Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction

Last summer we were looking for something to do up around Cook Forest, and we stopped at the Mysterious Maze—have you seen it?

It’s a two-story indoor labyrinth made out of plywood and stud walls, along with some moveable obstacles.

The whole thing is painted black and completely dark inside, with the exception of a few isolated spots with laser lights or optical illusions.

We decided to give it a try, and as we were getting ready to go in the owner said to us, “Now, when you get in there, don’t use your phone flashlight or anything—it’s not against the rules, but it really ruins the fun.”

We got about two minutes in, and I remember thinking I was about ready to “ruin the fun” anyway and pull out my light!

But I resisted the urge, and we actually had a really good time.

Groping around and trying to feel your way in the dark can be entertaining if it’s just a funhouse attraction like the Mysterious Maze—but it’s no fun at all when you feel like you are trying to live your life by just groping and stumbling around in the dark.

Here in our text this morning, the Apostle John writes something about God that is going to be the foundation of everything he writes through the middle of Chapter 3. It’s something that, particularly if you came to Christ later in life, that you know from firsthand experience:

1 John 1:5 (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 you know what it’s like to live your life in the dark—just trying to get by, doing the best that you can, groping your way along and trying to figure things out with no guidance, not able to see your way—then you know what a difference it makes to have the light of God’s truth illuminating your way, don’t you?

John is going to use that image of walking in the light and walking in the darkness throughout these verses, because he has something vital for us to understand about who Jesus is.

Remember, John is writing this letter because he is fighting the false teachers (one in particular, I believe) who were saying that Jesus was not really God—He just looked like God, but couldn’t really have been God because God can only be spirit, not mortal.

As we saw last week it is absolutely vital that we affirm Jesus is both fully God and fully man—our whole salvation utterly depends on it.

And so as John is combatting that confusion over who Jesus is, he establishes his argument here in the fact that God is light—and so what I understand this passage to be showing us today is that

You can rightly KNOW Jesus only in the LIGHT of God’s TRUTH

There are no shortages today of opinions about who Jesus is, what He means, and what it means to follow Him.

There are those who claim He would be a socialist today, or that He would support gay marriage, or that He would march with Black Lives Matter or join in calls to defund the police.

There are those who wear the t-shirts that conflate Jesus’ name with USA (“JesUSA”), and those who claim that He would be a dyed-in-the-wool Republican and supply-side economic capitalist.

Everybody wants to claim that Jesus would agree with them or approve of their philosophies or fit into their worldview.

But we can only know Jesus rightly when we let the light of God’s truth shine on our hearts.

The first thing John shows us is that to know Jesus rightly we must understand

I.

The Truth about God’s CHARACTER (1 John 1:5)

Look again at verse 5:

1 John 1:5 (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.

Another way of saying this in the Scriptures is to say that

He is UTTERLY HOLY

Throughout the pages of the Bible, we see reference after reference to God’s holiness and righteousness and perfection in terms of “light”:

Psalm 27:1 (ESV)

The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear?

The Lord is the stronghold of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?

Psalm 36:9 (ESV)

For with you is the fountain of life; in your light do we see light.

In the introduction to his Gospel, John says of Jesus

John 1:9 (ESV)

The true light, which gives light to everyone, was coming into the world.

And Jesus Himself says

John 8:12 (ESV)

Again Jesus spoke to them, saying, “I am the light of the world.

Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”

Not only is God “light”, John says, but he makes very clear that “in Him is no darkness at all”.

The “light” of God’s holiness and goodness and moral perfection is contrasted with the “darkness” of sin and evil and wickedness and rebellion—John says in Chapter 3 of his Gospel:

John 3:19–20 (ESV)

And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil.

For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed.

When John sets out his statement here in our text in 1 John, he is saying something utterly crucial, utterly foundational about God—God is utterly, completely and unalterably holy in all that He is and all that He does.

That God is utterly holy means that there is no darkness, no sin, no spot or blemish of unrighteousness or wickedness in Him whatsoever.

The image of light helps us understand this, doesn’t it?

What happens when you turn on your flashlight in the middle of the Mysterious Maze?

The darkness is destroyed, isn’t it?

In the same way, the darkness of sin and evil simply cannot remain in the presence of God—it is obliterated by the light of His holiness the way darkness is obliterated by a light!

God’s utter holiness means that He is completely and unalterably righteous and pure—and it also means that He is utterly and completely separate from us.

There is no way that we can comprehend Him on our own—we cannot know someone who is utterly different, utterly set apart and separate from us, unless He reaches down to reveal Himself to us!

That God is “light” means that He is utterly holy, and it means that

He is SELF-REVEALING

Light banishes darkness, and light reveals, doesn’t it?

Light allows you to see things you couldn’t see otherwise.

John is making it clear here that what we can know about God must come from God Himself—we cannot create our own notions of Who God is and what He is like out of our own ideas and our own notions of what we think He is like—John even says that this truth that God is light is a truth that he himself “received” and passed on to his readers.

That God is light means that He reveals Himself to you—you don’t get to define Him according to your preferences!

You don’t get to define what holiness is, you don’t get to set the definition of what is “sin” or not—God alone is utterly holy, and God alone reveals what holiness is and what sin is.

You cannot rightly understand who Jesus is or what He has done if you are seeing in the light of God’s truth.

You must understand the truth about God’s character, and you must understand

II.

The Truth about your CONDITION (1 John 1:6-10)

Look with me at verses 6-7 of 1 John 1--

1 John 1:6–7 (ESV)

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.

The first thing that John tells you is

Don’t lie to OTHERS (vv.

6-7; cp.

John 3:19-20)

about your spiritual condition.

Don’t say that you have fellowship with God—that you have a relationship with Him—while you are living your life in the darkness of your own sin.

There are a lot of people who have carefully split their lives between their church life on Sunday morning and the rest of their life the other days of the week.

Are you a different person here than you are on a Tuesday afternoon at work?

Is your language different on Sunday morning than it is the rest of the week?

You do and say things here you have no intention of anyone else in your life ever finding out about--and do and say things all week that you have no intention of anyone here ever finding out about?

If you live like that and try to lead everyone to believe that you have a relationship with God, then the Bible says you are a liar.

Because light obliterates darkness—there is no way that the darkness of your love of your sin can withstand the light of God’s holiness.

A Christian who walks in darkness is an oxymoron—like flaming snowflakes—you cannot continue to nurture and delight in sin if you are walking in fellowship with God.

The only way you can know Jesus rightly is to see the truth of your condition in light of God’s truth—don’t lie to others, and

Don’t deceive YOURSELF (vv.

8-9)

Look at verses 8-9:

1 John 1:8–9 (ESV)

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.

How easy it is for us to say, “Well, I’m not sinning when I immediately get on the phone to pass on some embarrassing or sensitive details about someone—I’m just ‘sharing a prayer concern’”.

But God calls it gossip, and it is a sin:

Proverbs 11:9 (ESV)

With his mouth the godless man would destroy his neighbor, but by knowledge the righteous are delivered.

You may say that the rage and hatred and anger boiling up inside you when Fox News (or CNN or MSNBC or Newsmax) report on the latest political maneuvers on one side or the other, that it’s all just “righteous indignation”—but God’s definition of what you’re doing is different:

Matthew 5:22 (ESV)

But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment; whoever insults his brother will be liable to the council; and whoever says, ‘You fool!’ will be liable to the hell of fire.

John says here that you are not the measure of what is and is not a sin—it is God alone that defines what sin is.

And John says here that justifying or explaining away your behavior and why it’s really not a sin for you means you are just deceiving yourself.

Don’t lie to others that you have a relationship with God while you are living a double life, don’t deceive yourself that you are not sinning when God says you are, and in verse 10, John warns you,