Walking in light

INTRO

Welcome, grab a Bible. Yours or your neighbors. Open to 1 John chapter 1.

We started this last week and if you missed last wee, we missed you, but you missed a lot. But don’t worry we will catch you up to speed by just giving you some basics.

So this is a pop quiz for those of you last week. Don’t worry it won’t be too hard

Who wrote the book? John the apostle.

Who did he write to? Churches around him

Why did he write it? Possible heresies, such as Gnosticism. And what were the two main believes about Gnosticism? Spirit is good and matter is bad. Also have special revelation

Last pop quiz question, what goes gnosticism look like in the church? What kind of actions could happen for believers?

And last but not least, anyone get a chance to read/listen through 1 John this past week? It’s a short book but it is dense and so we are going to slowly walk through this thing but I’m praying as we do we would continue to see Jesus as he is so He can live through us.

Let’s pray.

BODY

Everyone is there in 1 John 1? Okay, I’m going to have you read these verses. Ready, set, go.

English Standard Version Chapter 1

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.

So here John starts his amplification of the word “light” and saying that Jesus told him this message. He takes the opposite of the gnostic approach that would claim he has special revelation. He says, I learned this from Jesus and so I’m passing it onto you. And it is the this simple understanding: God is light and in him is no darkness at all. But as simple as that statement sounds we need to hear this in the way that the original readers would have heard it. And in order to do that we need to understand this word light.

Light symbolized knowledge and purity/holiness.

Contrary to the gnostics, where light was something inside of you that you needed to find inside of yourself. John says that God is light. He is how you should view all things. He is the the sustenance to all things. He is the creator of all things. Think about light and without it there is no life.

But not only do we know that God is light but there is no darkness in him at all. There is no hidden side of God. He has revealed himself perfectly in his son Jesus. Jesus came to reveal the father who is perfect, and Jesus is the light of the world. The light has shown in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it. So we could go for hours on this reality of God being light, but John is doing something important for us here.

John is giving us a right view of God.

Since Gnosticism was creeping into the the church then they were getting a skewed view of God. Do you remember the dollar bill illustration I gave you of George Washington? Gnosticism was creating a warped view or a smaller view of Jesus as a light, not the only light of the world. There was darkness still in God because of matter. But John combats this idea.

When we have a wrong view of God everything else is messed up. Our view of ourselves, others and the world. Think about it practically for a moment, even thought John will show us what will happen in a moment. What happens if you are trying to fellowship with a God that is light but has darkness in him. Who is good, but not fully good. You are not going to trust him, you are not going to want to fellowship with him.

And yet if we are not careful, when we let strange ideas creep into our minds, we can start to slip into some weird ideas of God. Where we start thinking that there is a little bit of darkness in God because of our experience. But what we don’t remember is that God is light and in them is no darkness at all. The darkness is from the enemy who wants to steal kill and destroy. So we start blaming the God for things that the devil is doing.

So let’s chat for a moment here about this because it has been pretty dark recently, has it not? And to be completely honest with you I’ve been processing a lot over the past month a lot of darkness. So back on August 27th, the school shooting at annunciation school happened. And while that was incredibly horrendous I called my mom because she works at hope academy, a school only 5 blocks from Annunciation. And while thankfully nothing happened there, her kids knew kids at annunciation. Then we fast forward to a couple weeks ago and Charlie Kirks assassination that was devastating thinking about a 31 year old being killed in front of his children. That is dark. And then, the Friday of the same week there isa bomb threat at my kids school. Thankfully, nothing happened and it was taken care of but as a parent, there are a lot of thoughts going through your mind. And on top of all of this, I’m fully aware that you are hearing and seeing many different opinions and views about everything going on in the world. And in all of this, there is this pastoral desire in me to do the same thing that John is doing here for my heart and your heart. God is light, there is darkness happening and if we start to have things creep into our mind that this darkness is stronger that God who is light, we are deceiving ourselves. And I believe you know this already, but please if you are getting overwhelmed by the darkness, whether it be in your world or the world, know that my door is open. My phone number, email, and elder’s are here to have conversations with you. Because that is what brings healing, fellowship.

But that is not practical Josh, that doesn’t change what is going on in the world. Your right, but it does affect your world, which is what you can control. John is going to show us here in the next verses. Let’s read these two verses again.

English Standard Version Chapter 1

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 say…If we say one thing and do another. If we post something and live differently. If we claim something about ourselves but live differently. We lie and do not practice the truth.

John is coming against those who have bought into gnosticism that think what they do with their body does not matter, so they just sin and give into the flesh and thoughts. John tells them, well you are lying and you are not in the truth. That is not special revelation that is true, it is perverted and demonic. Same goes for us today. If we have christian bumper stickers, Bible verses in our social media bios, attending a church, maybe even go on a mission trip and yet our lives are dark, not light, we are lying. It’s that simple.

But what about those of us who are walking in the light John but see darkness in our lives from time to time. Where we realize an addiction in our lives, not just to alcohol or pornography, but an addiction to work or sports, or comfort. Where we are walking in the light and then boom, the Holy Spirit highlights in our lives darkness that needs to be confronted. John shows us the beautiful truth that the blood of Jesus cleanses us from all sin.

Light demonstration. Walking in the light is freedom to become more christlike. Walking in the light means I’m in fellowship with God and other believers because I am not hiding in darkness,

Reflection Questions

1.Do you have a right view of God.

I really encourage you to think about this. Is there any area of darkness in your view of who God is? Do you think that when you ask for a fish he is going to give you a fish? Or do you see him as good? And if you see any view that is not in line with scripture, walk into the light by confessing that. Confess to the Lord, to another believer that there is this skewed view that needs light shone on it.

2.Am I lying to myself and others by walking in darkness?

I’m going for the jugular here. I don’t want us to be a church that puts on masks or facades that think we can not bring things into the light. John is showing us here that one piece of evidence that we are walking in darkness is broken fellowship. Are there brothers and sisters in your life that you are running with or are you hiding away in the dark of your thoughts and secret addictions? Listen, this is not a shame and condemnation message, this is an invitation into freedom to step out of the dark an into the light. Are you hiding things? Are you covering up things? If so I want to encourage you to come up for prayer afterwards and confess it so you can walk in the light. Don’t let another day go by. Are your thoughts dark? Come into the light. Is there an area that is slowly creeping into a place of complacency because there is a lack of light?

3. Are we believing the blood of Jesus cleanses us from all our sins?

Does anyone enjoy being clean? I like being clean and not dirty and sweaty. And then when we are clean we usually like to be clean. I wonder if we hide in darkness because we don’t have a right view of God that says we are clean. That we have believed ideas and possibly bad theology that says we are always dirty and always sinful. I’m not saying that you are perfect, I’m just wondering if we have this clear view of what Jesus did on the cross was to actually wash us clean so we can walk in the light, purity, and holiness, as he is in the light, purity, and holiness.

This is what we have accessible through Jesus, the living God who made a way to have fellowship with God and others. Are you in the light, or half in the dark. Here the invitation today to walk in the light and be free from that. Clean. Pure. Holy. Above reproach before God.

And when this happens we can actually shine rather than give into the darkness around us. We can offer hope to people that are feeling hopeless. We can offer peace to those who are anxious. This is what it means to walk in the light, to remember that the light has shown into the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it!

PRAY