Walk in the Light

Introduction

New theme of Light - leading into Easter.

Undervalued quality (we know it but we don’t know why it’s important?)

I think it has to do with this:

If you ask any of the next generation what one of the biggest problems with the church today is - no doubt within the list, you will hear a familiar word: Hypocrisy.

The living of a double life within the faith - something we are all familiar with. Duplicity, our lives of faith in public and our live of faith in private are two, often vastly different things.

It’s a touchy topic for sure - something that most Christians will be familiar with as a concept.

What we may be unaware of, however, is how damaging it is.

ILLUSTRATION: Complaints about parents

You know, when I was a youth pastor - I would often be tasked with chasing up kids of elders and high profile leaders who have left the church. Obviously since these guys gave so much of their life to the church, we serve them in return by doing whatever we can to serve their families. You know what the number 1 reason these kids in particular seemed to leave the church was? Duplicity - on the part of their parents. The faith that their parents professed so boldly at church, was so vastly different from the faith that was exposed at home.

It’s not just parents though. It’s friends/colleagues/family who see us at church and then see a very different version of us in school and at work and at home.

But our faith is not meant to be duplicitious, it’s not meant to be compromised by darkness, there is no division between what we do publicly and privately.

We can never normalise these things - for they fly in the face of basic scripture. We have to fight back against a faith that tries to normalise these sorts of discrepancies.

And I think one of the places we’ve gone wrong is we have lost the theology of God as Light. This is where I want to start today.

Let’s pray before we start.

There is no shade in God

1 John 1:5–10 “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.”

It ALL starts with v5: God is light - there is no darkness in God. There is NO SHADE in God. There is no evil in Him.

You know when we first came to HFTC, Dan preached a message on “devaluing things that shouldn’t be devalued”. And one of the things that I find the church can often devalue is REVERENCE for God.

When we no longer have Reverence toward God, we will begin to reject His Word.

John starts off by reminding us that God is OTHER. He is not like us, He will never be like us. While we struggle daily to keep the darkness at bay in our lives and in our world, GOD IS LIGHT. There is no shadow, no shade, no hint of darkness with Him. He nature remains completely unaffected by it. He is WHOLLY other.

We don’t worship a God who is the same as us. And we would do well to remember this.

God IS Light. When He enters the room, darkness disappears - there is no cosmic battle; God just wins. The darkness FLEES. It can’t stand Him.

Let’s not make the mistake that Uzzah made with the Ark in 2 Samuel 6:6–7 “6 And when they came to the threshing floor of Nacon, Uzzah put out his hand to the ark of God and took hold of it, for the oxen stumbled. 7 And the anger of the Lord was kindled against Uzzah, and God struck him down there because of his error, and he died there beside the ark of God.”

Uzzah’s irreverence toward God led to His disrespecting God’s commands/His Word. - and he was punished for it.

I find sometimes that modern Christianity can get so caught up with finding new revelation that we forget timeless truths. We’re looking for new angles, new points, fresh revelation - and I’m not saying this is bad in itself. But let’s never forget our timeless truths, and this is one of them. God IS Light.

Talking and Walking

John places this so plainly for us in 1 John 1:6–7 “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.”

We CANNOT expect to encounter a great God and not have our lives greatly changed.

Notice how v6 talks about if we SAY we have fellowship with God, we lie and do not PRACTICE the truth.

The only point we SHOULD draw from here is that genuine fellowship with God IS to walk in the Light. It results in ACTIONS, it results in PRACTISING the truth.

My mentor used to tell me truth doesn’t change anyone, it’s truth APPLIED that changes lives.

James 1:22

v7 just serves to affirm this - Fellowship with God is walking in the light - JUST AS He is in the Light.

And can I just digress here for a second to point out that of all the possible things God could have used as the INDICATOR of walking in the light - He uses “we have fellowship with one another.”

A love for God’s church, a love for His people is THE sign that a believer is walking in the light. A love for God’s people is the MARK of a believer who is walking with God.

Oh, that we would just stop for a second here and listen to this. John did not mention spiritual gifts here, he did not even mention good character, he did not mention how much we tithe, what he chose to mention of all things is having a LOVE for the church.

To catch the profoundness of putting it in THIS specific context is foundational as a Christian. The sign that we are walking in the light, having genuine fellowship with God - is whether we have fellowship with each other, it’s whether we love each other.

Hear this friends: There is a kind of faith nowadays that boasts about its knowledge and its fellowship with God and yet neglects fellowship with the body of Christ, it neglects to love the body of Christ. It feels justified to hate parts of the body even. It wants nothing to do with the church - even worse it is indifferent toward the Body of Christ. It does not CARE about FELLOWSHIP with the body.

We are warned by John that this kind of faith is akin to walking in darkness. Let’s never become that church that hates one another, never hates another church. Not even to hate, let us never grow COLD to one another. Let us never stop meeting together, serving one another.

ILLUSTRATION: Hating on another pastor

To be really honest, I actually struggled with this growing up. I actually grew up relatively reformed and quite closed in my views. And I viewed every other church that didn’t preach a strict ethic as basically heathen. Man my younger self would have hated this church, what with all this grace and mercy and love, looks like a yoghurt commercial. I remember we had a little band of us guys who all had similar beliefs. We’d almost get together and hate on different churches - Oh this church has leaders who PARTY OOOOOOO - Oh this church has leaders that go to the clubs OOOOOO - Oh this church preached using the message translation OOOOOO - man I was such a loser back then; but the thing was we all THOUGHT we had VERY a very good relationship with God. I remember there was this one church in particular that we were hating on, where we were told the pastor was just off. Preached topical sermons, had a fast growing congregation, fancy building - that sort. Hadn’t even met the guy - just loved to hate on him and everything he stood for without reason. Like you guys may think I’m joking but I’m telling you this is a thing that’s happening even now as it did back then.

I remember actually meeting him for the first time. Like I know he had heard of me before and I know that he knew that we didn’t like him very much. I remember this - we bumped into each other at Southlands shopping centre for the first time. I gave him a nod. You know what he did? - he embraced me, encouraged me in my ministry, was nothing but lovely to me, hugged me again before leaving for his next meeting.

My friends may have continued to mock, but that moment something changed in my walk with God. I knew deep in my spirit that even though I claimed to be walking in the light, there was still a darkness within me. Even though I claimed to have fellowship with God, there was still something significant missing. You know I never really changed my mind about many of those things up until today. I still consider myself conservative in my Christian views, I still don’t believe leaders should be going anywhere near the clubs, I still don’t rate the message translation! BUT as I surrendered these things to God and began to walk in new light - A new conviction started to rise in my heart, FAR above any of these small concerns. That conviction takes the form of a simple question I ask myself every day: Am I loving The Church of Christ to the best of my ability?

Deception is Undone by Confession

1 John 1:8–9 “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.”

The context of this passage is that John was combatting a Gnostic heresy in which believers would claim that they had no sin.

It may sound like it’s not so relevant to us today but I would say that modern day spiritual apathy has led to an UNAWARENESS of sin in our lives.

Perhaps nowadays we’re not saying that we have NO sin but once again - we undervalue the weight of sin in our lives. We undervalue its significance, its effect on us.

I am NEVER one to overdo it when it comes to sin - I really don’t enjoy preaching “don’t sin” from the pulpit, and I am always wary of attributing more power to sin than is necessary. I genuinely do believe the cross covers all sin.

BUT I think it would just be foolish on the part of a Christian to therefore undervalue the weight of sin in their lives.

Sin has a very real effect on our lives.

Psalm 66:18 “18 If I had cherished iniquity in my heart, the Lord would not have listened.”

Proverbs 28:13 “13 Whoever conceals his transgressions will not prosper, but he who confesses and forsakes them will obtain mercy.”

Proverbs 28:9 “9 If one turns away his ear from hearing the law, even his prayer is an abomination.”

Galatians 6:7 “7 Do not be deceived: God is not mocked, for whatever one sows, that will he also reap.”

Romans 8:8 “8 Those who are in the flesh cannot please God.”

The very real solution that John provides us with in what is one of my favourite bible verses of all time - is 1 John 1:9 “9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”

What a beautiful promise. The insistent guarantee that God will ALWAYS be faithful to forgive us of our sins - as long as we confess and repent of them.

I am adamant that one of the worst things we can do is to lose the habit of confession just because we get lazy, or we forget, or worse - we just devalue it to the point we don’t believe we need it.

Maybe some of us stop the habit of confession because we think that God’s forgiveness is FRAGILE, but this would be wrong. We think that because we keep coming back to Him with the same sins, surely he is tired of it, sick of us.

But this is a lie of the enemy. The bible makes it clear that God is not fragile, He is faithful.

2 Timothy 2:13 “13 if we are faithless, he remains faithful— for he cannot deny himself.” God remains faithful to forgive us our sins as we bring them to Him.

Church, let’s bring back the habit of confession. John is clear that Deception is undone by confession. Spiritual apathy is beaten by confession.

Many Christians no longer have confession as a regular part of their spiritual walk. And I do think because we have undervalued confession it has led to this spiritual apathy that treats sin as just something else a believer has to live with.

Family, Confession is not just a physical act, it is a highly spiritual act that quite literally calls the unfailing forgiveness of God into our lives EVERY TIME we do it. A supernatural act occurs EVERY TIME we come to God in a surrendered state to confess our sins.

Don’t trivialise it. It is not somne dirty act - it is a beautiful reminder of the mercy of God in our lives, time and time again.

Do not expect God to cover what you are not willing to uncover.

The rejection of the Word = The absence of Transformation

John finishes this passage in 1 John 1:10 “10 If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.”

This is a terrifying principle for those who understand it.

When we operate out of a place of spiritual apathy, a place where we’re unaware and uncaring of the sin that’s in our lives - we end up rejecting the Word of God.

My friends - when there is a Rejection of the Word there will be an absence of Transformation. We effectively lock God out from moving in our lives.

ILLUSTRATION: Miraculous conception from someone who’s not sleeping with wife.

One of the funnier things that happened to me as a pastor was that I was once approached by a husband requesting prayer. He and his wife had been trying to have a baby for years now, and unfortunately had been unsuccessful. They had gotten the tests done and there was no issue, there seemed to be no biological problem with them being able to conceive. So I said ok let’s do this - I sat him down and we prayed into this matter, deliverance, against the enemy, the whole removing and blockages in Jesus’ name. The whole works. After we finished he thanked me and got up to leave. And I just received like a weird prompting, whether from God or not I’m not sure but I’m a scientist by education so sometimes my mind goes to more practical things. I asked him, “hey I know this is a very personal question but I mean, how often are you and your wife..you know? Getting the job done? Getting intimate?” I immediately knew something was up when he had to pause to think about it. He said, “oh we both have very busy lives so we only do it when we have time. Maybe once every month?” I was like bruh. I’m a man of faith but unless you’re going for the second immaculate conception - this isn’t a spiritual issue so much as a frequency issue if you know what I mean. They got pregnant like 3 months later. Still not sure whether it was the prayer or advice.

What’s my point though. My point is that sometimes we look at our faith and we wonder why God isn’t moving, why is there no transformation, why is there no spark? why there is no joy, passion, nothing is being spiritually birthed so to speak. And we pray and seek God, fast and go to church regularly - but we haven’t even done the very BASICS that God repeately instructs us to do in His Word. Sin is still prevalent in our lives, Confession is absent, The Word is rejected. non-existent.

That really is like expecting a baby to just pop out one day without ever being intimate. It’s like expecting revival without prayer. It’s expecting faith without the Word. We need to walk in the Light. Timeless Truths.

Not about escaping the darkness, it’s about embracing the Light.

I want to end off today by bringing us back to 1 John 1:7 “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 walk in the light, as He is in the light, then the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sin”

Loving the body, realisation and cleansing of sin - these are all things that come AFTER we choose to walk in the light.

I don’t want anyone to make the mistake of thinking that my message today was simply “start confessing and stop sinning” - because these two actions are powerless when separated from the Light that is Christ.

The point we need to take from this passage is that our faith is not about ESCAPING the darkness, it’s about EMBRACING the light.

The gospel is not about running away from sin, the Gospel is about running TOWARD Christ.

John says in his gospel that the light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it. For millennia Jesus’ light has shone into the worst of human brokenness and sin, and that light REMAINS undefeated. It remains bright, it remains strong - it remains able to save, it remains able to heal, it remains able to conquer.

And today God wants to shine that light into the darkest parts of our lives - the only question remains, are we willing to walk in the Light, as He is in the light? Are we willing to surrender, to submit to Him and let His light shine in our darkness?

This is the real start of the Christian faith. Not with well rehearsed prayers and routines, but with walking in the Light.

Sometimes we think that walking in the light just means being a good person. It means just not sinning - but that’s such an incomplete image. Walking in the light is walking in fellowship with God - it is about relationship, it is ALWAYS about relationship.

ILLUSTRATION: John Oros

There’s a story I heard when I was young that has stuck with me.

In February 2001, John Oros spoke to an audience at Associated Mennonite Biblical Seminary about his experience as a church leader in Romania during the Communist era: During communism, many of us preached and people came at the end of a service, and they said, "I have decided to become a Christian." We told them, "It is good that you want to become a Christian, but we would like to tell you that there is a price to be paid. Why don't you reconsider what you want to do, because many things can happen to you. You can lose, and you can lose big." A high percentage of these people chose to take part in a three-month catechism class. At the end of this period, many participants declared their desire to be baptized. Typically, I would respond, "It is really nice that you want to become a Christian, but when you give your testimony there will be informers here who will jot down your name. Tomorrow the problems will start. Count the cost. Christianity is not easy. It's not cheap. You can be demoted. You can lose your job. You can lose your friends. You can lose your neighbors. You can lose your kids who are climbing the social ladder. You can lose even your life." Let me tell you my joy when we looked into their eyes, and their eyes were in tears, and they told us, "If I lose everything but my personal relationship with my Lord Jesus Christ, it is still worth it.”

Altar Call

Choosing to walk in the light is choosing to walk with Christ. Let’s make a renewal today.