Walking in the Light.

If we haven't met before, my name is Nermalis, and I'm the associate pastor here at New Culture. I'm so excited that you guys decided to join us today. We are kicking off a brand new sermon series today that's going to take us all the way through the summer.

We're going to be doing a sermon series on the letters from John. So that's going to be 1st, 2nd, and 3rd John in the Bible. These tiny, itty-bitty books of the Bible have so much wisdom for life packed in them. I'm super excited to be unpacking that for the next few weeks. I want to encourage you to be reading along in scripture as we go.

That's one of the really fun parts of when we're preaching straight out of the Bible and just full books: you guys can then take that home and study it. We're doing one chapter a week. On Sundays we'll be preaching out of which makes it super simple for you. If this week you read 1 John, you'll be right on pace with us, and you'll have finished all three books of the Bible by the time we wrap up the sermon series. I really want to encourage you to be doing that over the next few weeks.

So before we jump into this whole sermon series, I want to talk a little bit about the author, which is John. John was one of the disciples of Jesus. In fact, he's known as Jesus's beloved disciple. He was Jesus's best friend. This is the guy that Jesus entrusts his mother to on the cross. Jesus and John were really close.

After Jesus ascends into heaven and after Pentecost and the Holy Spirit falls on the gathering of believers, the disciples are transformed and they go from being disciples to being disciple makers. They have a change in title with that transformation. They become the apostles and John is one of these apostles. The role of the apostles was a few things, but simply they were called to a region or a people group. In that region, they would spread the gospel and plant churches. And once the church was established, they would give it to a local leader to essentially pastor.

The apostles oversaw the spiritual well-being of all the churches in their region and continued spreading and expanding the gospel. John is the author of four books, for sure. For all intents and purposes today, a fifth book. He wrote the Gospel of John. He wrote 1st, 2nd, and 3rd John, and he's credited as the human author of the book of Revelations. John, in all of his writings, highly emphasizes a few things.

He emphasizes Jesus as being God, as being eternal and preeminent. He has no tolerance for and actively pushes against false teachings that are contrary to that doctrine. So what are 1st, 2nd, and 3rd John? 1st, 2nd, and 3rd John are letters to specific churches that are under his care. These churches are being infiltrated by false teachers that are presenting false teachings about sin, about humanity, and about Jesus.

A quick note on that. This is why I really want to encourage you over the next couple weeks to be reading 1st, 2nd, and 3rd John as we preach it, because that is how you know if what we're preaching is true. Reading the Bible for yourself is very, very important. And with all of that being said, please join me in 1st John, chapter 1, verse 1. We're going to be doing the entire chapter, first chapter of John, and the first verse of chapter 2.

That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched, this we proclaim concerning the word of life. 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. We proclaim to you what we have seen and heard so that you also may have fellowship with us. And our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ. We write this to make our joy complete. This is the message we have heard from him and declare 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. But if anybody does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ, the righteous one. He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours, but also for the sins of the whole world.

1 John 1:1-2:2

Our so what is lasting relationship with Jesus means we must be fully seen by him. And our now what is to adopt a lifestyle of confession.

The Trustworthy Witness

This first portion of the passage is a statement of why this author is a trustworthy person to speak about Jesus. He's making it clear that everything he has to say about Jesus is an eyewitness account. He says this is what we have heard, what we have seen. He saw these things. He heard these things right out of Jesus's mouth. And then he goes in. He talks about so that you can have fellowship with each other and with God.

Fellowship is a word that we tend to use in a very Christianese way. We say we're going to go have fellowship. After church today, we're having Sunday fun day, and we're going to have a great time of fellowship downstairs. And we don't fully know what it actually means. It's just a word that we throw around a lot.

So context clues would make me believe it means to be around other Christians, to talk to other Christians. Because fellowship time was always what they said about after-church events. But this isn't what fellowship is defined as in scripture. I decided I wanted to know exactly what John meant when he talks about fellowship with each other and fellowship with God.

So fellowship in this context is defined as to build lasting relationship. This is a different image than hanging out or spending time around someone. This is building a lasting relationship. A relationship that lasts through time. Highs and lows, good days, bad days. This is about building a relationship with trust, loyalty, faithfulness, joy, love.

Building a lasting relationship. It says so you can have fellowship with each other and with God. This is the why for everything John is about to say. John is presenting you with this because he's about to give some hard truth, and he's about to lay out a challenge for the people in these churches and for you and I today.

But first he starts here. We have the gift of being in communion with a loving, all-powerful, preeminent God. We have the gift of community and fellowship with other believers. And what he's about to tell us is how we live in that. If you're wondering today why you should respond to being challenged, well, it's because the Almighty wants a lasting relationship with you.

God Is Light

The next verse that comes in says, God is light. In him, there is no darkness at all. This is first and foremost what we need to understand. God is light. In him, there is no darkness at all.

This is a definitive statement about the character and nature of God. It doesn't say God has light. It says he is light. This isn't the same thing as if I say Sally Mae Juvier is kind. Saying Sally Mae Juvier is not the substance of kindness. She does not define kindness. She does not set the standard for kindness. Sally Mae Juvier is capable of kindness. She can act out kindness. But Sally Mae Juvier is not in and of herself kind.

Well, God is light. That means that his very being is light. It's not something he partakes in. It's who he is. I want to highlight exactly what scripture is referring to here when it says God is light, because it's like, okay, so God is the sun? What does that mean?

Light refers to different things in scripture, and in this passage, the word used for light means two different things. It means truth and its knowledge, together with the spiritual purity associated with it. And it means that which is exposed to the view of all. Open. God is light. God is truth and the purity of knowledge and he is not hidden. How beautiful is that? That God in all of his truth is not hidden. He's seen. He's out in the open and he's accessible.

In him there is no darkness at all. The word here used for darkness is darkness due to want of light. And this exact same word for darkness is also defined as unseen, in secret. I think it's so interesting that this darkness is not defined as lack of light or absence of light. It's defined as want of light. There is a want for this light. This is the kind of darkness we experience and it's an important distinction.

You don't desire everything you don't have. If there's an absence of olives in my food I don't want olives in them. I'm okay. I'm praising God for the absence of olives. I've always struggled with anxiety and when I don't feel anxiety there's no want for it. This darkness is not about not having light. It's about there being a want for light. A desire for it. A desire that you were designed for.

There's a want to be in the light. There is a want to be out of hiding. There is a want to be seen. There's not just a lack of light. There's a want for it. But in God, there is no want for light because he is the fullness of light. There is no part of him that is darkness, and this makes him trustworthy. We don't have to be waiting for that darkness to rear its head.

He is light, and in him there is no darkness at all. Scripture continues, and there are three different verses that I'm going to tie together here. It says, if we claim to have fellowship with him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live out the truth. It also says if we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. And it says if we claim we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar and his word is not in us.

Walking in the Light

Part of living out the truth is being seen instead of hiding. I think the immediate reading of this without looking any deeper or doing the work of interpretation, we read this and say light equals not sinning, darkness equals sinning. But if we really look at this passage as a whole, it's saying so much more than don't sin. It acknowledges that we sin. So how are we not without sin and still able to walk in the light.

This implies that to walk in the light is not to be perfect. To walk in the light is to be seen. To walk in darkness is not as simple as to not sin, excuse me, as to sin. To walk in the darkness is to hide. And it's so interesting because if this word for darkness means the want of light, that further implies that we not only lack visibility, we want it.

Why do people fear relationships? Because to be fully seen by someone and to trust them to still love you is scary. So we fear it. But we think that if we fear it, that means we don't want it or that it's bad. But you can absolutely fear something that you deeply desire and we deeply desire to be in lasting relationship where we are fully seen, fully in the light, and still loved.

To claim that we are in fellowship with God and to continue to live in hiding from him is to deceive ourselves. Lasting relationship requires exposure. It says, 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. It continues and says, if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.

I want to highlight that scripture here does not say when we are without sin, we can walk in the light and have fellowship with one another in Jesus. It says, but if we walk in the light as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another and the blood of Jesus purifies us from all sin. The key is to be seen. In his light, the blood of Jesus purifies us from all sin.

The Practice of Confession

In the light, we can have fellowship and lasting relationship, not just with God, but with one another. Earlier, I mentioned that these letters, 1 through 3 John, are letters to churches that have false teachers infiltrating them. One of those teachings is a claim to self-achieved sinlessness. To believe that in our own power we can overcome sin is a self-deception. It deprives you from experiencing the blessing found in confession.

Jesus is the only one who can make you clean because he is the only one who does not need to be made clean. There is a deepening of relationship found in confession. The honesty, the vulnerability, the act of coming before God in the light with everything out in the open is at the heart of building lasting relationship with him.

I know we hear confession, and I've said sin about ten million times, and all of those words are probably making you a little bit defensive and putting your guard up just a bit. But I want to change your perspective on confession. Because in confession, we experience the grace of God. In confession, we encounter the purity of love found only in Jesus. In confession, we discover that at our worst, we are deeply and wholly loved.

In confession, we are embraced by God, and we are reminded that we are not stuck where we are, because he is faithful and just to forgive our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. This is not a call to perfection. This is not a challenge to get it together. This is a call to step into the light because he is light and he is trustworthy and he loves you as you are and he is more than able to do the purifying and sanctifying work that you cannot do on your own.

We are called to be holy as he is holy. But we don't make ourselves holy. No spiritual discipline will make you holy. Not showing up to church every Sunday. Not going through the motions. Only fellowship with Jesus does that. And we must be in the light for that time.

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. He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins. And not only for our sins, but also for the sins of the world.

In his book, Reading John, George Talbert says this: He says the point of the third pair is that although the author, John, hopes his readers will not sin, he knows from God's word that they will. And he knows also that when they sin, the Christian's recourse is Jesus Christ, the heavenly advocate whose atoning death covers not only the individual's sin, not only the community's sin, but the sin of the entire world.

We are called to not sin. But that call to not sin is not a statement of God's expectation of you to fall in line and be perfect. The call to holiness is as much about not sinning as it is about growing in dependence on Jesus, who is the one who purifies us. This is not a call to get it together. It's a call to step into the light. And stepping into the light will mean we are seen.

And as terrifying as that is, it's also the deepest want of our heart for lasting relationship with God. God is light, and in Him there is no darkness at all. We can step into the light and trust that when God sees us, he will still love us.

You know what's really beautiful about confession? It changes what God sees when he looks at us.

Because of what God has done, you belong to Christ Jesus. He has become God's wisdom for us. He makes us right with God. He makes us holy, and he sets us free.

1 Corinthians 1:30

The work of Jesus on the cross means we are now in him, and when we walk in the light as he is in the light, we are made right with God. Because of Jesus, we are made holy. In Jesus and his purifying blood, we are set free from the power of sin and death. We reap his reward. And in the light, fully seen with Jesus, God looks at us and sees that his creation, his beloved, has been washed clean.

Our so what was lasting relationship with Jesus means we must be fully seen by him. And our now what is to adopt a lifestyle of confession.

A Lifestyle of Confession

Here's my call to action for you today. Adopt a lifestyle of confession. Unfortunately, I think there are two really poor belief systems we follow when it comes to the practice of confession. The first one is what I call one and done.

You confess your sins the day you decide to follow Jesus, you receive his forgiveness as you should, and you never practice confession again. The problem with this is that it denies us the intimacy and relationship that comes from continually confessing your need for Jesus. It also allows us to think that we are somehow in our own strength capable of the work of becoming like Jesus. We need Jesus for salvation, and we need Jesus for every single day after.

The second one is what I call confession void of grace. It's when you're stuck in a shame cycle that keeps you coming to Jesus in confession constantly, full of shame and unhealthy fear. My darling friend, one of my closest friends in the world, she was one of my roommates in college. I remember our sophomore year of college she had this giant project due. It was like 80 pages. It was huge. And it was due the very next day and her motherboard, or whatever it's called, on her laptop died and everything was gone.

And I saw her in her car and she was crying and I knocked in the window. I was like, what are you doing? She's like, I'm confessing everything to Jesus and re-giving my life to Christ because that's what must be wrong. That's why this happened. And that's what this is. This is every time something goes wrong, it must be because of this, this, and that. That's re-confessing every little thing because somehow I've done something big enough with enough gravity to separate me from God and to separate me from his love.

This confession and this mentality and perspective of confession makes God Punisher and confession punishment. Instead of viewing God as loving father and advocate. And confession as an act of love, trust, and intimacy. So I appeal to you tonight with a third option for confession.

Confession when practiced regularly and with confidence leads to a greater sense of conviction which will result in lessening your life over time. It leads to intimacy in your relationship with Jesus. It leads to greater confidence in His love because you will discover that no matter what you confess, His love never changes and it is not withheld from you.

Regular confession will keep you humbled and centered by the reality that you need Jesus. Confident confession, meaning coming to confession confident that Jesus's love for you is greater than your sin and that he is faithful and just to forgive, will uproot the shame and condemnation the enemy uses to keep you trapped in your sin.

A practice I adopted about two years ago that I learned from a really good friend is to practice confession daily. Sometimes I know exactly what I'm going to confess for because someone cut me off on the road and I know immediately I'm going to have to confess. Sometimes I have no idea when I come to confession and that prayer starts with, Holy Spirit, convict me. Search my heart and know me. Where have I sinned against you. I don't even notice it.

Maybe that gets to the point where instead of confessing for the big giant thing in your head, you're confessing because you said that you were late to work because you had a problem, you're tired, you needed air, but really you were late to work because you slept in and still needed to go to Dunkin Donuts to get your iced coffee. And that's the real reason you were late. Lying, you know. Maybe that's getting to the point where you're not confessing for saying the prejudice thing. You're confessing for making the assumption out of prejudice in your mind.

Maybe that's saying, Lord, I confess because I've prioritized work over you this week. A lifestyle of confession will change how you weigh sin. And as a result, the cross will mean so much more. So today, we're going to practice confession. Don't worry, I'm not going to go stand back there and ask you to confess. I don't want to.

Today, we're going to practice confession before God.

A Practice of Confession

I'm going to ask everyone to stand up on your feet. The first thing we're going to do is take some time with keys playing, no singing, nothing else. We're all going to have a private moment of confession with the Lord. Even if right now is not the moment you confess, if you need to say, "Holy Spirit, come and convict me. Search my heart and know me. Where have I sinned against you?", maybe you need to take a seat, maybe you need a journal. Whatever that is, in this moment we're going to stop and ask the Holy Spirit to come and inhabit this space. If this is something you've never done before, that's okay. If this is something you've done a hundred times, that's okay. We're going to take just a moment and ask the Lord to come and show us.

This next part is about receiving God's forgiveness, receiving his grace, and receiving his mercy. Maybe today is the first time anyone's ever asked you to confess your sins. I acknowledge this kind of feels like a weird thing. But the best part is that on the other side of that is this loving God that draws you close.

I'm going to ask that everyone in the room close your eyes for the privacy of the people around you. And if today you would like to receive the forgiveness of God and come into relationship with Jesus for the first time, with everyone's eyes closed, as an act of faith and confessing that you need Jesus, I want to invite you to just raise your hand right where you are. And as a community in fellowship with one another, we're going to pray this prayer of confession together. Please repeat after me.

Lord Jesus, I confess my sins and ask for your forgiveness. Please come into my heart as my Lord and Savior. Thank you, Lord, for saving me, for forgiving me, and for changing me. Amen.

Jesus, we thank you right now that your forgiveness is readily accessible to us, that your grace is abounding and never-ending, and it overflows. Thank you that you are light. We get to be in a lasting relationship with someone that not only sees us fully, but loves us fully, so far beyond what we could ever imagine possible. Jesus, thank you because you are always going to be greater than our sin. When our hearts condemn us, Jesus, you're greater. You're greater than our hearts. You're greater than our sin. You're greater than the things that we have to bring before you. Lord, we receive your forgiveness here today. Any shame or condemnation that might threaten to creep in and make us feel far from you or unworthy of you, Lord, I just pray for your grace to fill that space and cast out that shame. Jesus, we thank you. And it's in your holy name I pray.

Amen.