If you will now, turn with me in your Bibles to 1 John.
1 John. And I'm going to be reading from chapter 1 at verse 5 to chapter 2, verse 2.
Let me give you a little bit of background on why this is so important.
1 John. It was written by the beloved disciple John.
He's writing from Ephesus, perhaps laid in his life, and there is a problem.
You have false teachers coming into the church, and their teaching is leading people astray from what Jesus Christ had taught.
They were the type of people who believed, you've got to have a special knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ, and not everybody has that.
Here, John is contradicting that.
He's telling people how they are to live and believe in the Kingdom of God.
Believe me, some of the questions that are brought up back then are still with us today.
So let's read another section in which John tells us what is expected.
This is the message we have heard from him and declared to you.
God is light.
In him there is no darkness at all.
If we claim to have fellowship with him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live out the truth.
But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin.
If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.
If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just, and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.
If we claim we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar, and his word is not in us.
My dear children, I write this to you so that you will not sin.
And if anybody does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ, the righteous one.
He is the atoning sacrifice for our sin, and not only our sins, but also the sins of the whole world.
Let's pray and ask God to bless what we have read.
Our Heavenly Father, please be with us now as we listen.
Instruct us, Holy Spirit, so that we can live lives that are pleasing to you, but show us your grace, that it's not all to us alone, that Jesus is with us.
Hear our prayer now, amen.
We all have to make choices in life.
I want you to think about going to Walmart if that is where you're doing your shopping.
Let's say you want to buy toothpaste.
Think of all the options that you have for toothpaste.
Oh, you've got your crust, you've got your Colgate, you've got your aim.
Then you've got your various flavors that can go with your toothpaste.
Now, at one time, there was only about two or three toothpaste brands you could get, but that's all changed.
And it's not just toothpaste.
You've got other choices you can make as well.
I don't like going to Barnes & Noble anymore.
Why? Because there are all these different books there's too many to choose from.
Mine is we'll just go to the Internet.
Choices, choices, choices.
Even on TV, I remember the days, black and white, three channels.
That's all you got.
Now, oh my, you've got hundreds and hundreds of channels to choose from.
And sometimes those choices we have to make are relatively trivial.
But occasionally, you have to make choices that are much more significant.
Such choices as what is going to be my calling in life, what will be the job.
And if you do that, it's a choice that is going to affect you for 20, 30 years or so.
Who are you going to marry?
That could affect you for years and years and years to come.
And one of the greatest choices of all which has eternal consequences is to follow Christ.
There really is only two choices.
You either follow Him or you don't.
You will either enjoy the presence of God or you won't.
You will follow His ways or you won't.
You will have a future inheritance with Him or you won't.
You will either reject His presence or you won't.
You will either accept His ways or reject His ways.
You will either rejoice of what you have with Jesus or you won't.
Well, today's passage really is about a choice.
The choice comes down to this.
You can either walk in the light as He is in the light or you can walk in darkness.
It is basically a twofold choice.
One or the other.
Walking in the light, walking in darkness.
So let's see about that choice you can make.
Now right away, I know there's going to be some objections.
It's too narrow.
Certainly there are more options than just two.
Don't we live in this multicultural world where you've got all these religions?
Well, what does Jesus say?
I am the way, the truth and the light?
And what does this passage say?
Either we believe what Jesus says or we don't.
And right now, Jesus is saying to you through John,
you have two choices.
You walk in the light or you walk in the darkness.
So let's see what it means for you to walk in darkness.
Now that's not the recommended course,
but it is an option that you have walking in darkness.
I remember one of the things that my mom used to say to me,
nothing good happens after dark.
And you know what?
She was right.
It seems that a lot of the crime that takes place happens when?
Under the cover of night.
People can't see you.
It creates a problem.
And that's why growing up, after about nine or ten o'clock,
no one went outside.
Because it was dark and you never knew what would happen.
Darkness in the Bible.
It has the connotations of evil, of sinfulness.
I want you to think of Sodom and Gomorrah and what went on there.
When did it happen?
At night.
And we can look at other passages in the Bible,
such as Romans chapter 13,
and listen to what the Bible says here.
It says in verse 12,
the night is nearly over.
The day is almost here.
So let us put aside the deeds of darkness
and put on the armor of light.
Let us behave decently as in the daytime,
not in carousing and in drunkenness,
not in sexual immorality and debauchery,
not in dissection and jealousy.
Rather, clothes yourself as with the Lord Jesus Christ.
In the Bible, darkness is synonymous,
many a time, with sinfulness.
In fact, in John 319 it says this,
and this is the judgment,
that light has come into the world
and men love darkness rather than light
because their deeds were evil.
And you can go back into the Old Testament in Isaiah
where it says the people were walking in darkness.
Darkness.
Synonymous with sinfulness
and being away from the presence of God.
And if you look around the world,
you would see this.
Think of the lies that are told.
Remember when the Ukraine war started?
What did Putin say?
Oh, we're not going to invade.
What did he do?
They invaded.
It was a lie.
Lying is part of darkness.
It's part of sinfulness.
Think of the crimes that we see going on
and it seems to be getting worse.
I don't have any statistical evidence.
It just seems to be that way.
We also have an increasing amount,
especially amongst the youth,
with depression and suicide.
Why is this happening?
Because there is something wrong with humanity.
And people have known that for quite some time.
It was quite prominent that people understood humans were flawed.
It seems today, though, we don't want to believe that.
But there is a problem.
And part of the problem of darkness is deception and lies,
as well as unbelief.
And it talks here about lying.
And when it says that you are walking in darkness,
it doesn't mean you have to be sinless,
but the continual direction of your life is away from God.
It is away from truth.
It is away from goodness.
No one says a Christian is ever going to be perfect,
but it's a question of the direction of their life.
And look specifically at what John is saying here.
He's given us a bunch of conditional statements, if statements.
And look at what it says in verse 6.
If we claim to have fellowship with him, and yet walk in darkness,
we lie and do not live out the truth.
So what did you have back then in John's day?
People who said they were Christians, but their lives did not reflect the gospel in any way.
They said one thing with their lips, but their hearts and their lives showed something else.
There were people back then who thought,
well to be saved I just have to intellectually believe it,
have the special knowledge, and since the body is fleshly and lowly,
and it's not going to inherit the kingdom of God,
that sin doesn't matter.
Do as you please.
It's not what Christianity says.
Also look at verses 8 and 10.
Here's another problem they have.
If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.
Verse 10, if we claim we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar,
and the world is not in us, and his word is not in us.
What they're saying back then?
You don't sin.
You don't sin?
People actually believe that back then, but it's wrong.
Now you may think, I've never heard of such a thing.
Yeah, it happens today.
I remember one time back when Jan and I were in Mississippi,
I went to what was known as a library.
They had a lot of literature, Christian literature,
and I was in there looking at some books and tapes,
and somebody came up to me and started questioning me,
and he said, I don't sin anymore.
Huh? Where's that in the Bible?
For all of sin.
But this person claimed to be a Christian, but yet he said he didn't sin.
I've had people tell me, I don't need to say to God,
I'm sorry, forgive me, because I don't sin.
Huh?
Basically, if you believe that, what you're saying is,
you don't need Jesus anymore, and it is not true at all.
If you honestly look at your life, you'll know you're a sinner,
but there are people who believe that.
Recently this week, a very prominent minister fell into sin.
He's also connected with a lot of our Presbyterian circles,
even though he's not Presbyterian.
And as I was reading what happened, you could send in comments.
And as I was looking at the comments, there's a couple things that struck me,
but here was what one person said.
He was truly regenerate, he wouldn't sin.
Truly regenerate people still sin.
And sometimes they sin badly.
But yet these false teachers were claiming,
no, we don't sin anymore.
It's a lie. It's a lie.
So tell me, say you're a Christian.
First of all, what's the direction of your life?
Are we misrepresenting Christianity?
If we say we believe, and yet we act like we are people
who care very little for the kingdom of God.
What happens if we say we're a Christian,
and yet our acts are hostile to words, fellow believers and other believers?
We are people who just don't care about others or the Lord God.
When the commandments come down to loving the Lord your God and loving each other,
what does that say?
Do you even want to be part of God's people?
Don't fall into the trap of thinking,
I can be a liar as a Christian, and it doesn't matter.
Beware of thinking, I don't have to live as a follower of Christ.
Beware.
And do you know what a lot of people do today?
Here's what happens.
Here's how they excuse themselves from their sin.
It's really another way of saying, I don't sin.
They will do this.
They know they have a problem, but they'll project that sin onto you or you or you.
Oh, I got a problem with temper.
Oh, but you do too.
You're denying sin.
You're denying that you are a sinner.
Brothers and sisters in Christ, there's only two ways.
You can either walk in darkness, or you can walk in the light.
Which way do you want to walk? What will be the continual direction of your life?
Light or darkness?
Immorality or walking with Christ?
Which brings us to the second way to walk.
And that is walking in the light.
That's what Jesus wants.
That's what John wants.
And it starts out in verse 5, where it says,
This is the message we have heard from him and declared to you.
God is light.
Light refers to the glory of God.
It refers to the truth of God as well.
It is referring to the holiness of God.
All of those things.
There is no deceit nor deception with the living God.
Now the world, darkness, not God.
And perhaps what John is referring to here is what you find in the book of Isaiah in chapter 60,
where it says,
Arise, shine, for your light has come.
Glory of the Lord rises upon you.
See, darkness covers the earth and thick darkness is over the people.
But the Lord rises upon you and his glory appears over you.
Nations will come to your light.
What John is saying is, the God that we worship is not evil.
He's not going to lie to you.
But keep in mind that the great commandment of the Bible is to be holy as I am holy.
And that is exactly what John is saying here,
that we are to walk as Christ walks.
Now most of us, fashion conscious,
we want to be like the celebrities, dress like them, dress like our sports heroes.
But what we're really dressed like is Jesus Christ in the light of life.
That's what we should want.
It all has to do with character.
Trying to be more like Jesus.
It is putting on the love of Christ for God and for each other here.
And he's also keeping something else in mind because you may be thinking to yourself,
well you see, if I sin that just blows it all.
What else does he say here about the light?
It says in verses 9 and 10,
if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins
and purifies from all unrighteousness.
Jesus knows you're going to sin.
The question is, are you going to turn to him?
Part of walking in the light is turning to Jesus Christ.
And it goes on to say this,
if anybody does sin, we have an advocate with the Father.
Jesus is there.
Every time you sin, saying,
but I have purified my child, my son, or my daughter by my blood.
That is why it says in verse 2, he is atoning sacrifice for our sins
because your sin which deserves the anger of God when Christ died on the cross,
he took it all away.
So that God's anger is not poured out on you for your sins
because Christ took it all away.
And he is there interceding for you in the heavenlies.
That's part of the walking in the light.
Walking in the light means, yes, you are trying to walk like Jesus Christ.
It is holiness.
But walking in the light is also this.
You will sin.
Are you willing to turn to Christ for forgiveness?
Over and over and over again because he intercedes.
And he is the one who will forgive.
You're honest with ourselves.
You need that forgiveness.
Yes, it is the way we live in the direction of our life.
Ask yourself this question.
Are you the type of person who desires to look like Jesus in some way?
No, I'm not saying you're going to be the savior of the world.
I'm not saying you're going to do miracles.
But the quality of your life is like Jesus.
Or do you even care at all about that?
What's the direction?
Let's put it another way.
How much of your life is centered around the forgiveness of Christ?
I've heard it said like this,
when you become a Christian and you grow in grace,
your sense of sin will grow larger.
But so will your understanding of the grace of God.
But you know what typically happens?
Our sense of sin grows smaller,
but so does the sense of grace grow smaller as we go in the Christian life.
And that is just wrong.
It should be growing in grace.
And the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.
That's walking in the light.
That's what Jesus wants.
That is what John is telling us about here.
Now I said at the start, you've got choices to make.
And for all of us who have gathered here,
the message that you need to hear is this.
You've got to make a choice.
Do you either want to walk as Jesus walked,
in the light, or do you want to walk in darkness?
I can tell you from personal experience
that walking in the light is by far better than walking in the darkness.
If you walk in sin your whole life,
I don't see how you can make it
because you're always going to feel guilty,
or you're always going to have to fear
that someone's going to find out that you sin.
But you know, if you walk in the light,
all that guilt evaporates.
And even if you do sin,
you have a Savior who will forgive you.
Totally.
The world will bring up everything you've done
since you were an infant.
But Jesus says, walk in the light
and you'll find the forgiveness that you need.
So the choice is up to you.
Either walking in the darkness,
or walking in the light.
Let's pray.
Our Heavenly Father,
there are only two ways we can go in this life.
Darkness or light.
And now our God, we ask
that your Holy Spirit will work in our lives
so that we'll desire to follow Jesus
in holiness, but also clinging to Him
for forgiveness as the atoning sacrifice
who died on the cross to take the wrath of God
so that we are forgiven totally.
May we be great repenters
and great forgivers in your kingdom.
Hear our prayer. Amen.