in pureness and openness. Darkness by contrast is where things are not seen, where they are hidden, where they are covered up.

Walking in the light is not talking about a state of mind. Sometimes we read this and think this is talking about enlightenment. As in if we are smart enough or that we have the correct info then we are in the light, that’s not what it is talking about here. It’s talking about exposure and openness. It’s talking about living a lifestyle where you don’t hide your sin, but you shine light on it. You expose it to others.

In fact, this entire section is talking about talking about how we can have the assurance of our faith. How can we know that we are a Christian. If you believe God is light and you are walking in the light, you are a Christian.

But the Apostle doesn’t stop there. In the text we we find…

Three Ways To Know You Are A Christian

Now, there are a lot of ways to know that you are a Christian and the Apostle John here is going to give us three different ways to know, that you know, that you know that you are a Christian. We are going to look at them individually, but they all fall under this big statement he makes at the beginning of our text today, God is light and in him is no darkness. All three of these are connected, or flow from this idea. Let’s look at the first one.

1. You Do Not Walk In Darkness

In verse 6, we get the first of several if…then clauses. This is the first one. “If you say you have fellowship with God while you walk in darkness, you are a liar and do not practice the truth.”

What’s the key here. Do not walk in darkness. What does that look like? Walking in darkness means you have hidden sins or you are covering up your sins.

Let me give you some examples. If you are having an affair, you are walking in darkness. If you are stealing supplies from work, if you are looking at porn late at night after your spouse has gone to bed, if you are harboring hate for a co-worker or neighbor, if you are lying to your parents, if you are jealous over what your neighbor has and you have not confessed these sins, you are walking in darkness and if you are claiming to be good with God, you are lying and you do not practice the truth.

Now this phrase “practicing the truth” is a key statement for John. The truth is not just something for you to know…it’s something you must obey.

There are a lot of people who have grown up in church or studied the Bible and they have a lot of knowledge. The important part of life is not how much of the Bible you know, it’s how much you apply. It’s how much you practice.

I know a lot of people who know the Bible. They have read it. They know the history and the context, but they are not loving people. That’s an adventure in missing the point!

You need to practice the truth. That is the key to walking in the light. You actually do the things that God is telling you to do.

Now, it doesn’t say you will be perfect, but for the moment, just think about where you are as a person. Are you walking in the light? Are you practicing the truth? This is how you can know that you are a Christian.

Let me sum it up this way, if you believe that Jesus died and rose again for the forgiveness of your sins, you are saved. And you will know that you are saved because you will be walking in the light and practicing the truth.

We should all be concerned about our assurance of salvation, because if we lack assurance we lack joy, and if we lack joy our life is probably of a poor quality.

The Sons of God, 16

David Martyn Lloyd-Jones (Welsh Preacher and Writer)

2. You Are In Fellowship With Other Believers

Verse 7 I think is a linchpin verse, it says 1 John 1:7 “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.”

I spent a lot of time on this last week, but fellowship is one of the goals. It’s not this side thing we do, its THE thing we do. Last week we said John’s point was that if you believe the right things about Jesus, you are in fellowship with us.

This week he says that if you walk in the light as God is in the light, then we have fellowship with one another AND the blood of Jesus cleanses us from all sin. This is a big verse.

If you are in the light, you are in fellowship with other believers. If you are a Christian, you are in fellowship with other believers. This is one of the many reasons that church is important.

This is where matching our words, our speech with our actions is important. Most everyone in this room will say something along the lines like, “church is important to me,” but what do your actions say? Are you in a home group? Do you come to bible studies? Do you serve in a ministry? Do you meet with people from church outside of the activities of the church?

I do not think you can claim to be a Christian and show up to church once a month. Something is wrong in your heart. Your priorities are out of whack. You don’t miss work that much do you? You put more worth on work than you do church? The God who supplies your needs is the one who gave you that job.

If any of you are in positions where you can enjoy Christian fellowship, and you have an opportunity of earning ten times as much money in another position where you must give up that fellowship, do not do it. Christians Kept From Sin, Volume 53, Sermon #3037 -1 Samuel 25:32, 33

Charles Spurgeon

John here is saying if you are really walking in the light, if you are truly a Christian, we will be in fellowship with one another. That’s the truth. Now you may not like that he says that because you are busy with a great many things, but that doesn’t change what the Bible actually says.

Your priorities are determined by your actions. What you say should line up with what you do. Don’t say you put God first in your life but never come to church. Don’t say it. Its better for you to just admit God comes much further down the list.

So three ways to know you are a Christian, number one, you don’t walk in darkness, number two you are in fellowship with other believers.

3. You Confess Your Sins To Others

This may be the hardest one for me. I’ve struggled with this over the years. This one is tied to verses 9 and 10. If we confess our sins, he will forgive us, if we deny/hide our sin, his word isn’t in us. Or to put it even more bluntly. True Christians will confess their sins. Unbelievers will deny them.

Most of us have worked hard over the years to hide our sins. We won’t admit to them, we won’t reveal them to others, we deny and make excuses when we are caught in them.

True Christians own their sin. They admit to them. They confess them to others (not just in their own head). They are the first to say, yes I have done this and it was wrong. No excuses, no beating around the bush, they simply own what they did.

John tells us that those people are the ones that receive forgiveness and cleansing from their sins. Why? Because Jesus is faithful even when we are not. Jesus is full of grace even when we break his commands. Jesus loves us even when we do not love others or ourselves.

Confession is a misunderstood topic in protestant churches because its almost never talked about and the only thing that comes to mind is what the Catholics do.

Now, confession doesn’t need a confessional booth, it doesn’t need a priest or a pastor, it doesn’t need three hail marys and four our fathers. So what does confession and repentance look like in True Christianity?

Let’s look at the four keys to confession and repentance:

We Confess What We’ve Done

We Confess To A Person

We Forsake Our Sin

We Make Things Right

We Confess What We’ve Done

This is a simple idea, but this is the essence of walking in the light. When we sin, not if we sin, when we sin we must admit it to be walking in the light. Imagine taking a flashlight and shining it on your sin. That’s what this means.

We must confess what we have done. We must own it. We must admit to it. The first step to salvation is admitting you are a sinner, but every subsequent step of faith you will take will be admitting where you have sinned since then.

Confession should not be vague, but specific. We should not make confession a generality, but something that is owning something specific that you did.

We Confess To A Person

Some of us think confession is just thinking about your sin and feeling bad about it. That is wrong. We must confess with our mouth and it needs to be to another person.

James 5:16 ESV

Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working.

Jesus told his disciples in the great commission found in the gospel of John, whatever sins you forgive, will be forgiven. John 20:23 “If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you withhold forgiveness from any, it is withheld.””

It’s imperative that you confess to someone else. For some of you the reason you haven’t found victory over a certain sin is because you haven’t confessed it. As long as its hidden, its your master. As long as its in darkness, it rules over you. Bring it into the light!

There doesn’t need to be a pastor or a priest, but if you’ve sinned against a person, you should confess it to them. If it’s not against a person, you should confess it to a friend, church member, counselor, as long as they are a Christian brother or sister.

And ask them to pray for you! James says we find healing when we confess and pray with one another. That’s the victory. You receive your healing, your cleansing, your victory through the confession and prayer with another person.

We Forsake Our Sin

The next key is we stop doing it. Confession gives us the ability to find victory over the sin. So we stop it. We don’t keep doing sins.

But pastor, aren’t we all just wicked evil sinners from birth and won’t we be that until we die? No! What kind of defunct theology are you listening to? You were born a sinner, yes. But once you are put your trust in Jesus, you become a new creation. You are no longer a sinner. You will still sin from time to time but you don’t practice the sin, you practice the truth. That’s what John is saying.

This is the last key to confession…

We Make Things Right

This is the biblical idea of restitution. We make things right. When we sin against someone, the idea is that we don’t just confess it and stop doing it, we actually need to make it right.

Leviticus 6:4–5 ESV

if he has sinned and has realized his guilt and will restore what he took by robbery or what he got by oppression or the deposit that was committed to him or the lost thing that he found or anything about which he has sworn falsely, he shall restore it in full and shall add a fifth to it, and give it to him to whom it belongs on the day he realizes his guilt.

Restitution is also found in the New Testament, it wasn’t just an OT thing. Remember the story of Zaccheaus? In his confession of repentance to Jesus, he says what? When I’ve defrauded anyone, I restore it fourfold. Jesus says salvation has come to your house!

Restitution is a key part of reconciliation. Some of you won’t make things right. You will say, yeah I was wrong, you got the confession part, but you stop there. Make things right!

That’s what it means to truly walk in the light.

Conclusion

If you are here today, I want to give you a chance to respond. And by responding, what I mean is this…I want to give you an opportunity to confess. If you have sins you’ve never confessed or what you might call skeletons in your closet, this is a safe place to empty out your closet. Don’t spend another day walking in darkness.

I’m going to ask Jack & Amy, Ben and G to come up and if you want someone to confess to and have someone pray with you, they are here for you. I will also be available if someone wants me to pray with them, but here’s what I want for you…

I want you to receive the healing and forgiveness available to you through confession and repentance. Jesus blood cleanses you. If you confess your sins, Jesus is faithful. Your sins are forgiven and you will be cleansed from them.