Be In The Light: The Light

What Are We Doing?

Good morning and welcome to Horeb Baptist church and thank you for joining us whether in person or online. Over the next five weeks we are embarking on a new series named “In The Light” where we will be walking through the First Epistle of John and Answering the overall question of what does it look like to be in the Light? Let’s go ahead and dive in to chapter 1.

1 John 1:1–10 ESV

That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we looked upon and have touched with our hands, concerning the word of life— the life was made manifest, and we have seen it, and testify to it and proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and was made manifest to us— that which we have seen and heard we proclaim also to you, so that you too may have fellowship with us; and indeed our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ. And we are writing these things so that our joy may be complete. 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 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. 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. If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.

The Why

One of the questions we have to ask of this and any letter or epistle in the bible is Why did this person write it? The apostles though gifted writers, didn’t write just to write. It usually came by that they were in some distant land and heard that one of the churches was experiencing an outbreak of heresy or derision or division. Usually all three come together. The context here is this. Though the writer of this letter is not specifically named, traditionally it is believed to have be one of the Johns in the group. This letter is strongly attributed, hands down, to John the writer of the Gospel and Revelation due to it’s writing style and all the call backs made in his writings.

At this time John was overseeing a few house churches in Ephesus where a big chunk of their followers were Jewish believers. But there were some who were not only falling into deception but spreading it. We as christians adhere or declare that Jesus is both God and Man. 100/100 God and man, not 50/50 but 100/100. I understand that for mathematicians that’s not something that makes sense.

My wife always makes fun of me because we’ll be watching a movie or show and start to correct something. That car would not have been able to make that jump in one piece, there’s no way they would’ve made that turn, or even from a storyline point of view when someone is being chased in a horror flick, why would you turn there?!! I remember going to a movie once and hearing someone in the crowd scream out, nope, wrong turn, everyone laughed and then the character got caught up. So for you that love math, I’m sorry but Jesus is 100% God and 100% man, there are some mysteries that our finite minds cannot understand.

That doctrine is called the hypostatic union. but, There was a false belief that Jesus never became man and that he only appeared to be human, similar to his theophanies in the OT. So they believed that there was no real incarnation and that he didn’t actually die, but just appear to have died. This heresy is called docetism and has so many implications. Among the many, the most important is this, if Jesus didn’t die on the cross, then his death cannot be our life.

And we see this correction happen in Verses 1-4, Primarily in verse 2:

1 John 1:2 ESV

the life was made manifest, and we have seen it, and testify to it and proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and was made manifest to us—

The beauty in being able to look back now is that we get to see in scripture a continuity on this message:

John 1:1 ESV

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

John 1:14 ESV

And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.

Galatians 4:4 ESV

But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law,

Hebrews 2:14 ESV

Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, he himself likewise partook of the same things, that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil,

A little OT

Isaiah 7:14 ESV

Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.

Isaiah 9:6 ESV

For to us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

Malachi 3:1 ESV

“Behold, I send my messenger, and he will prepare the way before me. And the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple; and the messenger of the covenant in whom you delight, behold, he is coming, says the Lord of hosts.

So as you can see through scripture we as christians believe that Jesus is the incarnate son of God. and this doctrine is important because with this truth or this light, we would still be in the darkness and people of darkness. As we see in Verses three and four that our fellowship may be based on these truths, and that this fellowship is with each other in JEsus and with the Father. In essence saying this, because of this unchanging truth, that jesus descended from heaven and took on flesh, we be united as brothers and sister in him and also that because of that great truth, we are in communion with God the Father.

Not only that, but if we look in

Hebrews 4:15 ESV

For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin.

We can look to Jesus for comfort in every season. There’s this meme I always think about cause it’s pretty funny. It’s a picture of when they were filming Passion of the christ and Mel Gibson is sitting and talking with Jim Caviesel while Jim was in full make up during the passion scene and the meme usually reads, “Me telling jesus how hard life is right now.” I understand it’s meant to be funny and we read in John 20 that Jesus has his wounds still when Thomas puts his hands in, but this is the beauty, that the one who suffered for us, listens to us, intently and eagerly. Do we come to him in all of our need, whether large or small?

What a friend we have in Jesus All our sins and griefs to bear What a privilege to carry Everything to God in prayer

Oh, what peace we often forfeit Oh, what needless pain we bear All because we do not carry Everything to God in prayer

Walk in the Light

John, in this Epistle is showing us what the light is, Jesus and the truth about Jesus. So then, what does it mean to walk in the light? Good question and thank you for asking. John and James have the same theology when it comes to obedience and faith. James, in his epistle, tells us that “faith, without works is dead.” James was also correcting a fallacy amongst The diaspora (jewish christians living outside of israel) and gentile believers. In James’ case the people he was writing to were believers who were showing partiality (or giving preferential treatment) to the rich and socially important, all the while marginalizing those in need. He was reminding them that to Love your brother was the work of the believer, and that your faith without that work is dead.

John Likewise is teaching the house churches in Ephesus and us by extension that to walk in the light, or the truth about Christ, is to trust the incarnation to be true. That what you have tasted and seen about God is unchanging and everlasting. We have two forms of light in our verses today, The light of God’s holiness that exposes our sin, and the light of the truth about christ.

At night, when the light is off in a room, what does it look like? Dark, right.? You can’t really see generally speaking, some people have night vision. When you turn on the light everything is exposed. Likewise, as god is light, his light exposes our sin and our need of a savior. Us trusting and relying on the light as expressed earlier(truth of christ) is our hope amidst our struggle with sin. The light of God is a convicting force and a solace in our christian walks. they are not dueling powers but work together for our good and God’s glory.

The Reformation Study Bible: English Standard Version (2015 Edition) Chapter 1

Like John’s gospel, 1 John begins with a contrast between light and darkness. In the gospel, the incarnate Christ is the light that continues to shine in the darkness of a world that tries to exclude Him. Believers face a choice: either to “walk in the light,” coming to Christ in faith alone and opening their hearts to Him in confession of sin, or to “walk in darkness,” denying that they are sinners. The contrast between light and darkness is inseparably linked to a contrast between those who “practice the truth” and agree with God, and those who make God “a liar.” It is an inescapable reality that believers sin; the remedy for sin—confession and cleansing by the blood of Jesus—is God’s continuing irrevocable gift to believers. Because Jesus’ death has paid in full the penalty for sin, and because God has demonstrated that Jesus is His true Son by raising Him from the dead, God grants forgiveness and cleansing as a matter of faithfulness and justice. He will not refuse to pardon those who trust Him because He is faithful to His promise to forgive His people, and He cannot refuse to pardon those who trust Him because it would be unjust for Him to make repentant sinners pay the penalty when Christ has already paid it in their behalf.

In other words, to walk in the light is to come to christ in faith alone and in faith confessing our sins and believing that we are forgiven by the Life, death and resurrection of the Incarnate son of God. That God will in fact forgive us because he is faithful to his promises and that he will not refuse our confession.

(I will not add a qualifier to this. I’m not a fan because God knows our hearts and our intentions. God knows whether we are sincere and true, which is why His Word doesn’t tells us to have sincere confession, or great faith, He says, faith the size of a mustard seed, and confess your sins. we can’t tirick him, God knows what’s up.)

This is why when we gather as a church it is right and good to confess our sins together. It is pivotal in our communion with God and with each other. That’s why we have confession in the middle of the worship set. That is why we urge you to confess before communion as well. to reflect on your need for what the communion table represents. We need that. And if any of you feel that you don’t sin

1 John 1:8 NASB95

If we say that we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves and the truth is not in us.

As a light exposes the darkness, God’s holy light exposes our darkness. But as light from the sun warms the earth, so too does the light of christ give comfort and warmth to the believer.

Believer, I pray that we can remember this all our lives, remember that there are no qaulifiers. That as God exposes and convicts, He has also supplied the remedy for our great need, the incarnate son of God, who came took on flesh that he might live for us, took on the cross, spilled his blood and died, that we might be cleansed and alive in him, resurrected to give us the hope of life everlasting.

and if you have not been a believer and heard these words today and want to know more or feel that God is stirring something inside of you, reach out to us. We want to help you, walk with you, answer any questions you might have.

Abide in your Savior,

Abide in His love.

The labor of God is to trust in the Son.