Transcript & Slides: Walking in the Light (1 John 1:5-2:11)

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Walking in the Light (1 John 1:5-2:11)
By David Feddes

⁵ God is light; in him there is no darkness at all. ⁶ If we claim to have fellowship with him yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live by the truth. ⁷ 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. 

⁸ If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. ⁹ If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. ¹⁰ If we claim we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar and his word is not in us.

 ^2:1 My dear children, I write this to you so that you will not sin. But if anybody does sin, we have an advocate with the Father—Jesus Christ, the Righteous One. ² He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world.

³ We know that we have come to know him if we obey his commands. ⁴ The man who says, “I know him,” but does not do what he commands is a liar, and the truth is not in him. ⁵ But if anyone obeys his word, God’s love is truly made complete in him. This is how we know we are in him: ⁶ Whoever claims to live in him must walk as Jesus did.

 ⁷ Dear friends, I am not writing you a new command but an old one, which you have had since the beginning. This old command is the message you have heard. ⁸ Yet I am writing you a new command; its truth is seen in him and you, because the darkness is passing and the true light is already shining.

⁹ Anyone who claims to be in the light but hates his brother is still in the darkness. ¹⁰ Whoever loves his brother lives in the light, and there is nothing in him to make him stumble. ¹¹ But whoever hates his brother is in the darkness and walks around in the darkness; he does not know where he is going, because the darkness has blinded him. (1 John 1:5-2:11)

The apostle John is not an extremely subtle person. He says there are two ways, two options in life: walking in darkness or walking in light. There is no third way. You walk in the darkness or you walk in the light. One of the great challenges of his time and of our time is the challenge of people who pretend that light is darkness and that darkness is light, who reverse what is darkness and what is light. The prophet Isaiah said, “Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter” (Isaiah 5:20). Whether it’s in John’s time or in our own time, when preachers in particular praise sin, something has gone seriously wrong.

What happens when good is declared evil, evil good, light is declared darkness, and darkness light? When preachers make that blunder, they harden sinners in their sins rather than encouraging them to change. When they do that, of course, they split churches, because in most churches there are at least some people who still know the light. They anger God when they call darkness light, and they destroy themselves. That’s why it says, “Woe to those who do that.” The challenge of walking in the light has to be distinguished from what it is to walk in darkness, and we must realize that we can’t just pretend that one is the other.

Here are some common ways how that happens in our own time and in our own culture. Murder is praised. Abortion is health care. Bodily autonomy is a human right. You kill babies and declare it to be health care. You call it bodily autonomy when you destroy another body. And it is not just secularists who praise this—it is preachers. I just saw one again this past week praising abortion as being sensitive.

Praising immorality is another example. It used to be that Christians and churches believed that sex is for marriage and marriage is for life. That’s kind of the brief summary: sex is for marriage between a man and a woman, and this marriage is for life. But nowadays there is a sexual revolution, as there was in John’s time. There were people back then who said it doesn’t matter what you do with your body because bodies are bad anyway, but your spirit can be saved, so do what you like with your body. Nowadays the theology of it may be a little different, but people say, “Well, multiple partners are fine—male with male, female with female, whatever pleases you.” We have a whole alphabet to cover that, and you can be proud of it. Proud. In traditional Christian theology, pride was the sin that brought down the devil, but nowadays you should be proud of longing for abominations. That’s the way that light has become darkness and darkness has become light.

Mutilation is being praised, where children as young as five or seven—if they feel that they might be the opposite sex—are given hormone blockers to change who they are. You start doing surgeries and mutilating healthy bodies and declare this to be a fundamental human right, and you get your whole medical profession in line with it, and even your preachers in line with it. So the mutilation of bodies is declared to be a wondrous good and the rejection of the Creator.

It’s very ironic that we live in a time when a blood test will tell you within a few weeks of a baby being conceived—while it’s still in the womb for months and months—you’ll know whether that baby’s male or female. And yet it is wrong to call somebody male or female. So you have the strange anomaly of gender reveal parties before babies are even born, and then declarations that a boy can’t know if he’s a boy and a girl can’t know if she’s a girl until he or she or it or they decide for themselves.

Drugs are praised. The consumption of alcohol is everywhere—on every TV commercial that you see—and it is the key to all happiness. Now we have a new drug, and the dispensaries of marijuana are praised. The governments like it, and they’re raking in money from it. Rather than leaving it to organized crime—maybe organized crime is another title for government—it used to be that gambling was run by organized crime, that the sale of drugs was run by organized crime. But if there’s enough money to be made in it, it becomes an activity of the government—in some cases an essential activity—while church worship wasn’t. That’s calling darkness light and light darkness.

Destruction is called a good thing, “giving voice to challenges and problems.” Unbelief is praised. Just skip church—it’s all fake news. Unbelief is praised as really being “with it,” as being a smart person who really sees through the claims of Christianity. Idolatry is praised. The new motto: “In science we trust,” brought to you by the Freedom From Religion Foundation. You may say, “Well, maybe that’s just kind of a small group.” But let me ask you—who runs the schools nowadays, and what gets taught in public schools and universities? Would this be the motto—the Freedom From Religion Foundation—or are they trying to teach people to understand that God reigns over all things, that all things come from his hand, and that all are answerable to him? I think you know the answer. It’s been official American policy since about 1963 that God and creation are not to be taught in the schools run by our governments.

At any rate, you have these various ways of calling darkness light and light darkness, and it’s all part of the challenge of walking in the darkness. There are at least five things that come through in John’s description of walking in darkness. It’s rejecting the true God. It’s denying your own sin and your own lostness and taking pride in who you are just the way you are. It’s taking the moral norms and switching them so that what was considered bad is now considered good, and what was considered good is now considered bad. There’s also, let’s face it, a nasty strain of detesting other people—hating other people—and conforming to whatever the culture happens to be, or what John often calls “the world,” the way of thinking that dominates a particular anti-God civilization. These five elements are what constitute walking in the darkness.

The apostle John is not very polite. He says, “Liar, liar, liar, liar, liar, liar, liar.” That’s what he does. I know that we’re all supposed to be very sweet, especially us preachers, but liar, liar, liar. Who is the liar? Those who reject the true God. Who’s the liar? “It’s the man who denies that Jesus is the Christ, the Messiah.” “Anyone who does not believe God has made him out to be a liar,” because that person “has not believed the testimony God gave about his Son. And this is the testimony: God has given us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. He who has the Son has life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have life” (1 John 5:10-12).

It’s that simple. If you have Jesus the Son, you have life. If you don’t, you’re dead. If you say otherwise, you lie. People who lie also deny their own sin, their own lostness. John puts it this way: “If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us” (1 John 1:8). We’re lying about ourselves and we’re lying to ourselves if we believe this claptrap that we’re good just the way we are, that we don’t need to change, don’t need to be forgiven, don’t need to be transformed. If we’re fooling anybody, we’re fooling ourselves. We’re lying to ourselves—and we’re doing something worse than that. “If we claim we have not sinned, we make God out to be a liar and his word is not in us” (1 John 1:10).

Calling God a liar is a very bad policy. Calling God a liar is what happens anytime someone says the Bible is not telling the truth when it says this or that behavior is wicked and sinful, or when you say, “I don’t need to be redeemed or rescued by God and by the blood of Jesus his Son.” When you deny your sin and lostness, you’re lying to yourself and calling God a liar.

Just recently, at Easter time, a U.S. senator who was also a reverend had this to say: “The meaning of Easter is more transcendent than the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Whether you’re a Christian or not, through a commitment to helping others we are able to save ourselves.” This is the pastor of a congregation who says you can save yourself. The resurrection of Jesus Christ—that’s nice if it happened—but whether you believe in Jesus Christ or not, you can save yourself. It’s not good policy to get all of your theology from a politician, but unfortunately, we have a lot of preachers who are more politician than theologian, who know their agenda better than they know their God, and so that’s what you get.

And speaking of politicians not to listen to as guidance on how to handle things, former president Donald Trump was asked, “Do you ever ask God for forgiveness?” He said, “I don’t. If I do something wrong, I just try and make it right. I don’t bring God into the picture. I like to be good. I don’t like to have to ask for forgiveness. And I am good. I don’t do a lot of things that are bad. I try to do nothing that is bad. I have a great relationship with God.”

Now take those two—they’re at opposite ends of the theological spectrum. One is on the very far left wing of American politics; the other was the champion of right-wing people. Both of them are totally and completely wrong about how to be right with God. “I can earn my own salvation.” “I have a great relationship with God, though I never ever admit that I’m wrong or ask for forgiveness.” John says, “Liar, liar, liar.”

So, you reject the true God, you deny your sin and your lostness, and as we’ve already seen in some detail, you reverse the moral norms and commands of God, you hate other people, you conform to culture. Those are some other signs of being in the darkness. Reversing moral norms—“If we claim to have fellowship with him yet walk in darkness, we lie and do not live by the truth” (1 John 1:6). “The man who says, ‘I know him,’ but does not do what he commands is a liar, and the truth is not in him” (1 John 2:4).

How do you know what’s right and wrong? Do you have to read fat volumes written by secular ethicists? You might want to get started with God’s commands—and those are not all that complicated. God’s commands begin with the two great commands: love God above all, love your neighbor as yourself. Then it falls into detail in the Ten Commandments, the first four of which talk about the boundaries of loving God, and the last six talk about the boundaries of loving one another.

One of the great challenges of our situation is that many people don’t know the Ten Commandments. If I did a pop quiz here—I won’t embarrass you—we’d see how you do. They’ve done pop quizzes of preachers. They don’t do very well. They can’t name the Ten Commandments. Some of them can get them in jumbled order, so at least they know what they are; a lot of them can’t. When they do surveys of American evangelicals, they find that they can’t name five of the Ten Commandments. But they want them in courthouses, they want them on American monuments—they just don’t have them in here or in here. But boy, it would be nice if some government official somewhere would write the Ten Commandments on something! Come on, whatever. Don’t count on the world to teach you God’s commands. Get God’s commandments in here, in here, and then in your life. Because if we claim to have fellowship with God and don’t even have a clue what his commandments are, and we’re not living by his commandments—well, you know what John already says: liar, liar.

So, if we want to know him, we need to know what his commands are, and part of knowing him is walking in those commands and realizing and facing up to it when we don’t.

Another symptom of walking in darkness is that you can’t stand other people—at least some of them. The ones who are just like you and treat you the way you want to be treated—that may be fine. But even in churches, it’s quite common to have grudges, long grudges, grudges that go on for years and years. We know what sin is—it’s whatever somebody over there is doing. But when I hold a grudge, now that’s just normal Christian behavior. “Anyone who claims to be in the light but hates his brother is still in the darkness” (1 John 2:9). “If anyone says, ‘I love God,’ yet hates his brother, he is a liar” (1 John 4:20). He’s a liar.

So, if hate characterizes the way you relate to other people in your life, then you know that you’re still walking in the darkness, whatever you might say about yourself.

A final symptom of walking in the darkness is conforming, fitting right in, being just like the people and the system around you. John speaks of antichrist, and he says, “They are from the world and therefore speak from the viewpoint of the world, and the world listens to them” (1 John 4:5). And just about at the very end of this letter, he sums it all up: “The whole world lies in the power of the evil one” (1 John 5:19). That whole world system lies under a wicked power.

So if you’re congratulating yourself on being well-adjusted, fitting in quite nicely—nobody ever thinks there’s something out of the ordinary about you—then take a real hard look at the possibility that you’re walking in the darkness. Because the Gospel of John and the first letter of John speak of “the world” again and again and again, and of the darkness that characterizes the world. So if you’re walking right along with the flow, that’s a pretty bad sign. It means you’re lying to yourself when you think that you’re walking in the light.

Light has come into the world. Jesus was talking to Nicodemus when he said this. He said it right after he said, “God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him” (John 3:16-17). But there’s a problem. “Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil” (John 3:19). They couldn’t afford to believe that Jesus was the light, that Jesus is the light, because they didn’t want to change. Their deeds were evil, and so they became allergic to the message and allergic to the light. “Everyone who does evil hates the light and will not come into the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed” (John 3:20).

When the light goes on, the cockroaches scurry for the darkness. That’s just the way it is. Jesus says that is the problem—light has come, but people loved darkness. In another place, Jesus says, “If the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness!” (Matthew 6:23). If your ideals and the things that you think are wonderful turn out to be darkness, how great is that darkness! If your ideals are darkness, you’ll live down to them. Darkness hates light, and if the inner light is just darkness, then we’re trapped in the dark.

So, to summarize what John says here: darkness and walking in darkness involve rejecting the true God as he revealed himself to be. It’s denying our sin and our lostness. It’s flipping the moral norms, reversing them. It’s hating other people and conforming to culture. John paints with a very broad brush. He makes things clear and obvious—but that’s something he specializes in, because he knows how sneaky we are. He knows how good we are at lying, lying, lying to ourselves. So he puts things very bluntly so that we don’t have much wiggle room left if we want to continue walking in darkness.

When it comes to walking in the light, as he calls us to do, we see at least five things that are involved in that: to know—to know God as he is and to have a relationship with him; to confess our sins and find cleansing from them; to obey God’s commands, to know what Jesus says, what the Lord God commands, and to do what he says; to love one another as God has loved us; and to differ from the world. Those are five things that come through in this passage and throughout the entire epistle of John.

To know—to know means, first of all, to believe correct things about God, and then also to have fellowship with God, to walk with God in communion with him. You can know correct facts about a person, but when you say, “I know somebody,” that goes beyond just knowing the correct facts. Still, if you’re totally confused about all the facts about them, it’s pretty dubious that you know them at all. So it involves true and accurate belief about them, but also fellowship and communion.

To know who God is, John has these great statements: “God is light; in him there is no darkness at all” (1 John 1:5). God is holy, completely without spot or sin or error. And as the apostle James put it, “When tempted, no one should say, ‘God is tempting me,’ for God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he tempt anyone” (James 1:13). God is light. If there are sin issues in your life, whatever the source of that is, it is not God. God is light.

God is life. John opens this letter by saying, “The life appeared; we have seen it and testify to it, and we proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and has appeared to us” (1 John 1:2). Over and over again, to know God and Jesus Christ is eternal life. And then there’s that mighty statement in chapter 4 of 1 John: “God is love” (1 John 4:8).

God is love. He is forever—before he ever made the worlds or anything ever existed outside of God, God is love, because God is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in an eternal oneness of love and of being. You’ll see again and again as we move through this letter what John has to say about the Father, about the Son, about the indwelling Holy Spirit as he is in himself. The doctrine of the Trinity is basically a statement that echoes John’s statement “God is love,” because God wouldn’t be love if he needed a creation to love. God simply is eternally love, because Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are that great unified being of love.

And not only in God’s being but in his actions we see God as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Everything that the Trinity does is done by all three persons of the Holy Trinity, but each is sometimes more connected with one part of the work than another in our understanding and experience of it.

So when we think of the Father, we think of the great Creator. We think of the one who sends his Son into the world, the one who so loved the world, who loves his Son, and in loving his Son loves everybody who is in his Son—the Father who commands and has the right to command.

The Son, according to John, is the Messiah. He emphasizes again that Jesus is the Christ. There were heretics who said that Jesus became the Christ for a while—that he was anointed with the Spirit at his baptism and then the Spirit left him before his death. So you couldn’t just say Jesus is the Christ—you could say that Jesus had a job position as Christ for a little while. John blasts that to smithereens. Jesus the Son, the eternal Son, is the Messiah, and he’s Jesus, that particular man Jesus living among us. The Son of God came in the flesh. He came as the blood sacrifice for our sins. “The blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin” (1 John 1:7). He’s the Savior of the world. “God sent his Son to be the Savior of the world” (1 John 4:14). “We have an advocate with the Father—Jesus Christ, the righteous one” (1 John 2:1). He’s the ruler who has the right to command.

And not only do we worship and trust and walk with God as Father and Son, but also as Holy Spirit. Throughout the Scriptures, and especially in this epistle, the work of the Holy Spirit shines through. He testifies to Jesus so that we can really know Jesus, understand the truth about him, and experience him. He indwells us. He’s the one that makes it so that it can be said that “God lives in us and we in God” (1 John 4:16). He assures us when our hearts are going to condemn us. The Holy Spirit is the one who assures us that we are God’s children. “The anointing you received from him remains in you” (1 John 2:27). He designates us, he ordains us, he makes us God’s. He teaches us, he directs us, and he empowers us. “The one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world” (1 John 4:4).

So if you want to walk in the light, you need to know this God—the God who is life, who is light, who is love, who is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Any denial of the Trinity, any denial that God is life, light, and love—and that life, light, and love can be found anywhere else—means you don’t know God. To know is to believe these facts, to believe them with certainty, to trust God, to live for him, and to walk with him.

“Know” is one of the most common words in this epistle of 1 John. We know, we know, we know, we know—you have those refrains again and again. “Liar, liar, liar,” and “We know, we know, we know.” He does that so that when you do know, you’re not going to be shaken by every lie that comes along.

When you know God, one of the first things that happens is that you begin to know yourself. You don’t know yourself until you’re in the process of coming to know God. Let’s say you’re walking along in the darkness, going to some big event, and while you’re walking a car drives by and splashes you. You look at yourself and say, “Ah, doesn’t look too bad,” and keep on walking. That’s the luxury of being in the darkness—you don’t look too bad. But then you get to your destination, where everything is bright light, and you walk in there, and there is mud all over—you are a disastrous mess. As long as you’re walking in the darkness, the mud doesn’t show up too much. As soon as you get close to that light—yikes!

That’s what happened to Isaiah. He was one of the greatest men in Israel. He was already a follower of the Lord, and then he had a vision of God. He said, “Woe to me! I am undone! I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the Lord Almighty” (Isaiah 6:5). When you see yourself in the light of God, you can’t pretend anymore. That’s the trouble with thinking we’re okay the way we are—it’s a sure sign that we just don’t know God very well.

I’ve done kind of a risky thing already in describing other people’s sins, because that’s a big problem. It’s important to identify what some of those sins are in the switching of light and darkness. But the risk of looking at other people’s sins is that you say, “Well, check—that’s not one of mine. That’s not one of my biggies,” and so you think you’re fine. But when you come into the light of God’s reality and of his holiness, then you realize, “Uh oh, it’s not somebody else—it’s me, O Lord, standing in the need of prayer. I’m the one—and not my brother nor my sister, but it’s me, O Lord, standing in the need of prayer.”

To go along as though I don’t need forgiveness just makes my situation worse. King David knew that very well. David committed a terrible sin—he committed adultery with another man’s wife and then arranged for the murder of that man. Then one day the prophet came to him and told him a story about a terrible injustice. David was so furious about that injustice that had been committed, he said, “That man deserves to die!” And the prophet said, “You are the man!” (2 Samuel 12:1-7).

We kind of like stories about other people’s badness. We don’t like that bony finger of the prophet sticking in our nose and saying, “You’re the man. You’re the woman.” But David says in Psalm 32, “How blessed is he whose transgressions are forgiven, whose sins are covered. When I kept silent, my bones wasted away through my groaning all day long… Then I acknowledged my sin to you and did not cover up my iniquity. I said, ‘I will confess my transgressions to the Lord’—and you forgave the guilt of my sin” (Psalm 32:1-5).

We’re so scared of admitting what’s wrong with us, and then we find out that the moment we do, it’s made better. That’s the wonder of the gospel. We pretend and pretend because we’re so scared we’re going to look bad, so scared we’re going to get condemned. And when we admit it, then all of a sudden God makes it okay. “He who conceals his sins does not prosper, but whoever confesses and forsakes them finds mercy” (Proverbs 28:13).

“If we confess our sins,” says John, “he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9). His new covenant promise was this: “I will forgive their sins and will remember them no more” (Jeremiah 31:34). That was his promise, and he’s faithful to that promise. He paid the price, the penalty for all those sins, in his Son Jesus Christ. And because he did, it would be unjust for him to punish sins that have already been punished in Christ.

If your sins have been punished in the Lord Jesus Christ, he’s just—and when you turn to him and confess and ask forgiveness, he forgives those sins, he purifies us from all unrighteousness. He does that not just because he waves the magic forgiveness wand, but because something happens. “The blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin” (1 John 1:7). It’s the precious blood that brings that about.

Then John says, “My dear children, I write this to you so that you will not sin. But if anybody does sin, we have one who speaks to the Father in our defense—Jesus Christ, the Righteous One” (1 John 2:1). Don’t think for a moment that John is saying, “You know what? There’s a blood that washes away all sin, and when you confess your sins, you’re forgiven—so sin away!” He says, “I’m writing all of this so that you will not sin.”

But he knows that we all will—even after we’re saved, there are going to be times when we lapse into sin. That doesn’t mean we’re completely walking in the darkness again, but part of walking in the light means that when sin is still there and still committed, you face it and you admit it. You confess it.

“I write this to you so that you will not sin. But if anybody does sin, we have an advocate with the Father—Jesus Christ, the Righteous One” (1 John 2:1). He’s the Righteous One. He didn’t commit any sin, and that’s why, when God credits his life to us, we can be considered perfect—because he is the Righteous One. So he can declare you the righteous one when you’re in Christ by faith.

“He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world” (1 John 2:2). There’s no other sacrifice for the sins of the whole world. If anybody in the world is going to be saved, it’s going to be through that atoning sacrifice, through the blood of Jesus poured out on the cross.

So don’t make the mistake of thinking confession is almost like a good work that saves you. Confession just puts you in touch with the one who forgives and cleanses sin. But it is the blood that cleanses. It is the advocate who makes you right with God. It is the Righteous One whose righteousness becomes yours—and he is all you need.

I found out this week that my cousin died. She was seventy-one. She was an older cousin, and she lived a godly life. She trusted in Christ from an early age to forgive her sins. She sang for him. She played the piano and organ in church. She visited many people. She sometimes went on missions. She was a great mom and grandma to sixteen kids. Sixteen years ago, she had cancer, and the Lord healed her of that and gave her many more years to see her grandkids and gave them many more years to be around her.

One day this week she felt kind of warm, so her husband got a fan to put by her chair. She said one word and died: “Jesus.”

You can forget just about everything in this sermon, but if you know that one word—just that one—and what it really means, then when you come to the end of your life: “Jesus.” You’re forgiven everything, and you’re with him, and you see him forever. He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins. He is our advocate with the Father. I hope that if I say one last word in this life and one first word on the way into heaven, that will be it—“Jesus.”

We just sang last week, “How sweet the name of Jesus sounds in a believer’s ear; it makes the wounded spirit whole.” And then, “Till then I would thy love proclaim with every fleeting breath, and may the music of thy name refresh my soul in death.” That name of Jesus—the atoning sacrifice for our sins.

When we walk in the light, we know him, we confess our sins, and we confess him as Savior. Then we obey. We don’t just keep on living the way we have; we keep on being changed by the Lord. “We know that we have come to know him if we obey his commands. If anyone obeys his word, God’s love is truly made complete in him. This is how we know we are in him: whoever claims to live in him must walk as Jesus did” (1 John 2:3-6).

We obey. We obey. We walk. Jesus says, “If you love me, you will obey my commands” (John 14:15). We’ve already seen that it won’t be a perfect obedience, but it will be a real obedience and a growing obedience. We are lying to ourselves if we say that we know God and are walking in the darkness and not obeying his commands. So keep on studying those commands. Keep on walking with the Lord and seeking to please him by doing what he says.

There is no other standard, by the way. If God doesn’t command something, you don’t have an obligation. There are many people who will lay heavy burdens on us that didn’t come from God, so don’t sweat it. But if God does command something, then obey.

And love—“If we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another” (1 John 1:7). That’s one of the byproducts of walking in the light—fellowship, loving fellowship with God and fellowship with each other. A little later, John says, “I am not writing you a new command but an old one, which you have had since the beginning” (1 John 2:7). That old message, even from before the appearance of Christ in the world, was, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength” (Deuteronomy 6:5), and, “Love your neighbor as yourself” (Leviticus 19:18).

Jesus repeated that command. It’s just that old command—not telling you anything new. Oh, on second thought, I think I am telling you something new, he says: “Yet I am writing you a new command; its truth is seen in him and you, because the darkness is passing and the true light is already shining” (1 John 2:8). Somehow that old command to love seems fresh and new again, because now it’s not just a command—it is a power. That command is empowering you to love him. “We love because he first loved us” (1 John 4:19).

We have that love in our hearts now, and it is the light of Christ shining in us and upon us. We even have a deeper understanding of that love. The Old Testament already revealed that we should love our enemies, but Christ dying on the cross for his enemies—now that is a fresh revelation of love. At one level it’s the same old command; at another level, it is love as we never understood it before.

“Whoever loves his brother lives in the light, and there is nothing in him to make him stumble” (1 John 2:10). Love is one of the supreme evidences, and we’re going to see this again and again throughout the apostle John’s writings—that obedience and love and belief are the things that characterize people who walk in the light, who are born of God, who are in fellowship with God, whatever phrase you want to use for it. That’s how you can tell.

It’s not, “I walked the aisle once upon a time.” It’s not, “I had this amazing experience of God once upon a time.” That’s all fine—I’m not knocking it. But John says, if you want to know it’s for real, then you know God by believing and trusting in him, by confessing, by obeying, by loving, and by differing.

If you’re just like everybody around you, is there any evidence that the light is shining upon you or shining from you? Jesus says, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life” (John 8:12). You’re not going to walk in darkness—you have the light of life. You’re different from the darkness. Light differs from darkness. Truth differs from lies. Good differs from evil. Love differs from hate. Believers differ from the world.

If you’re desperately trying to fit in, if all of your learning comes from the world’s teaching, if all of your pleasure comes from the world’s brands of entertainment, then you have to start asking, “Do I differ?” When you cherish the Word of God and study the Word of God, when you delight to be with the people of God, when you’re not just a clone of one more worldling taking up oxygen on this planet but have new life in you, you differ from the world. You’re not just different—John says you’ve got to be different, or you’re walking in the darkness.

But not only are you different—you’re engaged in a conflict, and you’re on the winning side, and you already have the winning power within you. “The one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world” (1 John 4:4). So I call you again to walk in the light, to be different from the world, and not to be a crybaby and say, “Wow, wow, wow, the world is so bad, it’s so powerful.” Yeah, it is bad, it is pretty powerful—but quit being a crybaby. Greater is he that is in you than he that is in the world.

Let’s not go around just having a pity party for ourselves. Let us rather say, “Yes, all that is challenging in a world like this, all that is in the power of darkness—I’m not going to downplay it. It’s very great; it even comes to greater powers than we’re aware of sometimes, the power of the evil one. But greater—greater is he that is in you than he that is in the world.” “This is the victory that has overcome the world, even our faith” (1 John 5:4). Faith is daring to be different and walking with this God.

So walk in the light. Know the truth about God and know him personally and in a loving relationship. Confess your own sin and confess Christ as Savior. Sometimes the translators miss that in 1 John. I’ll try to bring that out as we preach our way through, but sometimes it says, “If we acknowledge Christ.” No—it’s “confess” (homologeō). When we confess our sins or admit our sins—call it what you want—it’s homologeō. You confess your sins; you confess Christ. The word means “I am saying the same thing.” That’s what it means—I’m saying the same thing that God says about my sin: it’s bad. I’m saying the same thing that God says about Christ: he is eternal life, he is the life. I am confessing; I am saying the same thing about myself and about God in Christ as God says.

Then walk in the light by obeying his commands, by loving one another as he has loved us, by differing from the world. And you know what? When you’re different from the world, it’s exactly in that that you become a hope for those who are still trapped in the world. If you’re just like them, you can’t do them any good. You can’t help them. If you’re not like them, you might make them mad initially, or be offensive, or make them uncomfortable—but there’s hope, because they’re in contact with somebody who has light.

And if you “let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven” (Matthew 5:16), then what God said of himself—or what Jesus says of himself—“I am the light of the world” (John 8:12), he also says of us: “You are the light of the world” (Matthew 5:14). Walk in the light. Be the light.

Prayer

Thank you, Father, for being our light and our salvation, for being our life, for being love from all eternity. May we, Lord, walk in the light. May we experience eternal life even now. May we enjoy your love and express similar love to those around us. May we acknowledge your authority, walk in your commands, and have the faith that overcomes the world by the power of the Holy Spirit, who is greater than the one who is in the world.

Lord, help each one of us here. Supply what we need. Some of us need conviction of sin and transformation. Others of us need desperately to move beyond a sense of unworthiness and conviction and to have that precious blood applied to us—to know that the Advocate is with the Father and that the Father wanted to save us all along, and that’s why he sent Jesus. So give us, Lord, that assurance, so that when it comes our time to leave this world for the next, that word “Jesus” will be what we have and will be all we need. For Jesus’ sake, Amen.

Walking in the Light (1 John 1:5-2:11)
By David Feddes
Slide Contents

⁵ God is light; in him there is no darkness at all. ⁶ If we claim to have fellowship with him yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live by the truth. ⁷ 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. 

⁸ If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. ⁹ If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. ¹⁰ If we claim we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar and his word is not in us.

 ^2:1 My dear children, I write this to you so that you will not sin. But if anybody does sin, we have an advocate with the Father—Jesus Christ, the Righteous One. ² He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world.

³ We know that we have come to know him if we obey his commands. ⁴ The man who says, “I know him,” but does not do what he commands is a liar, and the truth is not in him. ⁵ But if anyone obeys his word, God’s love is truly made complete in him. This is how we know we are in him: ⁶ Whoever claims to live in him must walk as Jesus did.

 ⁷ Dear friends, I am not writing you a new command but an old one, which you have had since the beginning. This old command is the message you have heard. ⁸ Yet I am writing you a new command; its truth is seen in him and you, because the darkness is passing and the true light is already shining.

⁹ Anyone who claims to be in the light but hates his brother is still in the darkness. ¹⁰ Whoever loves his brother lives in the light, and there is nothing in him to make him stumble. ¹¹ But whoever hates his brother is in the darkness and walks around in the darkness; he does not know where he is going, because the darkness has blinded him.

 
Two options

• Walking in darkness
• Walking in the light

 
Calling darkness light

Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter. (Isaiah 5:20)

When preachers praise sin, they harden sinners, split churches, anger God, and destroy themselves. Woe!

• Praising murder
• Praising immorality
• Praising mutilation
• Praising drugs
• Praising destruction
• Praising unbelief
• Praising idolatry

 
In darkness

• Reject the true God
• Deny sin and lostness
• Reverse moral norms
• Hate other people
• Conform to culture

 
Liar, liar!
Reject the true God

^2:22 Who is the liar? It is the man who denies that Jesus is the Christ.

^5:10 Anyone who does not believe God has made him out to be a liar, because he has not believed the testimony God gave about his Son.

Liar, liar!
Deny sin and lostness

^1:8 If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.

^1:10 If we claim we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar and his word is not in us.

 
Save ourselves!

The meaning of Easter is more transcendent than the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Whether you are Christian or not, through a commitment to helping others we are able to save ourselves. (Rev. Raphael Warnock, U. S. Senator)

 
I am good!

“I don’t [ask God for forgiveness]. If I do something wrong, I just try and make it right. I don’t bring God into that picture.”

“I like to be good. I don’t like to have to ask for forgiveness. And I am good. I don’t do a lot of things that are bad. I try to do nothing that is bad. I have a great relationship with God.” (Donald Trump)

 
Liar, liar!
Reverse moral norms

^1:6 If we claim to have fellowship with him yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live by the truth.

^2:4 The man who says, “I know him,” but does not do what he commands is a liar, and the truth is not in him.

Liar, liar!
Hate other people

^2:9 Anyone who claims to be in the light but hates his brother is still in the darkness.

^4:20 If anyone says, “I love God,” yet hates his brother, he is a liar.

 
Liar, liar!
Conform to culture

They are from the world and therefore speak from the viewpoint of the world, and the world listens to them. (4:5)

The whole world lies in the power of the evil one. (5:19)

Darkness hates light

Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. Everyone who does evil hates the light. (John 3:19-20)

If the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness! (Matt 6:23)

In darkness

• Reject the true God
• Deny sin and lostness
• Reverse moral norms
• Hate other people
• Conform to culture

In the light

• Know
• Confess
• Obey
• Love
• Differ

Know

• God is life, light, love.
• God is Father, Son, Spirit.
• Father sends, loves, commands.
• Son is Messiah Jesus, flesh, blood sacrifice, Savior, advocate, ruler.
• Spirit testifies, indwells, assures, anoints, directs, empowers.

Confess

He who conceals his sins will not prosper, but he who confesses and forsakes them will obtain mercy. (Proverbs 28:13)

If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. (1:9)

Atoning advocate

^2:1 My dear children, I write this to you so that you will not sin. But if anybody does sin, we have an advocate with the Father—Jesus Christ, the Righteous One. ² He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world.

Obey

We know that we have come to know him if we obey his commands. … if anyone obeys his word, God’s love is truly made complete in him. This is how we know we are in him: Whoever claims to live in him must walk as Jesus did. (2:3-6)

Love

• If we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another(1:7)
• Old/new command: love
• Whoever loves his brother lives in the light, and there is nothing in him to make him stumble. (2:10)

Differ

• Light differs from darkness.
• Truth differs from lies.
• Good differs from evil.
• Love differs from hate.
• Believers differ from the world.
• Faith overcomes the world.

In the light

• Know
• Confess
• Obey
• Love
• Differ