Walk in the Light
1 John 1v6-7
14th February 2020
Last time, we read:
1 John 1v5
This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you: God is light; in him there is
no darkness at all.
As we've seen, John wrote this letter to confront the false teaching, immoral lives, and unloving attitudes of those who had left his churches and were now preaching non-Christian doctrine. They were walking in darkness. John now presents a series of refutations of their lives and doctrine, each starting with the word "If we claim".
1 John 1v6-10
If we claim to have fellowship with him yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not
live by 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, purifies us from all sin.
If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.
If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us
from all unrighteousness.
If we claim we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar and his word is not in
us.
We'll look at the first of these this week:
1 John 1v6-7
If we claim to have fellowship with him yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not
live by 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, purifies us from all sin.
Since God is pure light, and in him there is no darkness at all, then to walk in darkness while claiming to be in fellowship with God, who is light, is nonsense. It's a lie. It might be a lie they've told themselves so often that they've come to believe it, but it's still a lie.
Walking in darkness is, of course, the opposite of walking in the light. To walk in the light is to walk in truth, wisdom and moral goodness. To walk in the darkness is to walk in deception, foolishness and moral decay.
Light and darkness can't live in the same room. There is no fellowship between perfect morality, prefect wisdom and perfect truth, and immorality, foolishness and falsehood. If we turn away from Biblical truth, Biblical wisdom and Biblical morality, we cannot legitimately claim to be in fellowship with God, who inspired every word of the Bible.
There are many religions in this world but there's only one way to God:
John 14v6
Jesus answered, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father
except through me."
Acts 4v12
Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men
by which we must be saved.
Only Jesus Christ died to pay for our sins. Our sins cannot be forgiven in other way than through faith in His redeeming sacrifice. If you believe there is another way, and you claim to be in fellowship with God, you're either deceived or lying.
Other religions can claim to respect God. They can claim to believe in God. They can claim to follow God. But they can't legitimately claim to be in relationship with God, because relationship with God is only possible if we're born again through faith in Jesus.
It's fairly obvious that some religions have nothing to do with Jesus. But some religions claim to be Christian while denying that Jesus is the Son of God, or that His blood sacrifice is the only way our sins can be forgiven, or that He was punished in our place. Some of these even call themselves churches. They might mean well. They may be very nice people. But they're deceived. There's only one true Gospel.
Since God is light - perfect truth and perfect morality - then those who have fellowship with him must live in truth and morality. The false teachers were teaching a message other than the true faith, and therefore were in the darkness of untruth.
If we claim to have a healthy relationship with God, as false religious teachers do, while deceived about the nature of God or the Gospel, or while living immoral lives, as the false teachers were, then we're deceived or we're lying.
Of course, none of us has perfect doctrine. None of us fully understands God, man or ethics, but anybody who loves God must be seeking truth by reading the Bible and choosing to believe what it says. None of us is perfectly moral, but anybody who loves God must be seeking moral perfection through repentance and prayer.
The false teachers who left John's churches were teaching that immorality is not really a problem, and so were walking in the darkness of sinful lives. They were saying either that sin doesn't really affect our relationship with God, or that they had reached a state of sinless perfection, and so sin wasn't an issue for them because they'd grown past that.
This may seem strange to you, but I have heard ostensibly Christian people say "Jesus has paid for all my sin, so it doesn't matter if I sin or not".
And there are - or at least were - Christians who claimed to be living in sinless perfection. Some of the writers from that school of thought didn't actually quite claim to be perfectly sinless, when you read them carefully. So in some cases we can accuse them of being confusing rather than deceived, but some were deceived.
The solution to these problems is 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.
If we will accept what the Bible says about sin and righteousness, and be honest about our sin, firstly with ourselves, secondly with God in prayer, and thirdly with each other, then we will walk in the light in terms of truth and honesty, we can have fellowship with one another as people who admit that we all sin and all need God's forgiveness, and we can walk in the light of righteousness, because when we confess our sins to God, He will purify us.
A lot of English Christians might think, "We're supposed to live in the light. We're warned not to live in the darkness. But most of us live in the twilight". To anybody who thinks like that, I would say: don't settle for twilight living. Make every effort to move fully in to the light. Co-operate with the Holy Spirit as He sanctifies you. Be the best Christian you can be. Study Scripture, pray, worship in church regularly, repent of every sin you can think of. Be as Christlike as you can, with His help. Let the light of God shine on you, in you and through you.
There may be parts of your life where you've allowed God's light to shine, and you're more-or-less conformed to Biblical teaching. There may be other parts of your life where you haven't really allowed God's light to shine very much at all. You may have either denied what the Bible teaches, or ignored it. If you will accept God's word and live in the light, then you will be happier, those around you will be happier, and God will be glorified.