Walking in the Light, v2

Hypocrisy is agreed to be a curse!

If there is something both Jesus and the world agree on about the Christian church, it’s that blatant hypocrisy is a terrible curse.

Real life has many trials, sadnesses and griefs.

Many of them are a result of our our self, pride and sin;

many more are simply the result of living in a fallen world where rebellion against God’s ways has yielded pain and suffering on every level.

I think there is a profound emptiness that prevails in a Christian community when the church culture is that we’re all OK, we’re happy, we’re good; nothing out of place here.

Jesus knows that’s not true.

The world knows that’s not true.

We ourselves know that’s not true!

There is probably no one here today who could say that they have no relationship problems, no financial problems and no health issues… and some people may well have all of the above today.

Now of course. no one wants to belong to a church that is problem-centred and always naval gazing.

There are people who can talk of nothing else besides their tremendous woes that are making life absolute misery at the moment

But a church that is gospel-focussed, grace-based… where imperfect people can be real and find love, healing, forgiveness and restoration… that’s a different matter altogether… it’s wonderful…

A church where the goal is growth in Christian maturity and God’s grace is released into the community as people listen (and hear.. there’s a difference!) each other, pray for each other and see each other as brothers and sisters in Christ.

The enemy is not the people who take a chance to tell us the truth… but our common enemy is the world the flesh and the devil.

The people who participate, actively take part in that community find it’s like being released from bondage into life and peace.

and make no mistake: some outsiders will be intrigued and attracted to find out more.

More about the God who makes such relationships and authenticity possible.

John the Apostle is writing to a church where there has been a split.

Some people claimed to offer a superior version of Christianity; they had a way around the sins of normal people and they believed they lived on a higher plane than others in the church community.

In 1 Jn 1:1-4 John says that Jesus is the eternal God who at one point in human history became man and walked among us.

In v5 John says something that he heard from Jesus… God is light, in Him there is no darkness at all.

This is the place to start. This is foundational. Get this wrong and everything after it will be wrong.

In ancient times work ceased when darkness fell.

You could only do minimal things after dark.

Darkness subdues and covers and restricts… darkness is where evil happens…

But light revitalises and frees by scattering darkness, illuminating the world, arousing those who sleep and allowing humans to carry out their lives.

So when John says God is light and this light has dawned on us in the coming of Jesus, he’s saying that the time of freedom and joy and life has dawned in the world.

But this poses an awful dilemma when people don’t understand the gospel!

When the “Gospel” is Good Advice... people become hypocrites!

Some people think that the “gospel” is merely good advice.

And the good advice has to be… if a person is going to get to heaven, they had better be good.

Be humble, be kind, be gentle. Be self-sacrificial.

In short, be nice, be good, behave.

People who are doing their best to get to heaven cannot bear to have some brave soul, a spouse, a preacher, a neighbour tell them they are doing wrong.

John gives us three tests that we can apply to see whether we actually believe the gospel is merely good advice.

1 Jn 1:6 “6 If we claim to have fellowship with him yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live by the truth.”

If, just for a moment we look at v7, we get an idea of what particular form of lifestyle John means by walking in the darkness.

v7… it begins… BUT… if we walk in the light… we have fellowship with one another.

If the “gospel” is merely good advice… and people in church make life difficult for you… if they make it difficult for you to be good, be nice, behave… well just forget them! Who needs them anyway?

Those hypocrites are just so far beneath this holy life that I live… I’m just going to ignore them, talk about them behind their backs… gossip… who needs that lot anyway?

Is that walking in the truth? No. That’s a lie… a lie we have told ourselves… so we walk in darkness.

1 Jn 1:8 “8 If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.”

Then there are always some who take the be nice, be good, behave so superficially that they think they have arrived.

Once again they think they are superior to everyone else.

But little do they realise the reality of having a sinful nature.

People.. all people, you and me… are sinners by nature as well as nurture!

We never, not since the Garden of Eden, ever really had a chance to be nice, be good, behave.

It’s like when Isaiah says the lion will lie down with the lamb.

Well, not for long he won’t. Not while the nature of a lion is to eat meat. If the lion is ever going to lie with the lamb, the lion will need a new nature.

1 Jn 1:10 “10 If we claim we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar and his word has no place in our lives.”

And then v10 moves from the reality of a sinful nature to the reality of our own deeds.

No parent has to train their children to put themselves first!

Selfish pride, human ambition is as natural as breathing!

We have to continually train children to share, to think of others, to apologise…

Good advice is meant to be followed.

Somebody who says put sunscreen and a hat on before going outside wants their advice followed.

But we cannot follow God’s holy law. It is beyond our capacity.

When the Gospel is Good News, people can be authentic!

What a relief to find that after each of these claims that people made, John has a “but” or an “if”.

The Good News is that God saves sinners… the very people who break his holy law.

Look at 1 Jn 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, purifies us from all sin.”

That’s Good News!

Good news is not something to do! Good News is something to hear… something to check out and see if it really is Good News. It it is, believe it… live it… and tell it to others.

What a tragedy it would be to have a friend dying of some awful disease… and meet with them and chat with them and get them some painkillers… but never share with them the Good News that you have something to cure their very disease hidden in your back pocket!

And then v9 is right at the centre of the Good News!

1 John 1:9 NIV84

9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.

We’ve all seen the superficial confession of sins from our children when they knock over their siblings tower or footballers who’ve done the wrong thing.

The “Sorry!” of the 5 year old or the…

And we’ve heard the apologies of footballers and others who have been caught out doing the wrong thing.

“I’m sorry if you felt offended by what I did the other day”.

Some years ago I was meeting regularly with a young couple in my office for marriage preparation and on this particular week we came to the session on conflict.

They had read the chapter in the book we were going through, including Bible verses on how to handle conflict... so I suggested that we try it on an actual conflict that they’d recently been through.

It turned out that it was on hours since they’d had a major blowup about something he’d said to her… a supposedly funny story he told at her expense… and she was still very offended by his actions…

He knew he’d hurt her but couldn’t see how anything he could say could make it any better.

I tried to counsel him on the 7 “A’s” of a confession that PeaceMaker Ministries suggest.

Address; Avoid; Admit; Acknowledge; Accept; Alter; Ask

But he wouldn’t be in it.

Firstly he had no idea what I was asking… and secondly he really didn’t think it… or anything else he could do would make any difference.

So I asked them would they mind if he and I swapped places. I would talk to his fiance about what had happened and then I would offer a confession of sin on his behalf.

So we changed places… and I asked his fiance for her perspective on what had happened.

She told me the story of driving in the car and he had said something to her that really offended her.

I asked her a bit about it.... (I must say it was so much easier because it wasn’t actually me she was mad at!).

Then I went through the 7 A’s.

Address… just her… easy

Avoid… if, but or maybe.

Admit specifically. So I said back to her basically just what she had said to me.

So in the car when I made the joke about… I now realise that was made actually at your expense....

Acknowledge the hurt… you felt very shocked and hurt and at that moment our friendship took a significant hit… and even now you don’t feel particularly good about me.

Accept the consequences. I accept that my actions brought about that rift in our friendship and it might take a while before you feel good about me again.

Alter your behaviour… Look I didn’t mean to hurt you but what I said was not funny but hurt you. In the future I really will try to be more thoughtful and not try to say something funny at your expense.

Ask for forgiveness… will you please forgive me.

Well, you should have seen the way she relaxed.

She had been heard… she knew we now understood how she felt and she just softened dramatically.

He certainly saw it! He jumped in the air and said to her… “What he said!”

I read some time ago about a man who, after many months, finally convinced a friend to accompany him to church. But almost as soon as the service started the minister called up an elder that he had had words with during the week and apologised for the way he had spoken to him and asked for his forgiveness.

The man who invited his friend couldn’t work out if he was more embarrassed or angry. After trying for so long to get his friend to church to be hit with that. But his friend was both amazed and very encouraged. It was real and it was good.

1 John 1:8–9 NIV84

8 If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. 9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.

That’s GOOD NEWS!

Now please don’t make the mistake of thinking this will make community life all just spic and span and neat and tidy!

It won’t; it doesn’t.

Church life is messy; the church life we read about in the Bible is messy and church life today is still messy.

People are messy; I’m messy… and I’m assuming you are as well.

And it is scary letting people into our real lives… and expose our faults and bring them to the light.

But doing so might just kill off the thing that is nearly impossible to kill off any other way… and that is our pride.

But my goodness.... a church that has managed to subdue pride through a spirit-led determination to kill hypocrisy and live in close fellowship with God and each other? That’s gold!

The Glory of Authentic Church Community

Sometimes we look at the people around us and reported on in the media and we think the world is so hostile to Christianity we’ll never see any new converts.

There is of course a truth to the fact of their hostility… but that’s been since year dot.

In fact the last half of last century was perhaps a real anomaly in that society largely was positive towards the church.

But perhaps here is some things we, the church community can do that will make a real difference over time.