Walking in the Light | In light of love | 1 John 1: 5-10 | Ep.2

Welcome to Preaching from Bryanson Bible Church, located in the northern suburbs of Johannesburg, South Africa.

It is our prayer that this teaching would bless you, deepen your love for God's word, and encourage you as you follow Jesus.

And if you are not a Christian, we pray that this message would encourage you as you explore the Christian faith.

This is the message we have heard from him and proclaimed 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.

Good morning, everyone.

Nobody feeling like that at all.

I don't know why, but like I feel like I always keep on getting the tough texts.

Uh keep drawing the short straw, uh straw.

You would think that in my job description, there's actually a bullet point that says, be that guy.

What kind of guy?

I'm talking about the guy who gets to come up after read a text like that and says, Good morning, church.

This morning we're going to talk about deception, darkness, denial, and sin.

Aren't you glad that you came to church this morning?

On a more serious note, however, as we are continuing, as Stuart has said, continuing in that series in the letters of John, we arrive at a particular text that is quite weighty, weighty in particular.

And in fact, we ought to embrace from the outset its weightiness.

But we also ought to remember, though, that just because something is weighty, it doesn't mean that it is harmful.

And so, uh, and in fact, when it comes to a very often in scriptures, it is often the very weighty text that God uses it the most in our lives, that we see his gracious work play itself out in our lives.

And so then this morning expect the text to really expose us, to confront us, but to do so graciously.

Because John will be dealing with a very deeply concerning issue.

One of the greatest dangers in the Christian work.

And yet it is that we will claim to have fellowship with God while still remaining comfortable with darkness.

That is one of the greatest dangers in the Christian world.

Claiming to have fellowship with God, but while remaining comfortable with darkness.

And so John wastes no time as he jumps in in verse 5.

This is the message we have heard from him.

And so, who's the we, the apostles?

We have heard from him, that's Jesus Christ, and proclaim to you.

And so John is saying to us, hey, I'm not offering you my private opinion about these things, but I'm speaking to you about the very things that we the apostles heard from the Lord Jesus Christ to be proclaimed to the world.

And so, what did they hear from the Lord Jesus Christ?

They heard this that God is light.

God is light.

Look at the end of verse 5.

That God is light, and in him is no darkness at all.

God is light, and in him is no darkness at all.

Now, in John's gospel and in his letters, darkness usually carries at least these two big ideas with it.

And so the first idea, uh, sorry, light, but not darkness, light.

You'll see in a moment why that's important.

Light carries uh two big ideas with it.

And so the first thing that light reveals uh reveals to us is the sense of revelation that light makes the truth come to life, that light actually exposes what is hidden, light actually brings uh a perspective into view where we're able to see things clearly.

And so when John says that God is light, he's saying that God is the one that reveals truth.

And so he alone reveals who he is, who we are, what sin is, what life, what God is meant to be like.

And so God is the revealer of what is true and what uh and of truth.

Then the second big idea that Lot carries as well in John's letters is that a lot has to do with moral perfection.

That our God is perfectly pure, holy, righteous, and good.

In fact, that's why John, after having said that God is light, he adds, and in him is no darkness at all, not even a little, no shadow, no corruption, no compromise, no moral darkness in God at all.

And so then, in this very little verse, God John, the apostle John, is declaring to us that God is simultaneously the revealer of all truth and embodies all purity.

That is a revealer of all truth and he embodies all purity.

That's what we're being confronted with or being revealed to us the moment that we're jumping into this particular text.

Now, last week I mentioned that the context in which the Apostle John writes into was one full of conflict, uh full of division.

And so there were people who were leaving the uh leaving the church that he was writing to, and they were saying that they had discovered a deeper and better and more spiritual version of Christianity.

And that in effect, that version of Christianity meant that they had somehow graduated, that had gone beyond the Jesus Christ being proclaimed by the apostles.

And it would seem now, as we enter into this particular text, not only were they claiming that about the Lord Jesus Christ, but they were also then claiming that somehow they there were people without sin.

And so they were minimizing and uh minimizing and denying their sin.

And so John writes to confront their false ideas because they were in search, search for uh for in many ways fellowship with God without holiness, that they wanted in many ways spirituality without truthfulness, that they were wanting conviction or confidence without confession, and they were looking for grace without cleansing.

And so John is writing to confront this uh the false claim, uh claims, and he does so through three repeated statements that he makes in this particular text uh text with the phrase beginning with the phrase, if we, if we, and so you see in verse six, he says, if we uh uh say, say, uh sorry, if we say, sorry, if we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, verse six, then he moves on in verse six to say, if we say we have not sinned, and then in verse 10 he says, if we uh say we uh we have not sinned.

And so in these three verses, what we're seeing, we're seeing the downward spiral that darkness takes us into.

And so darkness starts at first to deceive us into believing that our sin does not affect our fellowship with God, verse six and seven.

Then it moves on to deceive us into believing that we are somehow people that are not guilty of sin.

And then the next and then it finally ends in a way, it deceives us into believing that in us there is no sin at all.

Or we have not be uh uh uh um done or conducted ourselves in a sinful manner, and so it spirals, spirals into deeper darkness.

And if we allow the spiral to continue in our lives, we'll end up at a place where we were saying we're people without sin.

And so, therefore, why should we ever need Jesus Christ at all?

Why should we ever need Jesus Christ at all?

And so that's what the Apostle John is dealing with, looking to confront, looking to draw this church congregation to realize it's a false claim.

Christ Jesus is central to our fellowship with God as he looks to confront these false, uh these false teachers.

And so, as he does so, here is the big reality that he wants the uh um uh the audience that he's writing to to grasp and to fully understand.

And it is this that because God is light, friends, because God is light, genuine fellowship with God cannot coexist with darkness.

Because God is light, genuine fellowship with God cannot coexist with darkness.

Here's another way to put it: we cannot walk with God while hiding in darkness.

We must come into his light through honest confession and cleansing grace.

Cannot walk with God while hiding in darkness.

Instead, we must come, step into his light through honest confession and cleansing grace.

And so then, what this text, the questions that this text will be pressing us with, are simply are you walking in the light of the God whom you claim to know?

Are you honestly living your life before Him?

Are you confessing what you must confess?

Are you stepping into the light with those things that darkness will have you hide?

Those are the questions that the text are putting before us.

And so then this text is challenging us all to realize that we can sometimes become too casual with darkness in our lives when we have ceased to be in awe of the God who is light.

When we cease to be in awe of the God who is light, we become casual with the darkness, and so perhaps then the stakes where it's beginning to confront us or to challenge us would have us realize that we all need to humble ourselves before the God who is light and allow his light to expose the darkness that we're allowing ourselves to become comfortable with.

And so it is at this point that I want to camp here for a bit and actually ask this searching question.

How do we know when darkness has begun to creep in?

How do we know when darkness has begun to creep into our lives?

Because here's one of the mistakes we can make when we come to a text like this.

It is that we hear the Apostle John say, say, talk about walking in the darkness, and we immediately start to imagine some of the worst versions of that.

We imagine someone who has stepped away from the faith altogether, rejecting God.

We think of someone who's turning their back to the Lord Jesus Christ, and certainly walking in darkness can look like that.

And so then, out of defensiveness, we start to think of ourselves saying, Oh, I'm not walking in the darkness because I don't look like that.

And when we do that, we begin to fail to see how sometimes darkness is subtle in its approaches in our lives.

It can be quite subtle.

You see, darkness doesn't always enter into our lives in dramatic fashion, in ways in which I'll say, Oh, look at that person who is no longer interested in church or no longer interested in the Lord.

Doesn't always operate that way.

Sometimes darkness enters into our lives slowly, quietly, and even at times, respectably.

And so then, how can we know if we're allowing darkness to creep into our lives, and not allowing at times these false uh or small compromises or subtle denials or spiritual defensiveness, or even at times gospel truths that are misused to protect against sin, to start to lead us to feel like the darkness that is playing itself or at work in my life isn't that dangerous after all?

And so maybe this morning, instead of asking ourselves the question, Am I walking in the darkness?

Maybe we need to ask ourselves a question, where has darkness started to feel less dangerous than it should in my life?

Where is the darkness starting to feel less dangerous than it should in my life?

And so this morning I want to give us five ways.

Five ways we can begin to know that darkness has begun to creep in into our lives.

And so, number one, you're justifying something you know you should not.

You're justifying something you know that you should not, and so you know what God says, you know what his word calls you to, you know that what you're busy doing, entertaining, hiding, feeding, refusing to deal with is not right with God.

But you're choosing to expand it away, expand it away, and so you're saying to yourself, oh, this is not that bad.

Compared to other Christians, I'm faring better, or God would understand, or when you look at what other people are doing, this seems small, and so then what we start to do is we start to measure ourselves against someone else's darkness, measure ourselves against someone else's darkness, but friends, the standard is never the person next to me, the standard is always God above me, God above me.

That's who I ought to measure myself to.

And so instead of uh asking the question, am I less dark than the next person?

The question I ought to be asking is, am I honestly walking before the God who is light?

In his light, in his presence.

And so, friends, when we're finding ourselves in spaces where we have begun to compare with other people what the light of God is exposing in our lives, then darkness has begun to creep in.

Two, you're excusing something you should not.

You're excusing something you should not.

Now, this is slightly different than justifying, because when justifying says, well, this isn't really that bad, or really wrong.

Excusing says, I know that this is wrong, but there's a good reason why I'm doing it.

And so in excusing, what we're doing, we have stopped naming or calling sin.

Instead, we're excusing or giving reasons for why, oh, it's just my personality, my temperament, my background, my weakness, my emotional issues.

And so we start saying things like, oh, this is just who I am, this is how it works in my family, or I was anxious that time, or I felt triggered in that moment, or we say, Oh, uh, it's it uh it's actually a particular circumstance or situation that I found myself in or otherwise.

Right.

Start excusing things now.

As we deal with that, excusing things, we need to deal with it very carefully and very posterily.

Because things we cannot just be dismissive of the physical, emotional, psychological, and holistic suffering of people in life.

Those things matter, those things shape people deeply, and God, our God, the God whom we serve, has got abundant understanding and compassion to give us in the realities of our lives.

But also, friends, we cannot allow those things to start to cover up darkness in our lives, and so, friend, your personal wound may help us understand your struggle, but it cannot also excuse sin.

A diagnosis may help us understand certain patterns that are happening in your life, but we cannot allow then those patterns to start to cover up disobedience before God.

A background, your background, it may help us understand why certain reactions happen in your life, but we are also called to bring every reaction into the light of God as we choose to walk before Him.

And so then, friends, if we're finding ourselves in places where instead of confessing, Lord, I have sinned, I start to say, Lord, this is understandable, the darkness has begun to creep in.

Third, you are blaming something or someone else.

This is where we start to refuse to take responsibility for what we should.

So to say things like, if that had not happened to me, I would not behave or do behave in this way.

Or so to say things like it's my friends who introduced me to this, my addiction that made me do this, my current circumstances, or what's the problem?

And so yeah, again, we have to deal with this carefully and postorally because many of us have been deeply sinned against by others in our life.

Many of us were introduced to darkness by other people, and it wasn't our choice.

Many of us have been wounded, have been harmed, have been tempted, have been manipulated, have been shaped by darkness that we never chose, and was never our thought.

And sometimes some of the dependencies we find ourselves trapped in, enslaved in, we can feel like they are beyond our own capacity to help ourselves out of.

Friends, the good news of the gospel is our God sees that too.

He sees it.

He has compassion and love and grace for us in that.

He never dismisses our wounds or the things that were done to us.

But our God does not only have grace for the things done to us, he also has grace for the things that are not happening in us.

He has grace for us, and so then our God loves us too much to see the sin that was committed against us to not become the sin that rules us.

So he has abundant grace and light to not allow the things that have wounded us to begin to become the sin that is growing within us and affecting our lives.

And so then if we're finding ourselves in spaces where we're allowing external factors to start to absolve us from the need to personally repent of things we need to repent, then we're allowing darkness to creep into our lives.

This is one of the most dangerous, dangerous ways.

Why?

Because in this we're starting to use Christian truths to protect sin in our lives.

And so we sit to say things like, Oh, God will always forgive me no matter what.

Oh, I'll repent later.

God is love.

I know that Jesus Christ died for all my sins, and so I will somehow be okay.

Friends, that's not gospel confidence, it is gospel compromise.

Why?

Because God's grace is not permission to make your peace with darkness.

Instead, God's grace is God's power to bring you out of darkness into his light through the blood of Jesus Christ.

And so then, if we're finding ourselves in our lives where we are starting to use the blood of Jesus to give us permission to keep participating in the very things that the blood of Jesus Christ was shed to cleanse, then you have not understood grace at all.

You're cheapening the grace of God.

And next week, Mark will take us deeper into understanding how not to make the grace of God cheap as we understand that Jesus Christ was both our advocate and propitiation before God.

And so then, friends, the freedom that the grace of God brings to our lives is free, truly free, but it is never cheap.

It costs Jesus his life as he shed his blood.

And so then we know that grace has started to creep in.

Sorry, darkness has started to creep in when we use grace to make darkness feel safe.

Then the last one, five, you are rebelling against God outright.

Rebelling against God outright.

Because you've chosen to harden your heart towards God.

You're refusing to submit, refusing to obey God.

And so then what is happening?

You are handing yourself over to all your sinful cravings without a care in the world for what it's doing to you and those around you.

And so you no longer care about what it does to your soul or to your family and loved ones, to your witness as a believer, or to even your church community.

At this point, darkness is no longer creeping in, friend.

It is being welcomed in.

Merciful to rebellious sinners like you.

Jesus Christ died for rebellious sinners like you.

And so, friend, stop running into further darkness.

Turn, come back into the light of God.

That's what the word of God would invite you to do this morning.

Now, maybe as you're sitting here this morning and you're listening or hearing these five interconnected ways in which we allow darkness to enter into our lives, you're sitting here this morning and you can sincerely say, Shah, I don't feel like that's happening with me.

That you could sit here and sincerely be able to say, Shah, I feel like I'm trying my best to walk into the light of God.

I'm not aware of any major darkness that I am giving into or hiding.

I'm not rebelling against God.

Friends, if that's you this morning indeed, then I want to say to you, praise be to God.

Seriously, praise be to God.

That you will be walking in his light.

But then I also want to say to you, don't allow your walk in the light to become complacent.

Now, why do I say that?

I'm not just simply trying to rain on your parade, but I say that because John models for us in this text.

How our walk in the light should never lead to deep pride, but it should always lead to deeper vigilance.

Now, why do I say that?

Remember his threefold statement, but how he begins it, how he's continuously cautioning the church, and he says, if we say.

Now notice carefully what he doesn't say.

He never says, if you say, he doesn't say, if those kind of people say.

What does he say?

If we say, and so what is John doing?

He's including himself in the warning.

Isn't that remarkable?

That the apostle, who was referred to as the disciple whom Jesus loved, never saw himself as being above the warning or guarding against darkness creeping into his life.

And so then he has that point.

If the apostle John would say, We, may we never say not me.

And we never say not me.

If the apostle John would include himself into the warning, then may we all bring ourselves under the light of God and constantly be asking God through your light to search me, oh God.

Search me, continuously search me.

And so then, if you're sitting here this morning and you're thinking, wow, this sermon would have been great for someone in your life, then it's first great for you.

You need to be the one who's listening to this.

If you're thinking, oh, I already wish I'd told my friend to come to church with me this morning, friend.

You're here this morning because God will want to shine his light into your life.

Allow it.

Allow God to shine his light into your life.

And so wherever we may find ourselves this morning, whether it's exposed by the will of God or encouraged or convicted or aware that, oh man, I'm starting to see where I've allowed darkness to creep in.

The good news of the text and the gospel is that our God is still inviting us to have fellowship with him.

He invites us to have fellowship with him.

I love the way the late Bible commentator John Stott sums up or puts together what this invitation is like.

He says this the way to have fellowship with a God who is light is not to deny the fact or effects of sin, but to confess our sins and thankfully appropriate God's provision for our cleansing.

That's how we have fellowship with God.

And so that's where we need to learn this morning.

And so look at verse 9.

If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

And so what's the invert, friend?

The inverse is this step into the light through confession.

Step into the light through confession.

That's what we're being invited to do.

Now, confession isn't us informing God.

God already knows all your sins about all your sins.

He already knows.

But confession is us coming out before God and standing in his light, agreeing with God about our sin, naming it before God, asking God to forgive us for our sins so that we would step into the light of our God.

That's what confession is there for.

And John says if we confess our sin, he is faithful and just to forgive us.

And so he is faithful.

What does that mean?

Because, friends, he keeps to his promise to forgive those who draw near to him through repentance in Jesus Christ.

God always keeps that promise.

And he is just, meaning the forgiveness that is then extended to us always rests upon the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ shed on the cross, which we will hear about more next week.

And so then this morning, friends, how can we hear a verse like this and choose not to act?

How can we yeah, the word of God tell us if we confess our sins and then we choose not to confess at all?

How can we hear the word of God invite invite us to realize that God is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and then refuse to come to experience the blessing of his forgiveness?

How can we yeah and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness?

And we would rather choose to remain in the dark.

And so this morning, let's do exactly just that.

Let's do exactly just that.

Seize that invitation.

And so, yes, what we want to do this morning.

In the seat pocket in front of you, you'll find a printout.

If you will grab it, it's a two-sided printout.

And then on the one side of the printout is a prayer for anyone who's here this morning, who's yet to surrender their lives to the Lord Jesus Christ, and you're wanting to do so this morning for the very first time as you step into the light of God.

That prayer is there to lead you to do that.

And then on the other side is a prayer for those of us who do belong to the Lord Jesus, but are realizing through the word of God that we have allowed darkness to creep in, or there are certain things that we're feeling convicted that we need to bring into the light of God.

That prayer is there for you.

Now, we are not going to rush this, we got plenty of time, and so here's what we want you to do.

I want you as you sit, as you go through those prayers, reflect on whichever prayer best reflects where you are at this morning, and then work through the prayer slowly, carefully, as you come, as you look to step into the light of God in confession this morning, and then after a while, a long while, then we will close out in song.

And so let's just spend some time confessing before our God.

If you have questions about what you've heard or would like to find out more about the Christian faith, we'd love to hear from you.

You can visit our website or reach out using the contact details below.

God bless you.