Continue on with our study of 1 John. 1 John. We're still in chapter 1. Lord willing, though, we'll finish up that chapter today. As you're turning there, let me tell you a little story called the single thread. J. Stuart Holden was being shown through a large factory. Hundreds of looms were spinning very fine linen threads. The manager of the mill said to Mr. Holden, so delicate is this machinery that if a single thread of the entire 30,000 threads, which is at this moment being woven, if any one of those should break, all of these looms would instantly stop. He stepped to one of the machines and broke a single thread. Suddenly, every loom would fill and remain so until the thread was linked, whereupon the machinery was again in motion. The mechanical wonder, this mechanical wonder, exhibited in the factory that day clearly illustrates something for us that is spiritual. It is through one act of disobedience, one departure from the will and fear of God, that the blessings of our fellowship with Him are stopped. not until that thread is rejoined will the joy of the Lord flow again in our lives. It was interesting because that is true. Sin separates us from God. Sin in our lives cuts off the blessings of God from our lives. And it's amazing to me how some of these factories work and everything and the intricacy of something like that is very interesting to me. coming from a mechanical type background. It still amazes me how people created these things to run so efficiently and all. But it is a good illustration, I believe, of our relationship with God. And if you remember in 1 John, we said the main verb in the first four verses was what? Do you remember? To declare. Remember? And John said he's declaring a message. He's speaking out. He's writing. He's going about all the world that he can get to and declaring some message for a simple purpose. What is the purpose? Remember? So that they, his readers, and likewise us, who would read it later, could have fellowship with God the Father, fellowship with God the Son, and fellowship with other believers that was his threefold purpose we said now I think that story that I try to read illustrates our fellowship with God very clearly as as all the threads are going back and forth and there's no breakage in there the fellowship keep going and going and going but as soon as we said it creates a break in the fellowship and everything hop comes up So, essentially, you already know how to have fellowship with God, I believe. But I believe John, now, he's starting to expand upon this theme here, of how to have fellowship with God. Why he's declaring this message, and what his basic purpose was, again, to have fellowship with God, with the Son, and with other believers. Now he's going to tell you how to have this fellowship with other believers. The big idea here in these next few verses, verses 5 through 10, is that we have fellowship, living fellowship, with God and his children. So the question is, if we can have it, how do we have it? And that's what I want to try to show you today as we look at that. But first, let's read those verses, 5 through 10. This then is the message which we have heard of him, and declare unto you, that God is And in him is no darkness at all. If we say that we have fellowship with him and walk in darkness, we lie and do not the truth. But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another. And the blood of Jesus Christ, his Son, cleanses us from all sin. If we say we have no son, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us. Let's pray. Father in heaven, as we delve into these verses now, we pray, Lord, that you'd open our eyes, help us understand the message that John had for us today. We pray, Lord, that you would indeed help us to have fellowship with you in the fullest sense of that word. In Jesus' name, amen. So again, how do we have fellowship? What are the conditions for fellowship? That's what John is laying out here for us, I believe, in these five verses that I just read to you. I believe the first condition for fellowship is that fellowship depends on our realizing exactly who God is, who Jesus is. We need to realize who God and Jesus are. So this is where fellowship begins. Look how John describes God. You see there? God is what? Light. So we need to realize about God that He is light. The word light is used figuratively to refer to God as the author and the dispenser of moral and spiritual light and knowledge, which then would enlighten the minds and the souls and the conscience of human beings around the world. It includes the idea of moral goodness, purity, and holiness. That's what John is saying about God. He's morally pure. He's holy. He's perfect. He is the one that illuminates, shines upon this earth. He's the one who sets the standards of right and wrong. That's God. And when he shines in our heart, he reveals where we fall short of his moral goodness, his perfection. Light can also refer to, you think just naturally, like sunshine, light, like that. It is something that is considered to give life and to supplement and to bring happiness and you think of people up there in Alaska when they don't have light sometimes people get a little unhappy don't they and the light and the vitamins and things that come from it are essential to help moral not moral just good health in general bring life to plants and so forth and help people to have this feeling of happiness So that may help you understand what I was involved with John calling God and referring to God and saying that he is light. So we see then that God is the light of the world and he shines upon this earth again and he reveals sin and wickedness in this earth. God is often portrayed as light throughout the Bible. You go back to the Old Testament You can go back to, I wrote you some verses there, I believe, Exodus, Numbers, Psalms, for example. You can look in the minor prophets and various other places. God is referred to as light or as fire, which gives light, doesn't it? And so that's the way God is often portrayed. Now, I want you to remember the context here, though. Remember, as I introduced the book of 1 John to you, I told you that John was battling an incipient form of what? Gnosticism. Now the Gnostics, those are the ones who believe in Gnosticism, okay, so they had a certain title or metaphor for Jesus, not for Jesus, but for God. And they would go around saying, God is light. They referred to God as light. It then appears that John is building some common ground with the Gnostics He's saying, you say, God is light. I agree with you. He is light. But, you know, a lot of times when you start battling error, it's good to have a little ground there, isn't it? If you can find a few things that you can kind of agree on, and then go from there and say, you were right on this part, but this part you're wrong about. And that, I believe, is kind of what John is doing here. So they used to refer to God as light. But he's going to get ready to battle against their error about Jesus Christ, about their error with this whole belief in dualism, which we talked about, and their whole belief about sinful behavior. And remember how some of them even denied the existence of sin totally. And you see, even right here, he's starting to attack that part saying that you cannot say you have not sinned or you will make God a liar and if you have sinned you need to confess it he goes on to say right here so we see who God is God is light and in him is no darkness at all it says so then you have to ask the question is who's in him it appears that the in him refers to the son Jesus Christ because remember the context again has been talking in verses one through four all about Jesus Christ the one that was from the beginning remember the one that he's heard the one that he's handled the one that that they've seen and touched and everything they've been talking about so far and it was his message that we're declaring to you and it says and in him that is Jesus Christ is no darkness at all God is light, and in Jesus Christ is no darkness at all. You see, he's actually equating, as we've already talked about, God and Jesus Christ. This is a strong passage, I believe, for the deity of Jesus Christ, just as the very first spoke about the deity of Jesus Christ. Remember, the Gnostics and their false view of who Jesus Christ is. They believed he was a deity, yes, but they denied his humanity. And John has already started that, attacking that false doctrine in the opening verses. He's going to go into that more later on. But see, he's saying here then, if we're going to have fellowship with God, and with his Son, and with the believers, it all begins with realizing who God is. God is light. But we also need to realize who Jesus Christ is. He also is completely separate from sin, just like the Father. In him is no darkness, literally none at all. There's actually two negatives there, no and none. Now in the Greek, when you put two negatives together, It's not like in English or in math. You put two negatives together and they cancel each other out. Don't they in math? Negative five times negative four equals 20. Positive. In math, right? Not in English. But when you put it in English, I ain't got no learning. That's what I usually say to chem all the time. That would sound like you do have learning, right? Because they would cancel each other out. But not in the Greek. If you want to really emphasize something, you put another one there. So we're saying he has no darkness, Jesus Christ. None, absolutely none at all. It's a very strong emphasis upon the purity and how Jesus Christ is separated from sin. So darkness would refer to everything opposite of light, basically, right? So if you got your little definition of light, then put just the opposite of that, and that would be basically the the meaning of darkness. Darkness refers to ruin, to unhappiness, to sin, to unholiness, all the opposite of what light did. So again, he's saying here, if you were to put Jesus Christ, if this were possible, if you could put him under the most powerful magnifier, microscope that you could find, and you could zoom it in as strong as it could zoom, and you analyze him from head to toe, not one speck, not one little germ even of impurity would you find in him. That is how pure Jesus Christ is. 100% clean, pure, righteous, sinless. That's who Jesus Christ is. And that's what John is saying. So if we're going to have fellowship with God, We've got to realize who he is. He is totally separate from sin. If we're going to have fellowship with Jesus Christ, the Son, we need to realize who he is. Realize that he too, like God the Father, is separated totally, completely from sin. That's who Jesus is. That's interesting because John refers to Jesus as light elsewhere. If you turn back to the Gospel of John, for example, and I wrote urges there. And again, I think this further substantiates the idea that John is equating God with Jesus Christ. John 1.5, for example, "...and the light shineth in darkness, and the darkness comprehended it not." Verse 9, "...that was the true light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world." As you read in the context, you see is still referring to the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God, again. And then you go on down, look over in chapter 3, verses 19 through 21. And this is the condemnation. Let's see, did I skip? No, this is good. 3, 19 through 21. This is the condemnation. That light is coming to the world, and men love darkness rather than light. because their deeds were evil. For every one that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved. But he that doeth the truth cometh to the light, that his deeds may be made manifest, that they are wrought in God." So you see that again he's referring to Jesus as the light. Jesus referred to himself as light. John 8 verse 12 for example. And I think, again, these are very strong. By Jesus calling himself Light, and John saying, God is Light, it's a very strong verse to back up the deity of Jesus Christ. Chapter 8, verse 12. Then spake Jesus again unto them, saying, I am the light of the world. He that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life. Chapter 9, verse 5. Go over to another page for you or so. As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world. Chapter 12, verse 35. I've given you a lot of verses today. Hopefully you're finding them OK. Chapter 12, verse 35, it says, Then Jesus said unto them, Yet a little while is the light with you. walk, while ye have the light, lest darkness come upon you. For he that walketh in darkness knoweth not whither he goeth." And then, verse 46, in the same chapter, "...I am come, a light, into the world, that whosoever believeth on me should not abide in darkness." You see, John says, God is light. But he is saying, equal with that is Jesus Christ. He, too, is light, because in him is no darkness literally none at all that is who Jesus Christ is so if we're going to have fellowship we must know who both God and Jesus are but the other condition of fellowship is we need it all depends on our walk as well so we it depends on knowing who God and Christ are and it depends on our walk itself verses six and seven if we say that we have fellowship with him and walk in darkness we lie and do not the truth but if we walk in the light as he is in the light we have fellowship one with another and the blood of Jesus Christ the son or his son cleanses us from all sin so you see our walk how we behave affects our fellowship it says that we are to walk separated from sin so God is completely separated from sin Jesus Christ is completely separated from the Son. Therefore, if we want to have fellowship with Him, how do we need to walk? Completely separated from sin. You can't walk and have fellowship with God and have sin in your life. That's what John is saying. Walk has the idea of a habitual, consistent response that characterizes how you live your life or pass your time on this earth the Christian life is said to be like a journey a process and therefore it is often described as a walk in the Bible do you see that so it's a long drawn-out thing what you get saved then it's a long journey for the rest of your life here on this earth you're walking supposedly with the Lord so how are we to walk according to this passage and light not in darkness Our walk is based upon our understanding of who God is and who Jesus Christ is as well. I believe that as our theology comes along and we really view God as holy, it will affect our behavior. But if we don't have a big God and our God is not all holy and everything, then it affects how we behave before him. if we don't see God as one who punishes wickedness then maybe we will be a little more tempted to be wicked and to let little sins go and things like that so our view of God I believe affects how we walk on this earth and this passage says we are to walk in light not in darkness this walk begins when at salvation That's when you become saved. It's interesting because the word for fellowship and the word for partaker have the same root behind them. If you remember back in 2 Peter, it talked about us becoming a partaker of the nature of God. That's how you have fellowship. It all begins with understanding who God is, who Jesus Christ is, and then entering in to this fellowship, this partaker of the divine nature, like Peter talked about. So we're talking about salvation here. Having our sins cleansed by the blood of Jesus Christ. That's what it tells you in verse 7. The blood of Jesus Christ, his Son, cleanses us from all sin. Mark talked about the Passover and everything this morning at Sunday School and how it pictures Hajj. And because of that, God would pass over. Remember? And it's a beautiful picture, the whole Passover. Suffer and everything of Christ, what he did, his sacrifice, and how we need to apply that blood if we're going to have the judgment of God pass over us. It's a beautiful picture. So this walk begins at salvation, but this walk continues after salvation. God saved us for a reason, didn't he? I mean, if all he cared about was getting a soul saved, then there's no reason to really leave us here on this earth anymore after that. But God wants us to be a light, and a salt, and salt for the rest of the world, right? We're supposed to have a light, and it's supposed to be upon a hill, and it's supposed to shine, not put it under a basket. Remember all these stories in the Bible? That's what we're supposed to be. We could have sang today, this little lie of mine, I'm going to let it shine. I don't think anyone would like that one too much. But anyway, it's not the most spiritual song in the world. But there's truth there, right? We ought to be that way and let our light shine before the world and bring people, hopefully, to God. The walk itself does not indicate that we will be sunlit Remember the definition for walk had to do with a habitual, consistent response that characterizes our life. There are allowances for sin in the life of a Christian. What is it? Right here in this passage. Confess your sins. This passage is written to who? Who was 1 John written to? And he's talking here to Christians about the need to confess their sins. So don't assume here that he's referring to sinlessness after the point of salvation. No, he's talking about when you do sin, that's understandable. I mean, it happens, unfortunately, and there are remedies for that, and that is confession again. We'll talk about that a little bit. But what is sin? Basically, sin is a refusal to submit to God's laws, God's rules, God's standards. Whatever God said, we're supposed to do it. And when we don't, that's sin on our part. Why do we sin? We still have the old nature to contend with. 2 Corinthians 5.17 tells us that If any man be in Christ, he is a new creation, right? We've been given a new nature, and we've talked about that in the past. But there's still the old nature, and you read in Romans, for example, and how there's a war in our members. There's still the struggle that goes on in our life, even after salvation. And sometimes we give in to the old nature, give in to the lust of the flesh, and we sin. in Galatians 5, 16 through 26, I think I wrote down for you, is why we still sin. And how do we sin? Various ways. Two main ways, you could say, are outwardly and inwardly. Outwardly we disobey God through sins of omission and sins of commission. You understand the difference? To omit means not to do something. that you were supposed to do. If God told you to do this and you don't, you sin. Or sons of commission, if God told you not to do something, hopefully I'm saying this right, and then you go ahead and do it, then you've committed a sin. So that's the two main categories of sin, omission or commission. And you can do this inwardly or outwardly. So we can have inward rebellion inward desires and things, and John talks about that in chapter 2 verse 16, and how the lust of the flesh, the pride of life, all these tend to manifest initially inwardly, don't they? And then if you let them go, they tend to manifest outwardly eventually. So this is how we sin. So first condition of fellowship, knowing who God and Jesus Christ are. Second condition, for fellowship depends upon our walk. How are we walking? Hopefully we are walking separated from sin. The third condition for fellowship depends on our being honest about sin. See what he says there in verse 8? For example, if we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. So we need to be honest about sin. We need to tell the truth about sin. We need to admit that sin really does exist. Remember who he's writing to here, the Gnostics, and how their teaching was that there's a separation, this dualism that we talked about. There's a separation between the physical and the spiritual. And everything spiritual is perfect and holy, and everything physical, no matter what it is, is just evil. and therefore they said Christ couldn't be both God and man so they rejected his humanity said he must only be spiritual because they believe him to be holy so because of that then they apply this dualism to their own life and they say okay we have a spirit we are also physical and because there's this separation between the physical and the spiritual the things we do physically don't affect us spiritually so therefore they even gave in to all sorts of immorality in their life because it didn't matter and then some even went to the point to say if it doesn't matter there is no such thing as real sin and that kind of makes sense right if it doesn't matter there's what is it what you do you just do whatever you want to so that's what they did So if we're going to be honest about sin, we have to, we should not deny that it really exists. John very clearly says there is such a thing as sin. Right? If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. So we need to admit that it really exists. We should not deny our own sinfulness. If we do, we are deceiving ourselves. You can go back to many other verses that talk about how we've all sinned. There is none righteous, no not one. None doeth right. We've all sinned. So if we're going to have fellowship with God, it begins by being honest about sin. Don't deny that it exists. don't deny our own sinfulness and don't call God a liar by lying about sin if God said you are a sinner and you say no I am not what did you just call God he called him a liar didn't you and that's what John said don't make him a liar verse 10 if we say that we have not sinned we make him a liar and his word is not in us. So tell the truth about sin. Don't deny it. Don't deny your own sinfulness. And don't call God a liar. And then, if you're at that point, hopefully you'll be ready to deal properly with sin. John tells us in verse 9 to do what? What's that sin? Confess it, right? That's what he says. The word confess comes from two words squished together, compound word, homo, meaning one and the same, alike, or together, and logeo, which has the idea of say. So you squish those together and it means to say the same thing, to agree about something. That's what it means to confess. Whenever you are confessing sin, you're saying the same thing about God about this action, or thought, or whatever the case is, that God says about it. If God says to think an immoral thought is sin, and you think this immoral thought, and then you say the same thing about it, you're going to tell God, yes, I sinned just now, by doing this certain thing, or thinking this certain thing. That's what it means to confess your sins. This was used most of the time, this word confession, was used to say something out loud and publicly. Now, we don't believe that necessarily every sin needs to be confessed publicly, but sometimes that may be necessary, right? Anyway, I could tell you a humorous story of where that happened. It was quite embarrassing for a certain individual that did it. But there may be at times when you need to do that. but we need to confess and it won't hurt you to confess out loud to God and let him hear you but at least confess silently if no other way. So we need to say the same thing or be in agreement with God and this saying the same thing was an idea of agreement was a requirement for fellowship all the way back in the Old Testament This is one reason, again, why we're doing this survey of the Old Testament, because the New Testament really expands and deepens a lot of the ideas and teachings that we see all in the Old Testament. Amos 3.3 says, Can two walk together except they be agreed? Can you and God walk together, have fellowship, unless you are agreed with them? That's the idea of confession, remember? Romans 10, 9 and 10, that if we confess, with our mouth, the Lord Jesus Christ, and shalt believe in thine heart, that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation." So, by confessing, here again, with our mouth, we are agreeing with God, what He says about us, and sin, and how we need to be saved. God already knows about our sin, doesn't He? Sometimes we try to hide things. You think back to Adam and Eve and how when they sinned they went and kind of hid, remember? And God walking in the garden says, Adam, where art thou? Remember? And we think, how foolish of Adam. He couldn't hide from God. But we do it too. We have sin in our life and we want to go off in the corner. At least I do, don't you? You don't want to come to your Bible when you've got sin in your life. And you don't usually want to go to church and hang around a lot of Christians and things if you have all this guilt because of sin in your life. And so we try to hide, but God already knows about it. We might as well go ahead and tell Him about it and agree with Him what He says about it. and confess that sin to him. I could read you some other verses all about confessing and saying the same thing with God about sin. So what do we do then? If we're going to deal properly with it, we've got to confess it, and we need to ask for forgiveness of that sin in our life. So we need to try to keep this slate clean. The Bible talks about when we get saved, all of our sins are washed away right and all of our sin is removed as far as the east is from the west and and all of that now we sin again after we're saved agree with god about it yes lord you're right this was sinning on my part ask him to forgive you so that slate can be kept white and clean in your life a lot of blemishes right you don't want to show up before god do you and there's black marks all over the board and your whole life just looks terrible, filthy. So when you are aware of sin in your life, deal with it properly and ask for forgiveness from it. The promise here is what? If, this is a conditional promise, if we confess our sins, then what? He might forgive us. Does it say that? He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If there's sin in our life, if we will do our part, confess it, when he will do his part and forgive us of our sin even though he will forgive us if we're we get mad we get angry about something and we yell at our kids or we yell at our spouse you know what we need to confess that sin and we need to ask him to forgive us and if we have sin against another person we should go to that person and ask them to forgive us as well. Matthew 5, I've got that written down here, but I won't take the time to read it. 23 and 24 in particular, all talk about how we should go to a person if we realize there's something between us, we should go to that person and seek their forgiveness. And once you do that, and you have this forgiveness, God promises that if you confess it, He will forgive you. And hopefully, the human being that we've sinned against, hopefully they will forgive us as well. God will forgive, but does God necessarily remove the consequences of the sin? When you yell at that kid, you yell at your mate, you commit some act of immorality, there are certain consequences that happen. God can forgive you, but the consequences are likely to be ongoing for a long, long time. And once you break trust with your mate, it is hard to recoup that trust, isn't it? And once you've hurt your child in a horrible manner, it's hard to regain that trust and help them to love you like they ought to. It's going to take a long time, sometimes years. So God will forgive you, but he doesn't always remove the consequences of our sin. That's important to know. He doesn't wipe that part away all the time. Sometimes he might. So you want fellowship with God? You want fellowship with Jesus Christ? You want fellowship with other believers? You see the three points here. You see the three conditions for fellowship. Realizing who God and Christ are. My mind just went blank on me. Sorry. Our walk needs to be right before Him. And then thirdly, we need to be honest about sin in our life. Walk, and when our walk falls and we stumble, deal with that sin according to the Bible. We do those things, we can have fellowship with Him. And that's what John is talking about in the remainder, this remaining part of chapter 1. Do you have fellowship with God? Do you have fellowship with Christ? How is your walk? I'm not asking you, are you sinless? None of us are. But is your life characterized by walking and obedience to the Lord? If it's not, It's possible you're not even saved, but for sure you're not having the fellowship with God and the joy that God wants to give you. If God's brought some sin to your mind right now, why don't you deal with it in a biblical manner, confess it, say with it the same thing that he says about it, and if necessary, go to the person, if some person has been brought to your mind that you've sinned against. Let's pray. Father in heaven, we pray, Lord, that you be with us now.