I know we roll our eyes at these things now and even laugh at how they all came true in one form or another. Sometimes we can even wish that we had listened to the advice of those that love us when they warned us against those things that they know will hurt us.

 

        This is what John, also referred to as the apostle of Love, was trying to tell his flock in our passage today. He tells them there are people who are saying one thing but doing another. He doesn’t want them to hang out with those friends because they really aren’t friends after all. He says, I want you to remember what you have heard from the beginning and walk that way. If you do this then good things will happen. This then is the message which we have heard of him, and declare unto 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 the truth: But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanses us from all sin.(1John 1:5-7)
       

        I want to begin by giving you a little historical background on what was happening at the time. This letter was written around the end of the first century, about 50 or 60 years after Christ’s death and resurrection. The first flush of walking with Christ has waned a bit because most of these people are now 2nd and 3rd generation Christians. They are ripe and fertile ground for those people who are known as Gnostics. They hold to the belief that man is made up of two parts, the body or matter and the spirit. Matter was evil and the spirit was good.

 

        To eliminate this evil was the goal of all Gnostics. They believe this is achieved by pursuing the spirit realm and all it holds and by receiving special knowledge in some mystical way. They even go so far as to say that once this level of maturity is reached they are beyond sin and the law of God no longer applies to them. The atoning sacrifice of Christ on the cross is not needed. Thus they have the ability to deny not only His deity but His incarnation as well.

 

        This belief sets them up for a kind of spiritual aristocracy and a hatred for those they believe cannot attain to this level. This leads to a separation of man not only with each other but with God. John’s passionate defense of the Gospel came not from outside persecution which he did not see as the more immediate threat. It was an inside job. Gnostics were people within the faith who were bent on “improving” Christianity not destroying it.

 

        Have you ever known someone who came from within your circle of friends who just seemed to take over? Oh they don’t seem like they are hurting you. They only want to help. They may say let me show you another way to do that. It’s shorter and easier. But in the long run what they suggest actually will lead you on a road where you never intended to go in the first place. And then you find yourself in a situation that is actually harming not only yourself but others as well. I know I have. You may even have had a good friend try to tell you not to listen to the others. But the pressure is great and their way seems so much easier. And you think I’m so confused what do I do? On one hand you think, I know what I’ve heard before and on the other you think, there has got to be an easier way to get through life. If you’re anything like me you’re saying to yourself, will someone just tell me what I should do?

 

        John was telling Christians what they should do. Sometimes we will give into that pressure. Just as they did then. But all the time when we’ve done it we’ll say why didn’t someone warn us? Why didn’t someone tell us what would happen? In much the same way our parents try to warn us against harmful things or our friends try to prevent us from doing the things they know we shouldn’t do, John’s letter is a passionate warning against that which he felt would harm the followers of Christ.

        The Apostle John was one of the last remaining people to have walked with, talked with and to have touched Jesus. The first thing I want you to take out of this passage today is that this is a message we have heard before. John is saying, “People you know this. I’ve told you before.” One of the things I can remember most about my mom getting after me is how much she use to say, “How many times do I have to tell you . . .?” Usually my inability to doing the right thing fast enough for her would result in a harsh punishment.

 

        While my mom might have had her own issues she was dealing with I know that she loved me and only wanted to keep me from harm. Things are better now but those words still ring in my mind from time to time. “How many times do I have to tell you?” I can just imagine the Apostle John thinking this very same thing as he writes this letter. But because he loves them dearly he repeats Christ’s message again. “God is Light”, he says. Here he is explaining to them the very nature of God. If there is anything you can know about light it’s that it’s bright especially first thing in the morning when you wake up. You roll over and grope for the light and flip the switch. The room is flooded with light and you say, “My eyes, my eyes” and want to just crawl back into bed. Soon nature says it’s time to go. You’re still reeling from the effects the light has on your eyes. Light can hurt your eyes until you adjust. Then you realize the light will have a lot of benefit. It lights your pathway to the bathroom and therefore increase your speed in which you get to the bathroom. It illuminates those objects in your way that you might stub your toes on. Believe me, it’s no fun trying to walk to the bathroom, get there and then try to separate some of your toes from the rest of your foot as you walk through the doorway because you are squinting against the light. We have to know that God is our light and He illuminates our pathways so that we won’t falter.

 

        The best thing about light is its revealing nature. There is nothing secretive where light is present. There is no space where light does not try to get into. The apostle John was telling Gnostics at this point that since God is light all of life is revealed in the light of God. It was a very public affair. The Apostle Paul speaks to this very thing. Ephesians 5:13 says, “But all things become visible when they are exposed by the light, for everything that become visible is light.” A lot of people may be scared at this point. They’d fearful that if the light were to disclose everything about them, no one could possibly love them. I don’t know about you but I have to admit I’ve felt this way before. One of my favorite phrases used to be, “if you only knew what I’ve been through or done….” But the Apostle John spoke of this exposure with such genuine conviction and assuredness of faith that we know he did not fear the revelatory nature of God’s light. Scripture tells us there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ and this is because we are in God’s light. Later on I’ll tell you why we don’t have to be afraid of being exposed by God’s light.

        His next point was to say that, “…in Him there is no darkness.” If light is the great revealer then darkness is the great deceiver. Darkness tries to cover everything. In darkness, lies abound and evil deeds increase for you are of the mind that no one can see what you do. For years I was under the impression that what I ate in the dark, away from other people was a secret. I never made the connection between what I thought I was eating in secret and what my body actually looked like. It never occurred to me that people were gonna see that I was eating whether I did so in public or under the cover of darkness. That’s what the darkness of sin does, it deceives. John tells us in chapter 3 verse 20 of his gospel, “For everyone who does evil hates the light, and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed.” I realized the darkness of sin covered my eyes to the truth and God’s light will expose it.

        If we know what God’s character is then it follows there are certain evidences of the relationship we claim to have with Him. We cannot claim one thing and then do something in direct opposition to that same thing. This is my next point. In verse 6 John says, “If we say we have fellowship with Him yet walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth.” I want to take a look at the first part of that verse. This is where he points out the fact there are people running around saying one thing but doing another. I taught Sunday school once when I was 17 years old. My students were 4, 5, and 6 year old kids. I strived to present a lesson they could learn from. It made impressions on the adults around me. I presented a very good picture of a pious young adult. But what they didn’t see was how I behaved at school. My speech at church was great but at school I was cursing like a sailor. I entertained certain kinds of abuses from boys as correct attention. I tried on more than one occasion to fit into the crowd of rowdy popular people all the time claiming a relationship with God.

 

        On the outside to the people who were looking, I was a religious girl. The inside was another matter. In Matthew chapter 23 starting in verse 13 Jesus is talking to the Pharisees and scribes saying, woe to you hypocrite. He tells them they have shut off the kingdom from men and do not enter in themselves, they take away a widow’s belongings and yet say long pious prayers, and they go about making proselytes and yet in doing so they make him twice as much a son of evil as before. In verse 27 though he gets even more personal. He goes right for the heart of man. “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs which on the outside appear beautiful, but inside they are full of dead men’s bones and all uncleanness. Even so you too outwardly appear righteous to men, but inwardly you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.” In the light of all this scripture I realized that God didn’t want me to continue with the way I was living. I could almost hear Him say to me, this is not the way I want to be represented. I cannot say one thing and do another and still claim to have a relationship to God. No one can.

        This brings me now to the other side of verse 6. “…we lie and do not practice the truth.” You cannot confess with your mouth that which is not in your heart. This does not mean those people who know Him and sin but repent with a whole heart are under this conviction. I have long since repented of those sins committed back when I was a youth. Each day I wake up though I am made aware of the need to make that connection with Christ so that I do not deceive myself or others by making sure my words match my actions. I did have to ask when studying this passage, what then is the truth? Jesus Himself answers this rather pointedly, “I am the Way, the Truth and the Life….” The reality is Jesus is the truth. It is to His standard of truth I must measure everything that claims to be truth. Then I had to ask myself what does it mean to practice the truth? What does it look like? I John 2:5b-6 tells it rather plainly. “By this we know that we are in Him: the one who abides in Him ought himself to walk in the same manner as He walked.” In other words, we must walk as Jesus walked.

 

        But how did He walk? Jesus always lived His words to us. The gospels are full of His works. He went about giving sight to the blind, healing hearts and minds sometimes just by speaking love to them and feeding large crowds with just a few loaves and some fish. These are just a few of the miracles that Jesus performed. I know that I have not done anything akin to this but I know of an instance this summer that brings to mind the power of just living your life for Christ in front of others. I was on a mission trip to New York City in May. On the very last day of a very busy week I got to go to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. It was the trip of a lifetime but I only say this to help recreate the sense of awe I felt. When the museum closed I got back on the subway and traveled to meet the rest of the team at Union Square where we were to set up a booth of sorts and pass out bibles, visiting with the crowd. Believe me; everyone hangs out in Union Square. I had gotten there earlier but I was bushed because of all the walking. As I sit there on the park bench resting I am looking for good camera shots by watching the life that was happening around me. I was waiting for an opportunity to witness to someone as well. There came a man walking towards me but he crossed over the fence and as he crossed over the fence the people behind me must have said something about him for or he asked them if they were talking about him. They assured him they weren’t but that they were just people watching. He said too bad because he thought he was the interesting one. My ears perk up at that because as he was walking up I thought he had a look I wanted to take a picture of. So I asked him if he would let me take his picture because I had thought he was interesting. He was surprised by my request and while he denied it, I think that my words must have stuck in his head. I say this because sometime later when the team got there we all came up at one point during the program and got Bibles to pass out. We then infiltrated the crowd and started sharing simple conversation with those that would let us.

 

        We shut down for the night filled with a sense of God’s presence. Some of us were done with conversations earlier than others and stood around waiting. I happen to be waiting with one of our leaders when that man I had wanted to take a picture of earlier came up to us. I reiterated that I had honestly wanted to take his picture and that I did really think he was interesting. It was then that he looked me in the eyes and said I just wanted you to know that your words earlier did have an impact on me. He said he wanted one of those bibles we were passing out. We gladly gave him one. I told him to read it, that it had the words of life in there. He said I did once but I’m gonna do it again now. I just stood there after he left in utter awe of how God works. I did nothing more than live my life in front of the world and yet something wonderful happened. A man came back to God. The pervading thought from this verse is that we cannot confess with our mouths to know God and let our wrong actions speak louder than our right words.

        My third point is to say we can fulfill the commitment to the message we’ve heard by listening to the implied warning in verses 5 & 6. This is done simply by doing what John says in verse 7. It starts out by saying “. . . but if we walk in the light as He Himself is in the light….” The verbiage used indicates an ongoing process. You cannot walk and still be standing still. I grew up in a very Baptist background where it is taught that once you are saved you are always saved. Somehow my mind had translated that kind of thinking to other areas of life and I’ve gotten myself in more trouble than I care to remember by thinking that if I was done with one thing I didn’t have to do it again. I have since learned the truth of what an action verb really is. The American Heritage College Dictionary has an interesting definition for the word walk. It says, “To bring to a specified condition by walking.” Oswald Chambers says, “To "walk in the light" means that everything that is of the darkness actually drives me closer to the center of the light.” This continuous action is a hard truth to accept when you have always thought if you did something once and you did it right then you were done with it. I wonder if what happens in life drive you closer to the light? It does for me more and more everyday.

        There are two enormous benefits John says of walking in the light. Now the Gnostics, as I mentioned before, hated the people who they believed would never attain to their level of maturity and shunned them and thus their relationship with their neighbor was broken. John says the first benefit we have when walking in the light is that we have fellowship with one another. I used to think I needed to surround myself with friends that know God and then I could be happy in my relationship with the Lord. I would pray for that one friend that would always spur me unto the Lord. It wasn’t until I realized that God wanted to be that friend first that I began to have true fellowship with other believers. We then have to consider, what is Christian fellowship? Is it some mystical happening or is it a practical thing? Is it when we go to church and sit around catching up over coffee? Many ideas abound as to what true Christian fellowship is. Dave Egner, a writer with Radio Bible Class Ministries, has a wonderful way to define fellowship. “. . . New Testament fellowship goes much deeper than merely socializing when we get together at church. It takes place when we consider how we can lift up, build up, and brighten up our brothers and sisters in Christ. The Bible clearly says that we are to "serve one another" (Galatians 5:13), forgive as we are forgiven (Ephesians 4:32), and "bear one another's burdens" (Galatians 6:2). From the first century, believers have gathered in Jesus' name to "consider one another in order to stir up love and good works" and to exhort one another (Hebrews 10:24-25). Christian fellowship takes place when we offer encouragement to our friends, pray for them, and confess our sins and weaknesses to one another. These are the elements that make fellowship genuine.” God has since bestowed upon me such a friend as this. He has done just what Mr. Egner has said. I, in fact, actually only asked for one friend like that. But as you may know God gives out of his abundance and I’ve received a few others as well.

        If we know the who, what, where, when and how of fellowship we need to look at the why. The encouragement we received from the church fathers to walk in the light as He Himself is in the light so that we have fellowship with each other is not always seen as enough. The real why and true motivator as to the encouragement of fellowship with all men comes from Jesus Himself. He commands us to love one another. It was His second greatest commandment. You can always figure a way to discount the words of men if you try hard enough. The Gnostics do. But against the literal word of Christ Himself I don’t believe anyone can argue with that; not and stand in the light anyway. John basically wanted the church to be aware of their obligation to fulfill the commitment they made to Christ when they first believed. He was sure that love for your fellowman was an accurate test of your love for God. It was also the evidence of the fellowship you have with Him as well. Do you have unbroken fellowship with your neighbor? It will be worth a look anyway because the reward is great.

        The second benefit of walking in the light John mentions is the blood of Jesus and the fact that it cleanses us from all sin. This not only indicates the obvious but it also tells us the condition in which we can even approach God and be in His light in the first place. God sent His Son to die for a purpose; so that we can be restored to the relationship we originally had with Him. Without the blood there can be no remission of sins. Walking with God does not mean that we are without sin but that sin is no longer in our nature having been revitalized with Jesus’ nature. It is not by our sinless perfection that we have fellowship with God but rather because of the atoning sacrifice of Christ’s shed blood. John tells us here that being cleansed by the blood is a continual process. Just as walking is a recurrent action so must the cleansing be. The shed blood of Jesus is therefore the integral part of our fellowship with God and with our fellowman. But he didn’t view this as the only benefit of cleansing. He also saw its equipping power too. This is what enables the true believer to not be afraid of God’s light. I was actually stunned when I wrote that line and I had to stare at it for a minute. The shed blood of Jesus is the reason I don’t have to be afraid of the light of God exposing everything about me. I can walk with confidence because Jesus sacrificed himself in my stead. I don’t know about you but this realization makes me so happy I could cry. Knowing that God loved us so much that He sent His Son to become sin for us and pay the penalty owed is empowering. That love is what it’s really all about. Jesus tells us Himself that greater love has no man than this that he lay down his life for his friends. He calls us friends folks.
       

        I want to conclude by recapping what we’ve just learned. John tells us in verse 5 that the message we heard from the beginning is the same. God is light and because He’s light there can be no darkness. We will be exposed. In verse 6 he shows us a true test of fellowship with God. We cannot hate our brother and still practice the truth. We’d be lying if we tried. In verse 7 he gives the faint of heart a little hope. He says if we walk in God’s light we will have fellowship with God and with each other because the blood of Christ keeps on cleansing us. So what does this mean for us today? Because of our fast paced society full of modern conveniences there is much to deceive us out there. As Christians today we must walk in the light as fervently as John exhorted His flock in the first century. We do not need to be anymore afraid of the light than they were. If we are afraid of the light and there are people we really don’t like then we may need to examine whether or not we are walking in that light as Jesus walked. If our objective is to please God with our actions and words then we have to listen to the warning that those words and actions have to match or we become liars. I know I don’t want to be a hypocrite like the Pharisees and scribes. I’m sure you don’t want to either. The benefits of walking in the light and having fellowship with God and the brethren are the same now as they were from the beginning. We have to delve deeper into God’s word to find out how He walked so that we may follow in His footsteps. I want you to think about this week, starting to spend more time in His word. Make a promise to yourself to get to know Jesus in such a way that you will be walking in the light unafraid to be there. Let God’s light shine through you in such a way that all men might see that the light is freedom for the soul.

 

        J. I. Packer, in his book Knowing God, wrote this, “Light means holiness and purity, as measured by God’s law; darkness means moral perversity and unrighteousness, as measured by the same law. . . only those who ‘walk in the light’ seeking to be like God in holiness and righteousness of life, and eschewing everything inconsistent with this, enjoy fellowship with the Father and the Son; those who ‘walk in the darkness,’ whatever they may claim for themselves, are strangers to this relationship.” I encourage you to examine yourselves to see if you are walking in the light of God. Look at your neighbor and ask yourself do I really love that person the way I’m suppose to. Don’t be a willing stranger to God and to others. Remember your first love and let the light of His glory and grace shine upon you and bring you peace and fellowship.