A Light in the Darkness

Introduction

Recap Series

week 1 - Our Fellowship....

Knowing God, Declaring God and Enjoying God

Today - A Light in the Darkness

doesn’t that sound like something that we could use

a little light in the darkness that we see all around us

so many people worried and anxious about all the things that are going on… it even seems like evil is winning sometimes

in our passage today, we have one of the most memorized and quoted verses in the NT

I don’t believe that we take it out of context, it is a pretty straight forward verse, but I do believe that there is more to it than we assign to it

1 John 1:5-2:2 This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you: God is light, and there is absolutely no darkness in him. 6 If we say, “We have fellowship with him,” and yet we walk in darkness, we are lying and are not practicing the truth. 7 If we walk in the light as he himself 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 are deceiving ourselves, and the truth is not in us. 9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and righteous 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 My little children, I am writing you these things so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father—Jesus Christ the righteous one. 2 He himself is the atoning sacrifice, for our sins, and not only for ours, but also for those of the whole world.

PRAY!

A Defining Light

Light is a funny thing… sometimes, it makes it harder to see

LED head lights

We live in a time where we have people competing over defining morals

we have those that claim to be woke… redefining what racism and sexism is, have come up with terms over the last ten years that you did not hear before

homophobe, xenophobe

You have people of faith saying that morals are based on God, who he is and his law

a major problem with this is that both movements define who they believe God is, what he says or doesn’t say

1 John 1:5 This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you: God is light, and there is absolutely no darkness in him.

God is light… and that light reveals who he is

a couple weeks ago, Randy Cadell spoke about Moses burning bush moment… “I AM WHO I AM”

God revealing that he is eternal, that he came from nothing, he just was… as such there is nothing that props him up, that he needs to continue to exist

this eternal God came to this world in the form of a man, lived a perfect life and died a sinners death

This God is light…

a different light does not reveal this God

different opinions on what that might mean

some say, Holy or set apart,

meaning that there is none like him, none as beautiful, no other that is omniscient, omnipresent

some say that it means that it he majesty…

he is so majestic that you cannot look upon him

like Moses, God says you cannot possibly look at me and live

some say that it is the purity of God

that there is no evil in him, that everything he does is loving, good and righteous

I understand each of the thoughts, but I cannot figure out why it cannot be all three…

reading that God is light should lead us to simply worship of naming all of the characteristics

There is NO darkness in him

there is a double negative to this verse… “absolutely no”

as if just no darkness could have left room for you to think that there was some

most scholars believe that this is like when Jesus would say, “truly truly”

which is only found when reading in the gospel of John

but it shows the emphasis John wanted to put on this point

why the emphasis… if we know that there is no darkness in him, we should not fear running to him

If we lose sight of the ethical nature of God we miss the truth on which Christianity is based and land on moral confusion

this is where we are right now in society…

the lost mock God, deny God and in essence make themselves into gods

believers question God, question his motives and his sovereignty and then make themselves into gods

God is light and there is no darkness in him at all… as such everything about our actions, our motives our entire lives should be measured by it

A Defiant People

I am not afraid of the persecution that so many believe is coming to the church

I fear more that the people who claim to be believers fighting each other over things…

looking down on each other and their faith if they choose to wear masks or get vaccines or simply think differently in terms of politics

I believe that this is why over and over in the NT letters the writers tells the church about serving one another, fight for unity and things such as this.

1 John 1:6-10 If we say, “We have fellowship with him,” and yet we walk in darkness, we are lying and are not practicing the truth. 7 If we walk in the light as he himself 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 are deceiving ourselves, and the truth is not in us. 9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and righteous 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.

Through a series of “Ifs” we see what authentic Christianity is

are we walking what we say that we believe

this word walk, is like practicing like living it out

I find this interesting, because if we talk about being a practicing christian, we talk about going to church on Sundays… that is almost the opposite that this is talking about

it means away from Sunday mornings, are you still walking, living what it is that you say you believe

are you loving God with everything that you have… are you teaching that to your kids…

are you loving people, regardless of race, religion, sexual orientation or political views

I am not saying that you agree or affirm what they believe and say

in fact I would argue that Jesus makes a special point to tell us that we are to make sure that we are loving those who we disagree with, especially those that oppose us and our God

V10 tells us that if we act as if we have no sin, we make God out to be a liar…

not that he lied, but that he is a liar

meaning that it is his character to be this way… we say that there is darkness in him

if we give lip service only to our beliefs and we do not live them out… John calls us liars, like Jesus calling the Pharisees hypocrites

you can look and act the part and not be saved… Judas Iscariot

had the name… named after one of the 12 patriarchs of Israel

followed Jesus for years, had a high position of apostle and even was the treasurer of the group

was at the last supper

he betrayed Jesus because he wanted to see the overthrow of Rome so bad that he though he could manipulate the situation and get the messiah to do what he thought he should do

in essence making himself god…

when he realized that they were going to kill Jesus… still making himself into god, he returned the money and gave himself a death sentence

how many times do we try and make God do things the way that we think that they should be done and even take the role of judge and cast down condemnation on others…

Instead, we should be people marked with confession of sins

the picture that John is drawing out here of one that claims to be perfect is of a person boldly standing before a holy God filthy… claiming to be clean

that is what it is like when we claim to have no sin, or to think that we have taken care of the sin ourselves

this good work made up for that… I have hidden that sin away, as if he cannot see it

we do not fear flesh and blood, but we should fear him who can destroy flesh and the soul in hell!

I fear that we see God as weak and timid because we do not see the consequences of our sin

I would imagine that if we heard the agony of the nails being driven into the hands of Christ every time we sinned… every blatant act, wrong motive and judgmental glance, we would be much more repentant

We should not take so lightly that when we confess that he will forgive

the one who has legal and is righteous to punish us for our sin, is faithful to forgive when we confess

not just to forgive, but to purify us, cleanse us from all unrighteousness

we no longer stand before him filthy in our sin, but humbly stand before him cleaned and pure!

that word faithful, means committed… how committed is God to this

he sent his son… poured out his righteous wrath on him, so that we could live

A Defending Savior

We are a very defensive people…

we are always attempting to justify ourselves… to each other, to ourselves, to God

we have excuses as to why we do not live as we should, we have excuses for our sins

1 John 2:1-2 My little children, I am writing you these things so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father—Jesus Christ the righteous one. 2 He himself is the atoning sacrifice, for our sins, and not only for ours, but also for those of the whole world.

John states that his desire is that his readers will be sinless

we know that we will not accomplish this until we are with Jesus in our glorified bodies

something that we look forward to the closer we get

But he tells his readers, almost like a reminder that we all will sin, that we have an advocate

Jesus the son of God is with the Father advocating for all who believe in him right now…

advocate - paraklete - word used most often in the NT to talk about the Holy Spirit

the advocate or helper - it draws a unison between the two parts of the God head…

the interesting part to me, is that the same God that is in us and aiding us, is also standing before the father aiding us at the same time…

that Jesus is our atoning sacrifice or propitiation…

means to make an appeasement of the offended party, to satisfy an account

when we stand before the judgement seat of christ everything that we wasted our time will be burnt up like hay and straw

all our motives will be revealed,

we will have nothing to stand on as a defence… but we are not left alone to defend ourselves against the accusations against our accuser satan…

we have an advocate who will stand up and cloth us in his righteousness

have you repented of you sins… or are you still making God out to be a liar by saying you are justified in your actions, or by your good deeds, that you are clean because of anything other than the blood of Jesus

Repent and trust in the Lord Jesus Christ today for the salvation of your souls!