Introduction

In our previous sermon we started to see what true Christianity is because John was faced with false teachers bringing counterfeit versions into the church and he’s writing to counter that here. From the opening paragraph he goes right in and shows that true Christianity is all about Jesus and it’s fact, not fiction. It’s truth that’s preached, not a private choice. It’s shared, not selfish. And it’s result is rejoicing, not religion.

Remember John is about 90 years old here, writing to second and third generation Christians who have become so complacent in their Christianity they are leaving the door open to all kinds of false teachings. They’re in danger of not growing as disciples because the version of Christianity they’re following is not the real thing.

John cares about the people in the church. He is not a hireling, he has the heart of a faithful shepherd so he watches what the sheep are being fed. Don’t swallow everything! He wants his people to know the truth about God and the gospel, to protect them from the intrusion of false believers, and the instruction of deceivers, false teachers—he calls them antichrist.

So we will see as we go through the letter he teaches the truth, then he gives tests. Teach—Truth—Test. Over and over. He teaches them the truth, sound doctrine. Then he provides tests by which we can distinguish truth from lies and true believers and true teachers from the false.

He started the letter by telling the eyewitness truth about who Jesus Christ is. Fully God, who became fully human to save us. That’s always the starting point to determine a true Christian, even a true church. What we believe and teach about Jesus Christ is the way to test and protect a church from lies and deceptions, from the influence of antichrist teaching and to discern that.

Now John is going to talk about a word that when you hear it you will see is not a popular message, certainly in our time. I might think before long to speak of it will be banned. But he says it’s not just his own idea or message and it’s integral to whether you are being taught the truth not just about Jesus but from him.

And as I read, please notice, this is the message, according to Jesus Christ, the church has to preach. This is the message, according to Jesus Christ, that John is simply passing on here.

This is the message that applies to all people. Everyone, everywhere has to hear and know and their response if they believe and act means everything changes. Because this is the only way if they are ever going to know God and connect with him. This is the gospel.

The gospel according to Jesus—about God, about sin and forgiveness, and what we have to do to live a new life.

(Read 1 John 1:5-10)

Good News and Bad News

We’re not ready for the good news unless we know the bad news, so we have both here. We have to have the diagnosis before we will submit to accept the cure.

Imagine someone with a mask on approaches you with a sharp blade saying, “This will hurt, I want to slice a bit of your skin off your nose.” You’d think, No way! That’s crazy! But if you know the problem, why she’s doing it, what she wants to save you from, you say, “Yes, thank you Doctor.”

What’s the problem? The repeated word? A worse problem even than the dreaded cancer.

Four times John says it: Sin. And when he says darkness, he’s talking about sin too.

We mustn’t become so accustomed to the darkness in the world that our eyes adjust and it looks normal to us. Because when John wants to tell us what kind of God, God really is, John loves contrasts. He wants us to see sin as God sees it, as we stumble about in deep darkness and God is the purest blinding brilliant light.

Sin is not a popular subject in our day. Sin is deadly, everyone sins, it’s our biggest problem, and it’s the root of all the other problems. But nobody wants to talk about it. People will go to great lengths to hide it, excuse it, rationalise, or deny it. Because they have no idea how else to deal with it. Though none of those strategies do.

How much further have we gone since the 1980s, when psychologist Karl Menninger wrote about the root of so many problems he saw in those he was trying to help in his book, Whatever Became of Sin?

It was a word once in everyone’s mind, but now rarely if ever heard. Does that mean that no sin is involved in all our troubles – sin with an “I” in the middle? Is no one any longer guilty of anything? Guilty perhaps of a sin that could be repented and repaired or atoned for? Wrong things are being done, we know - but is no one responsible … Is no one answerable? Anxiety and depression we all acknowledge, and even vague guilt feelings; but has no one committed any sins?

John says I have to tell you what Jesus told me, what he showed me about who God is, and there’s no half measures there. No shades of grey. No yin and yang and a little bit of darkness mixed in with God, no sense that God is not holy, perfect, or pure.

He says Jesus showed and told me this, so now I’ve got to tell you – if you want to know God …

‘God is Light; in him there is no darkness at all!’

Or to read that phrase literally, “darkness in him not is none.”

The Bible here uses a double negative for emphasis, bad grammar for us, but excellent theology for everyone! You can’t have any darkness at all and God in the same place.

Remember he is saying this to counter lies coming into the church at the time. False teachers trying to fit in the cultural understandings of the world around them, as Christianity spread across the Greek world encountering the mindset or Plato and Aristotle, their ideas of god shaped by the pantheon of gods like Zeus and Apollos who sometimes could do or be good or bad.

But John says God is light. He is not A light, but in his very essence, in his nature and his character and his actions. God is totally good and holy. There’s no “dark side” to God. He is consistently, completely eternally, perfectly, purely, light. First Timothy 6:15 says he is, “God, the blessed and only Ruler, the King of kings and Lord of lords, who alone is immortal and who lives in unapproachable light.”

Fellowship with God

Jesus said that’s the real God. So how can we know him? John wants to tell us how we can have fellowship with him, in whom there is no darkness at all. But we can’t just rock up with our darkness and say “God’s not got a problem with it, I just live how I want and God loves me anyway.” It’s bad news then good news remember in verses six and seven.

You know what light does, don’t you? It deals with the darkness by overcoming it. God doesn’t want us to be in any darkness. He wants his light to transform everything.

I come here into the Ivy church building when it’s in darkness. Everything looks fine, but then I put the lights on. I look at the carpet tiles we always seem to be paying to clean and there’s another great big coffee stain. The light doesn’t make it happen, it reveals what has happened. We cover it up by putting a chair over it, it’s still there.

True fellowship with God hinges on whether or not we will admit our sin. We have to own up, not cover up. God hates sin, but God loves us – so he has made a way, one way, to forgive sin but it must be admitted before it can forgiven. Bring it into the light.

The world will say sin does not exist or matter. God’s Word says, “All have sinned, and the wages of sin is death.”

The world says everyone does it, or it’s just a mistake, or it’s the way you were born, a family trait, the environment or your upbringing, your parent’s fault. So you can’t change, and it’s not so bad, just get over it and get on with life. You be you.

As long as sin can be treated as if it’s a mistake, or not even a problem, or that we’ll evolve or be educated out of it, there’s no need for God. No need to turn to God, no need for Jesus, no need for salvation, no need for the Bible, and no need for anyone to admit that he or she is a sinner. So there’s no hope because a sinner I remain. I didn’t come out of the dark, I just learned to feel my way round in it a little better and not bump into so many things.

Jesus said God is light. In him there is no darkness at all. When I stand before this God whose holiness eclipses ten billion suns, none of my self-righteousness holds a candle to him. These excuses and man-made ideas can’t deal with the darkness of sin, which causes so many of my other problems. Because they are symptoms, but sin is the disease and it’s fatal. The soul that sins will die.

So, where is the hope? The good news? Is there a way out of darkness? There is a Way. There’s only one way, but it works. It’s totally inclusive because it works for everyone.

There’s only one plan that works to remove the guilt of sin and John lays it out here. What Jesus told him, remember John said this is the message he heard from Jesus Christ, and he’s passing it on to us. God’s way to come out of the dark, to be rid of sin and guilt and shame.

Own up, turn away from it, receive complete forgiveness for it, and live like you have been loved that way.

Confess Our Sins

John isn’t contrasting a Christian with a non-believer here. He’s writing to and about people in the church, and teachers in the church, and he draws a clear line between true believers and those who are not.

False believers deny sin. They deny that God is light and cannot tolerate darkness. So they want to present a God who is okay with people staying in darkness and as a result for all their clever words they hold onto their sin and their sin is not forgiven, it will be judged. As Jesus said in the last day many will come to him and say they called him Lord but he’ll say “I never knew you, away from me you who practice lawlessness.”

You say, “Well that doesn’t sound very tolerant.” Just because you or I tolerate our sins or the sins of others does not mean God does or will. God doesn’t tolerate sin, he hates it. Your sins and mine killed his Son. God doesn’t tolerate sin, but he will forgive us, if we confess, repent, and renounce our sins. So true believers are those who confess their sin and are saved.

If we say we haven’t sinned, we are only fooling ourselves. If we say it’s not sin when God says it is, we won’t fool him, and that unconfessed sin must be judged when we stand before his holy throne. The Bible says whoever conceals his sin will never prosper, but whoever confesses and renounces their sins finds mercy. Don’t conceal it – reveal it. Don’t cover it, confess it.

If anyone today will simply admit your sin, step out of the darkness, come into the light, walk in the light, change direction, turn 180 degrees around and walk away from sin as you follow the Saviour, we step out of the dark. Whatever we have done.

People wonder what kind of sin God will forgive. Because we think of big sins and little sins

and usually ours are the little ones and what others do are the biggies. What kind of sins does God forgive, according to John, that he heard from Jesus? The answer here is clear. He will forgive confessed sin.

He will forgive any sinner, any sin, if it is humbly confessed and renounced. Psalm 32 says, “Blessed is the one whose transgressions are forgiven, whose sins are covered. Blessed is the one whose sin the Lord does not count against them!”

Because of the Cross, where the price was paid, God will never take our sins into account. Scripture says he has buried them in the depths of the deepest sea. He’s removed them as far as the east is from the west, that’s a picture of infinity it’s never coming back to haunt you. When sin is confessed in Jesus’ name it’s gone and he remembers them no more.

Four times in this section it says, “If we say.” People were saying they were Christians. Singing the hymns. Talking the talk. God says we have to walk the walk. In the light.

But if we’re excusing it, denying it, proud of it, repeatedly stuck in it, we’re in the dark.

Jesus said whoever follows him will not remain in darkness because you will have the light of life. Walking out of darkness into the light starts with a step of faith.

Conclusion

Maybe you need to take that first step today. When we confess our sins and trust Christ as our Saviour and follow him as Lord, it says he cleanses us from all our sins. The word is katharizo, it means he makes us pure. A clean conscience through a clear confession. Then we follow Jesus, walking away from every dark thing, out of the dominion of darkness, in the light.

True believers walk in the light. How do we walk in the light? John’s going to show us more. If you want to walk in the light, God’s Word is a light to our path and a lamp for our feet. So we walk according to the light of his Word. We do what he says. Believe and obey the Word of God. Not what our sinful desires or the world say is good, what he says is best.

Anthony Delaney is a Leader at Ivy Church in Manchester. He is also the leader for New Thing and the LAUNCH conference. He is an author and hosts the television show “Transforming Life.”