WALKING IN THE LIGHT WITH JESUS
Posted by Pastor Greg Allen on May 3, 2020 under 2020 |
Bethany Bible Church Sunday Message; May 3, 2020 from 1 John 1:5-2:2
Theme: To walk in fellowship with God, we must walk in the light of His holiness through His Son Jesus.
(All Scripture is taken from The New King James Version, unless otherwise indicated).
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1. TO GROW IN MY RELATIONSHIP WITH JESUS CHRIST.
2. TO GROW IN MY REPENTANCE FROM SIN.
3. TO GROW IN MY RELIANCE UPON THE HOLY SPIRIT.
4. TO GROW IN THE DAILY READING OF THE BIBLE.
5. TO GROW IN MY REGULAR ATTENDANCE AT CHURCH.
6. TO GROW IN THE RESTORATION OF RELATIONSHIPS.
7. TO GROW IN MY READINESS TO SHARE OUR FAITH.
With all of the changes that have been whirling around us recently, it’d be hard to think of seven resolves more crucial to keep than these. We’ve already devoted a Sunday morning to considering the first one—the resolve to grow in our personal relationship with Jesus Christ. And this morning, I’d like to take up the second one—the resolve to grow in our personal repentance from sin.
The second resolve naturally follows after the first. We really can’t go very far into a deeper relationship with the Lord Jesus before we realize that there are habits and practices and attitudes in our life that we need to set aside. And to guide us in this, we’ll look this morning at a passage at the beginning of the New Testament book of 1 John.
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In the first four verses of 1 John, we find that the apostle John gives us a testimony of Jesus Christ. He and the other apostles had spent three-and-a-half years walking with Him on earth. They beheld His character as the Son of God in human flesh. They saw His majesty on display on the Mount of Transfiguration. And they were eyewitnesses to His resurrected life. They truly beheld His glory; “the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth” (John 1:14). And so, John began his letter with these words:
That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, concerning the Word of life—the life was manifested, and we have seen, and bear witness, and declare to you that eternal life which was with the Father and was manifested to us—that which we have seen and heard we declare to you, that you also may have fellowship with us; and truly our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ. And these things we write to you that your joy may be full (1 John 1:1-4).
They had personal fellowship with the holy Son of the heavenly Father. He revealed the truth to them about His Father. And what He revealed to the apostles has now been passed on by them to us; so that we—like they—can have fellowship with the heavenly Father and with His Son.
And it’s then that John wrote these words to us:
This is the message which we have heard from Him and declare to you, that God is light and in Him is no darkness at all. If we say that we have fellowship with Him, and 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 Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin. If we say that 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 that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar, and His word is not in us (vv. 5-10).
In these words, John the apostle was telling us that it is impossible to walk in fellowship with the heavenly Father and—at the same time—cling to sin. We need to turn from sin and walk in His holiness if we’re going to enjoy the fellowship with Him that He desires for us to have. And the good news is that the Father has made it possible for us to do this through the atoning sacrifice of His Son on the cross. John went on to say, in the next two verses;
My little children, these things I write to you, so that you may not sin. And if anyone sins, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. And He Himself is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the whole world (2:1-2).
It’s important to understand that these words are not meant for everyone in the world. They are intended specifically for men and women who have placed their faith in Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord. The first verse of Chapter 2 makes this clear. John wrote to “my little children”; and that’s a tender name that the apostle has for his fellow Christians. These words are for people who already have a relationship with the Father through faith in His Son Jesus.
And the reason that this is important to keep in mind is because this passage is not about how to enter into a relationship with God. Rather, what John is writing about preserving the fellowship with God that we enjoy in that relationship. You and I can be in a relationship with someone, and yet have a hindered or broken fellowship with them. For us as believers in Jesus, we have a relationship with the Father as His sons and daughters by faith. That will never change. But the presence of ongoing sin in our lives can hinder or break our fellowship with Him.
This was illustrated to me by something that happened to me when I was a kid. I have never forgotten it. My dad came into my room once—which was a horrible mess, by the way—and he told me, “Clean up this room.” I said that I would. But I lied when I said that. I didn’t really want to do it. And so, I didn’t.
Not long afterward, my dad came back in the room—saw that it was a mess still—and said, “I thought I told you to clean your room. You didn’t do it. Why didn’t you do what I said?” I didn’t have a good answer. I just shrugged and said, “I didn’t want to.”
“Now wait a minute;” he said. “Let me get this straight. I told you to clean your room, right?” And I said yes. “And you didn’t do it?” And again I said yes. “And you say that the reason is because you didn’t want to?” What else could I say? I once again said yes. And that’s when my dad did something brilliant. He said, “Okay.” And then simply walked away.
Now; understand—the relationship wasn’t ended. He was still my father. I was still his son. I still got to live in the house. But the fellowship was broken. And the wheels really started turning in my head! “What’s going to happen to me now the next time I ask something from my dad? What’s he going to say?” And you’d better believe that I got up and cleaned my room in a hurry!
And that’s the way it is with our heavenly Father. If we stumble into sin as Christians, we do not cease to be His children. We will never have to become His sons and daughters again. But we will definitely need to have the intimacy of our fellowship with the Father restored.
And this passage shows us how that happens. It teaches us that in order to walk in fellowship with God, we must walk in the light of His holiness through His Son.
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Look at the first thing that John told us in this passage. This is the first, very basic thing that we need to come to terms with. You see it in verse 5. It’s the affirmation that …
1. GOD IS LIGHT AND IN HIM IS NO DARKNESS.
John spoke of his and the other apostles’ interaction with the Son of God; and he wrote, “This is the message which we have heard from Him and declare to you, that God is light and in Him is no darkness at all.” That’s a message that Jesus passed on to the apostles about His Father—and that they then passed on to us.
I will never forget when I first read those words. I was a brand new Christian—just beginning to grasp the majesty of who God is and what His Son Jesus had done for me. I was only sixteen years old at the time. And I remember that when I read those words, I was enthralled with them. I even made a piece of calligraphy with that verse on it, and hung it up in my bedroom (once it was cleaned-up, of course). I could see those words every morning when I woke up. I truly loved them.
Why did I love those words? Thinking back, I believe it was because I had come to Jesus from a life of spiritual darkness. I had a very dirty mouth; and a very dirty mind; and a very dirty soul. I had been living in spiritual darkness for a long time; and when I placed my trust in Jesus, He took that darkness away. So, it was a thrill to my soul to know that I could now have a relationship with the God who is light, and in whom there is no darkness at all. I loved to read those words about Him, and to think of Him, and to learn about how He was making me clean inside. His light was shining in me; and I was very grateful.
That ‘light’ isn’t a physical light. Rather, it’s a moral light. To say that God is light is to use a figure of speech that affirms that He is holy and pure. And to say that in Him is no darkness at all is to say that there isn’t any moral impurity in Him whatsoever. Jesus shines that light upon us. He is the light of the world. Not everyone likes to encounter that light. Many run away from it; because they want to keep on doing the deeds of darkness. The apostle John wrote these words in the third chapter of the Gospel of John about the Lord Jesus;
“He who believes in Him is not condemned; but he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. And this is the condemnation, that the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. For everyone practicing evil hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed. But he who does the truth comes to the light, that his deeds may be clearly seen, that they have been done in God” (John 3:18-21).
When I placed my faith in Jesus—by God’s grace—I ceased running from the light. I stepped into it and let its revealing rays shine upon me. The light of His holiness revealed my sin to me; but He did this so that He could take all of that darkness away from me, and so that I could walk in joyful fellowship with Him in the light of His purity through the blood of Jesus. The apostle Paul put it this way in Ephesians 5;
For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light (for the fruit of the Spirit is in all goodness, righteousness, and truth), finding out what is acceptable to the Lord. And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather expose them. For it is shameful even to speak of those things which are done by them in secret. But all things that are exposed are made manifest by the light, for whatever makes manifest is light. Therefore He says:
“Awake, you who sleep,
Arise from the dead,
And Christ will give you light” (Ephesians 5:8-14).
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Now; that’s the great truth that you and I need to come to terms with, dear brother or sister in Christ. Our heavenly Father is light. He is holy and pure. There is no darkness in Him whatsoever. He does not have any association with moral darkness or impurity in any respect. His light completely dispels such darkness.
And that great truth about God leads us to another great truth …
2. WHOEVER WALKS IN FELLOWSHIP WITH HIM MUST WALK IN LIGHT (1:6-10).
Look at how John goes on to show this to us. He says in verse 6, “If we say that we have fellowship with Him, and walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth.”
There are many people who say that they walk in fellowship with God who—at the same time—walk in paths of sin. And it’s impossible that they are walking in fellowship with God when they do that, because a holy God such as ours does not walk in those paths. Someone is lying when they say that they fellowship with God—who is light—while walking in darkness.
This shows us what we, as believers, need to do when our fellowship with Him is hindered or broken because of sin. We need to walk in the practice of the truth. When John speaks of ‘practicing’ the truth, he means ‘doing’ the truth—putting truth into practical action. The truth is that God is light; and if we say that we’re in fellowship with Him while we walk in darkness, we must repent of our lie and start doing the truth instead. John goes on to say in verse 7, “But if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another …” The ‘one another’ that John speaks of is the relationship between the Father and us. If we recognize that He is a holy God who only walks in the light of His own holiness and moral purity—and if we then seek to walk in the light of that holiness and purity where He is—then we have fellowship with Him. John put it this way in Chapter 2;
Now by this we know that we know Him, if we keep His commandments. He who says, “I know Him,” and does not keep His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him. But whoever keeps His word, truly the love of God is perfected in him. By this we know that we are in Him. He who says he abides in Him ought himself also to walk just as He walked (1 John 2:3-6).
Now; another way we move back into fellowship with the Father is through the confession of sin. The word ‘confess’ simply means ‘to say the same thing’ as God says about our sin. John says in verses 8-9, “If we say that 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.”
The closer we draw to Him, the more the light of His holiness shines upon our sin and shows us the truth. And if we deny it—if we try to make it out that we’re not so bad—if we try to redefine sin in such a way as to make it not seem sinful any longer—when we rationalize it—then we can’t walk in fellowship with Him. But if we confess it—if we ‘say the same thing’ as He says about it—then He forgives us of it and washes us clean of it.
I love what John says in verse 9; that when we confess, He is ‘faithful’ to forgives us. He can be counted on to pardon our sin every time we come to Him and humbly admit the truth. And what’s more, He’s ‘just’ to do so. He does no injustice in forgiving our sin and cleansing us of all unrighteousness; because Jesus Himself has paid the full price for our sin on the cross. As King David put it in Psalm 32;
Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven,
Whose sin is covered.
Blessed is the man to whom the Lord does not impute iniquity,
And in whose spirit there is no deceit.
When I kept silent, my bones grew old
Through my groaning all the day long.
For day and night Your hand was heavy upon me;
My vitality was turned into the drought of summer.
I acknowledged my sin to You,
And my iniquity I have not hidden.
I said, “I will confess my transgressions to the Lord,”
And You forgave the iniquity of my sin (Psalm 32:1-5).
So our fellowship with our holy heavenly Father is restored when we first practice the truth, and then confess our sin. And there’s one more; and that’s when we do so with the admission of our need. We can’t walk in fellowship with a holy God as if we were so holy and pure in and of ourselves that we deserve the right to walk with Him. We have to admit that we are constantly in need of His grace through Jesus His Son. We are in need of His grace every moment of every single day. John wrote in verse 10, “If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar, and His word is not in us.”
The way John said this is significant. When he spoke in verse 10 of our saying that ‘we have not sinned’, he is using a particular tense of the verb in the original language. It’s the ‘perfect’ tense; and in this case, it points backward to the completion of a specific act. Now; you and I cannot walk in fellowship with someone and—at the same time—insult them. We cannot have fellowship with God and—at the same time—call Him a liar. That would be a horrible thing to do. And how might we, as believers, call God a liar? We do it by refusing to admit that something we have done was a sin and that we need to be forgiven for it.
We might be afraid of what such an admission could mean. It could mean that we have to humble ourselves before Him or before those we have wronged. It could be that we will have to make a drastic change in our lifestyle. It could be that we will have to make restitution in some way to someone. But when the Holy Spirit points out something that is wrong in our lives, we cannot walk in fellowship with our Father until we admit that what we did made the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross necessary. If we don’t, His word is not “in” us. His word may be speaking to us. It may be all around us. But if we refuse to hear it on this matter, we’re not letting it get inside us.
Back in the old days, they used to say, “Keep short accounts with God.” When we fall into sin in some way, we shouldn’t let any time go by before it is confessed. This is what it means to constantly admit our need for God’s grace. You and I ought to make it our continual pattern of life to admit that we need to come to God and say—just like King David said in Psalm 139;
Search me, O God, and know my heart;
Try me, and know my anxieties;
And see if there is any wicked way in me,
And lead me in the way everlasting (Psalm 139:23-24).
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So; to practice the truth, to confess our sin, to admit our need—this is what it means to walk in the light. It’s really a matter of being honest before God in view of the cross. And look finally at what John wrote in the first two verses of Chapter 2. It’s there that we find that …
3. WE CAN CONFIDENTLY DO THIS THROUGH FAITH IN HIS SON’S WORK FOR US (2:1-2).
John wrote; “My little children, these things I write to you, so that you may not sin.” He makes it clear that all of this is not so that we can walk in sin; but rather that we might grow in increasing holiness in fellowship with God the Father. But because we do fall and stumble, John adds, “And if anyone sins, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.”
Jesus Himself had no sin of His own. He walked in perfect fellowship with His Father. And so, He can stand as our Advocate before our holy heavenly Father. John says, “And He Himself is the propitiation [that is to say, the atoning sacrifice] for our sins; and not for ours only but also for the whole world.” He shed His own blood as the sacrifice that takes the guilt for all our sins away. That blood is sufficient for every sin of every sinner—throughout the whole history of the world—who ever cries out for forgiveness in faith in Jesus. It’s also sufficient for you and me.
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Let me close with a story of a sinful man who discovered how to walk in the light with a holy God. His name was Zacchaeus. He was a chief tax collector. He was a notorious sinner; because he collected taxes for the Roman government against his own Jewish people. And as a ‘chief’ tax collector, he was looked upon as a real crook. The Gospel of Luke tells us;
Then Jesus entered and passed through Jericho. Now behold, there was a man named Zacchaeus who was a chief tax collector, and he was rich. And he sought to see who Jesus was, but could not because of the crowd, for he was of short stature. So he ran ahead and climbed up into a sycamore tree to see Him, for He was going to pass that way. And when Jesus came to the place, He looked up and saw him, and said to him, “Zacchaeus, make haste and come down, for today I must stay at your house.” So he made haste and came down, and received Him joyfully. But when they saw it, they all complained, saying, “He has gone to be a guest with a man who is a sinner” (Luke 19:1-7).
The crowd was right. Zacchaeus truly was a sinner. But do you notice that Zacchaeus didn’t have to first run off and make himself worthy of Jesus coming to His house? He didn’t run ahead, get to his house, and clean up his life before Jesus came. Jesus went with him just as he was. But it was then that Zacchaeus proved how he walked in fellowship with the Son of God in the light.
Then Zacchaeus stood and said to the Lord, “Look, Lord, I give half of my goods to the poor; and if I have taken anything from anyone by false accusation, I restore fourfold.” And Jesus said to him, “Today salvation has come to this house, because he also is a son of Abraham; for the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost” (vv. 8-10).
He walked in the truth, confessed his sin, and admitted his need. He stepped into the light—just as he was, bad reputation and all. And as imperfect a man as he had been, he now had fellowship with God.
Let’s you and I do the same. Because in order to walk in fellowship with God, we must walk in the light of His holiness through His Son.
EA
