Carolyn, would you take God's Word this morning, please, open to the book of 1 John, first epistle of John, and we're gonna look at verses five down to verse number 10 this morning. Would you stand for the reading of God's Word as we read these verses together? 1 John chapter one, verse number five. This then is the message which we heard of him and declare unto you that God is light 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 sin, 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 we have not sinned, we make him a liar and his word is not in us. Thank you so much, you may be seated. Pray with me this morning. Father, thank you for your faithfulness. Indeed, Lord, you are faithful. Lord, thank you for your word that you give us, and Lord, I ask that you'd help us now as we worship you through hearing your word and submitting to the truth of it. Lord, help me to make your word clear, and Lord, may every person here be attentive to the scripture and apply it to our lives, and we pray in Jesus' name, amen. We've been going through 1 John here on Sunday morning. This is such an important epistle in the Bible because it deals with the issue of assurance, having a true biblical assurance of your salvation. And this morning I wanna consider the subject with you, how to have real fellowship with God. According to a Gallup poll, 74% of Americans claim to have made a commitment to Jesus Christ. 74%, that's a high percent of American culture. If so many people claim to be walking in the light, why does darkness prevail in our world? David Wells, in his booklet, The Bleeding of the Evangelical Church, he pointed out that when pollsters added clarifying questions to a survey like this, the number reduces even more. Questions about church attendance, regular church attendance, prayer, foundational beliefs about the Christian life. When you add questions like that, the percentage shrinks. It drops down to 8%. And he speculates that if you added more theological questions to a survey like this, the percentage would go down to even 2%. The sad reality is that there are many people who claim to be born again, or to use the term that John uses here in this letter, to walk in the light, which is synonymous with salvation. A Christian is someone who walks in the light. Or, have fellowship with him is another expression that is used to talk about true salvation. There are many people that claim to walk in the light and to have fellowship with him, but in reality, when you look at their life, they are walking in darkness, and they're really just deceiving themselves. Again, look at verse number five of 1 John. This is the message. We have heard of him and declare unto you that God is light and in him is no darkness at all. Verse six, if we say that we have fellowship with him and walk in darkness, we lie and do not the truth. Now what you'll see in this passage is three times this expression, if we say. If we say. We saw it in verse six. For example, look also in verse eight. If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves. And then in verse number 10, again, if we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us. In other words, there are many people making false claims. They might say one thing, but their life reveals the opposite. And John says there are some that are deceiving themselves. He says the truth is not in them, which is equal to saying they're not truly saved. A Christian, again, is someone who has the truth in them. They walk in the light, but John says people who make false claims, the truth is not in them. So what is a true believer? A true believer is someone who has the truth in them, who has fellowship with God, who walks in the light. Now, John is not writing this letter to be critical of people that make this claim. He's also not writing to cause people to doubt. In fact, it's the exact opposite. He wants people to have a true, genuine, biblical understanding of their salvation. He doesn't want anyone to be deceived about where they stand before the Lord. And that would be my heart's desire and prayer as a pastor. I want everyone here to have an absolute, true, biblical assurance of your salvation and not be self-deceived about your standing before God. Jesus said, if your light be darkness, how great is that darkness? If what you think you have is the true thing and you think you have the light and actually what you have is darkness, then Jesus said, how great is that darkness? In other words, the people that are hardest to bring to true salvation are those who think they already have it. And so it's a very dangerous place to be. John's purpose in writing this letter is for you to have certainty. He wants you to know with absolute assurance. Again, look at 1 John 5, look at verse number 13. Really, this is the whole thesis and theme of the letter, 1 John 5, 13. These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God, that ye may, what, know that you have eternal life and that you might believe on the name of the Son of God. John wants you to be certain about your fellowship with God. 1 John is a certain word in an uncertain age. Now, John has already revealed to us, if you were with us last week, we looked at the first four verses where he reveals the certainty of the coming of the Son of God into this world. That is a certain fact that Jesus came into this world. God became a man. Now, the rest of this epistle then will deal with the issue, are you someone who knows him? Do you have true fellowship with him? Are you certain about your salvation? Again, because many make that claim, but it's an empty claim. So the question then is, what does it mean to have real fellowship with God or to be truly saved? So I want you to notice from this passage three marks of a person who has real fellowship with God according to this. Okay, here's number one. A person who has real fellowship with God recognizes the holiness of God. They recognize the holiness of God. And sometimes when I ask people about their salvation, they'll give me some expression like this, oh yeah, well, me and the man upstairs, we're okay. Ever hear that? Whenever I hear something like that, I cringe. Because John is gonna make it clear here that having fellowship with God is not a matter of being chummy with your good buddy upstairs. That is careless. True believers understand this one thing, that God is holy. He's a holy God. To have fellowship, genuine fellowship with a holy God, we have to walk in the light as he is in the light, John says in verse number five. Again, this then is the message which we heard of him and declare unto you that God is light and in him is no darkness at all. There are two things that John declares in this verse, first of all. First of all, the declaration, it begins with God. John begins with an authoritative declaration of God to us. He's not sharing with us his opinion, he's not sharing speculation about who he thinks God might be like, no. John is very straightforward. He makes this declaration. This then is the message which we heard from him. Who is the him there? That is Jesus himself. John says, what I'm about to tell you, I heard from him. I heard this from Jesus. And so it begins with God. That's the thing I want you to see here. When John begins, he doesn't begin with felt needs or therapeutic benefits, but with God's character. John brings us face to face with God, who God is. And here's the thing I want you to understand, that the gospel begins with God. It begins with the holiness of God. That's the thing that is missing in the modern church today because we have these influential leaders who have a man-centered theology, who basically people come to church and say, okay, what can God do for me? Can he meet all of my felt needs and everything that I want? I mean, that's what God is supposed to do. That's what the gospel is supposed to do. Just make me feel good about myself and be there to serve me. No, the gospel doesn't begin with you. The gospel begins with God. It begins with God and who God is. And John is very clear. Notice the revelation that God is light in verse number five. What does light mean? What does John mean when he says God is light? Well, light in scripture is used in several ways. It's a metaphor that's used to express several ideas. One of them is, this could be referring to God's physical light, For instance, when God revealed himself in the Old Testament, it was always with some kind of glory glow. We don't really fully understand that, but whenever he revealed himself, there was a glory, there was a glow, there was a light. It was God's manifestation of himself. John could be referring to that. Or also, light in the Bible refers to intellectual light. That is the idea of having knowledge and truth. Light and truth go hand in hand in scripture. We see several verses that talk about that. But also, practically speaking, did you know that light is essential for survival? Light is needed for life. Science tells us that you need light in order to live. Sunlight is actually healthy. You get your supply of vitamin D if you stand out in the parking lot there today. You might even get more of it since we have new asphalt in some places. And you'll get the glow of all that. But the whole idea, however, is light is essential. And we've heard of this disease called SAD, where people, if they don't get enough light, they kind of have basically depression in their life. I think it's called seasonally affective disorder or something like that, caused by a lack of exposure to the light. You don't get enough of that and it could have an impact on you. But I think that what John is referring to here, however, when he talks about God is light, I think it's referring morally to the holiness of God. This is a metaphor that speaks about God's holiness. God is light. And what John means by that is that God is holy. We serve a holy God. And it's indicated by the negative expression that follows, and in him is no darkness at all. Darkness meaning sin. There's no sin in God whatsoever. God is absolutely holy. Psalm 22 verse three, but thou art holy, O thou that inhabitest the praise of Israel. Isaiah six verse three, and one cried to another and said, holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts. Now, coming after verse number three, where John basically says, you know, about having fellowship, you would expect John to perhaps say something like this, you know, to have fellowship with God, you need to know that God is a God of love. But that's not where John starts. A lot of evangelism starts there. They try to appeal to people and say, well, God is love, and that's why you need to come to God. You need to embrace the gospel because God loves you and God is love. And certainly that is true. God is love, and thank God for that. But that's not where John starts. The gospel doesn't start with God is love. The gospel starts with God is light. God is holy. You see, it's the holiness of God that makes the gospel necessary. If God is only love, then the cross is not necessary. But since God is holy, that means we need the gospel. You say, why? What's the idea behind that? Well, how can a sinful man have fellowship with a holy God? You can't do that on your own. How can I, as a sinful man, enjoy fellowship with a holy God? Well, it can only happen because of what Jesus did on the cross for me. Since God is holy, his holy nature demands that all sin be punished. Not one half of one sin will ever go unpunished. You understand that? God's holiness demands that all sin be punished. So you mark it down, sin will be punished. But, And by the way, that's a principle that was taught in the Old Testament. For example, when the worshiper would bring their offering to the altar, they would bring that lamb or animal and that animal would be killed. And that was a demonstration, an object lesson that God is holy and he must punish sin. Someone has to die for sin. The sins of the person were confessed upon that animal. That animal was then put to death. And that meant that God's holiness was satisfied by the death, by a death, and really it pointed to a future sacrifice that would take place. God's holy wrath must be satisfied over sin. Look at 1 John 2, look down at verse number two, talking about Jesus, and he is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only, but also the sins of the whole world. Perpetuation is a word that means to satisfy the wrath of something. That is to say, God's holy wrath was satisfied when he looked upon his son Jesus, who took all of the sins of the world upon himself, and God's wrath fell upon Jesus. Jesus was the sinless son of God who bore the sins of the world. And when God's wrath fell upon him, his holiness was satisfied. It was because of the death of Christ that his wrath was satisfied. Let me illustrate this to you. This is an illustration from J.C. Massey, a Southern preacher. J.C. Massey told when he was a boy growing up in the South, he talked about how his mother And other Southern women would love their white sheets and bedspreads upon their bed. That was something that they rejoiced in, they gloried in, a nice white bed with white linen. And in fact, he said, growing up, you were not allowed to lay on the bed during the day because it would wrinkle the sheets or it would soil the sheets. So mothers would not allow their children to lay on the bed during the day. That's why they created the day bed. If you wanna lay on a bed, lay on the day bed, but you don't lay on the regular bed because it'll soil the sheets and it will wrinkle the sheets. And southern women gloried in their white beds. He said, one day I was a little boy, I was out playing in the mud, as little boys are wont to do, and he got muddy from head to toe. And he came back in the house, walked down the hallway, looked out the side and saw his mother's white bed in that bedroom. and the temptation was there. And he ran in and did a swan dive onto that bed, and he began to roll around on that white bed, and his mother saw that, and she was filled with rage. J.C. Massey said she went and she grabbed the thickest leather belt that she could find, and she began to come in, and she was getting ready to lay stripes on him, and suddenly, out of nowhere, his older brother threw himself across J.C. Massey on that bed and said, let him have it, Mom, let him have it. He said, my mother was so angry, she just began to give stripes to my brother. Meant for me, but she was raining down stripes on my brother. And J.C. Massey said that he bore the wrath of my mother. For me, for me, he took my punishment. You see, God loves pure white holiness. God loves holiness. Our muddy sins angered the holiness of God. We were sinners. We deserved the wrath of God. We deserved the stripes to come down upon us, but it was Jesus on the cross who took the stripes for us. And the Bible says, by his stripes we are healed. The wrath of God fell upon him. So on the cross, God's holiness was satisfied because of what Jesus did. Therefore, now I can have fellowship with God because of Jesus Christ. Now as a sinner, I can go into his presence. I can have fellowship because God's wrath was satisfied. By the way, God's love was also satisfied because Jesus' death on the cross is an expression of God's love. Salvation is a gift that has been paid for by Jesus Christ because of the love of the Father for us and the love of Christ. A person who has real fellowship with God recognizes that. They recognize the holiness of God. But here's number two. A person who has fellowship with God also realizes the darkness of sin. Look again in verse number six. If we say that we have fellowship with him and walk in darkness, we lie and do not the truth. To really understand what John is getting at here, we have to understand that he's writing against these false teachers. Now, if you've been with us in your study, remember I told you that what had invaded the church, the community of believers that John is writing to, was a false teaching called Gnosticism. And Gnosticism comes from the Greek word gnosis, which means knowledge. And Gnosticism taught that the way that you are saved is through knowledge, gaining knowledge. That's how you get saved. And so basically, and by the way, how do we know this? There's been some Gnostic writings that were discovered. Remember I told you at Nag Hammadi, they discovered some of the Gnostic beliefs, and this is where we learned this. For example, let me quote to you from one of these Gnostic writings where it's reported, and these are not true. These are false documents in the sense that they communicate lies, not the truth. And according to this document, Jesus supposedly said, let him who seeks knowledge continue seeking until he finds and will rule over all. And so the Gnostics say, Jesus didn't come as a savior from sin. He came to give us enlightenment. He came to give us knowledge. So knowledge was the key. And through that knowledge, there's a process of self-discovery. And this is what the Gnostics called light. They called it walking in light. That was the expression they used. Oh, we're walking in the light. But you know, another thing about the Gnostics, they believed that there was no such thing as sin. There was only discovery. And in order to walk in the light, you had to discover. In order to discover, you had to experience all kinds of things, including sinful things, which they said are not sins. We're not sinning. We're just trying to discover. We're trying to get knowledge. And so there were people that were plunging headlong into terrible sins under the name of getting light and being enlightened. Again, one of the early church fathers, Irenaeus, wrote about these early heresies. He said this, they, that is the Gnostics, hold that men cannot be saved till they have gone through all kinds of experience. An angel, they maintain, attends them in every one of their sinful and abominable actions and urges them to venture on audacity and to incur pollution. They maintain that this is perfect knowledge. So the Gnostics taught all types of sin and experiencing all types of sin. That was walking in light. That was getting knowledge. And John comes along and he says, oh no. Let me tell you what walking in the light is. Walking in the light is understanding that God is holy. and you do not live in darkness and claim to have fellowship with a God who is holy. A God who is a God of light. They were making this claim. Again in verse six, if we say that we have fellowship with him and walk in darkness, we lie and do not the truth. That's exactly what the Gnostics were claiming to do. They were claiming to have fellowship with God and they were walking in all kind of darkness. And John is saying no. By doing so, they were making God a liar. God's Word says this is a sin, and they were saying, oh no, that's not a sin. And so John says, anyone who makes these claims, they are not walking in the light, they're walking in darkness. Again, if we say, the we here in this verse, John is not talking about him and the other apostles. This is a we that includes anyone who makes this claim, anyone who makes a false claim. We could say it like this, verse six, anyone who says they have fellowship with God and walks in darkness, they lie. Verse eight, anyone who says we have no sin, they are deceived, and the truth is not in them. Verse 10, anyone who says if they have not sinned, we make them a liar, and his word is not in us. Anyone making these claims, they were counterfeit Christians, John is saying. Walking in darkness means to continually practice sin. Anyone who does that, you're not walking in the light. And by the way, walk here is a pattern of life. If this is your pattern of life, if your pattern of life is just walking, all kind of darkness, all kind of sin, then you're not truly a child of God. So, and John is gonna go back to this again and again. Remember I told you this epistle was very circular. He'll go back to the same truth again. We'll see it in chapter three where he says, those that are true children of God do not live in continual sin in their life. He makes that very clear again in chapter three. And so we need to apply this to our own life personally. Am I claiming to be a Christian? Am I claiming to have fellowship with God? And yet I'm living in darkness, I'm walking in darkness. The pattern of my life is not obeying God's word and walking in light, trying to pursue righteousness in my own life. If the pattern of my life is walking in darkness, then you're not truly a believer. You don't have fellowship with God. Because those who have fellowship with God, they understand, they recognize and realize the darkness of sin. A person who has fellowship with God recognizes the holiness of God. They realize the darkness of sin. But here's number three and the last one. A person who has real fellowship with God receives the forgiveness of confession. Look at verse number seven, but if we walk in the light, So, if walking in darkness is practicing an unbroken pattern of sin and ignoring sin, or explaining it away, saying you have no sin, then walking in the light is the opposite. It is recognizing our sin and dealing with it. It is being sensitive to sin in our life, and we confess it. And what I want you to see here is the pattern of the way John lays this out, is he is going to give us some contrasts. He's gonna contrast the way that a false believer thinks with the way that a true believer thinks. That's what he's doing here in these verses. So in verse seven, on down to actually chapter two, verse number one, he's gonna give a series of these contrasts. First, John will show the false, then he'll say, this is the true, all right? He'll show you what a false believer, how they reason and think, then he'll show you how a true believer reasons and thinks. You guys with me? Okay, so here's the first contrast. The contrast to the false claim made in verse 6 is found in verse 7. Look at verse 7, 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. How does a false believer reason? Well, they reason according to verse 6. They walk in darkness, and basically, they claim to have fellowship with God. In contrast, however, a true believer will walk in fellowship with God, and they will allow the blood of Christ to cleanse them from all their sins, verse number 7. You see, we are saved and brought into the light by the blood of Jesus Christ. It's the blood of Christ that saves us. And when I say blood, I'm talking about all that took place on the cross, everything that Jesus did for us. On the cross, Jesus took all of our sins upon himself. And we are cleansed from those sins, past, present, and future. And we understand that and we realize that. So, We understand that to walk in the light is to live a pattern of righteousness because we have been cleansed by Christ at the cross. But then here's the next contrast. The contrast to the false claim in verse 8 is found in verse 9. Notice verse 8, here's the false claim. If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. That's how a false Believer will reason. They'll say, what sin? I don't have any sin. I'm perfectly fine. But here's how a true believer will reason. Look at verse nine. If we confess our sins, he's faithful and just to forgive us and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Again, there were some people claiming to be Christians back in that community that were saying, I don't have any sin, I'm fine. They were living in all kinds of darkness and saying, what sin? I don't have any sin. But a true believer is someone who realizes their sins have been forgiven because of the blood of Christ. And anytime they sin, they come to Christ, they come with confession. That's the idea here. They allow the blood of Christ to cleanse them from their sin. They don't allow sin to continue in their life. You see, at salvation, you know what happens? You have a new sensitivity to sin in your life. You know, before I was saved, I would do certain things, and it would never bother me. But after I got saved, I would do a certain thing, and all of a sudden, I was gripped with conviction. And I would think, I can't do that anymore. I can't live this way. And as a true believer, what would I do? I would run to Christ. I would confess that sin. You say, why do you confess that sin? Are you afraid you're going to lose your salvation? No, because once you're saved, you are always saved. You are in Christ. This is not a salvation issue. This is a fellowship issue. It's whether you want to continue to walk in fellowship. You see, as a true believer, you can't just allow sin to reign in your life and just forget about it. The illustration I like to use is, you ever get something in your eye, really irritating in your eye? How many of you, when you get something in your eye, you say, you know what, I'll just take care of this later, I'm busy right now. And you walk around with one eye all the rest of the day. What's wrong with your eye? Well, I got something in it. Well, why don't you get it out? Well, I am, I'll do it later. I'll do it, I'll get around to it. You don't live like that, why? I'll tell you why, because your eye is so sensitive that is so irritating, you got to get it out immediately. You got to get some water and flush it out. You can't walk around with that. That's the way it is with sin in the life of a true believer. Once, when we sin against the Lord, you know what? We're gonna wanna bring that in confession. And in verse number nine, when it says this, it says, if we confess our sins, present indicative active in the Greek, that is continually confess. You know what a believer is? A believer is someone who is continually bringing their sins to God in confession because they have a new sensitivity to sin in their life, a new awareness to sin, and they wanna deal thoroughly with it. That's having fellowship, and the blood of Christ cleanses us from our sins. So the false believer says, what sin? A true believer says, I confess my sins all the time. You know, in this matter of sanctification, the good news is, God is making us more like Christ. The bad news is, is that we'll grieve more over our sins. We'll be more aware of our shortcomings. We'll be more aware of our sins before God. There's this new sensitivity, and it gets even more and more the more you become like Christ. One time in our house, we painted a wall white. We just wanted to paint one wall. But that was a mistake. You know why? Because you paint one wall, and you realize how bad the other walls look. And that's sanctification. You get one area of your life straightened out, and you say, well, praise the Lord. And then you look at the others, you go, oh, woe is me. I still have other areas. I've still got work to do in my life. That's the walk of a believer. We are constantly confessing our sins. We have to deal with it. Sin must be exposed. How is sin exposed? By the word of God. reading Scripture. When I read Scripture, it reads me back. It shows me who I am. Sometimes I'm reading God's Word, and I get convicted immediately. I got to stop whatever I'm doing, and I got to deal with that thing that God has revealed to me. Sin must be exposed. Sin must be expressed. In verse nine, again, confess. That is, you take whatever sin the Lord, the Holy Spirit, convicts you of, and you take it to the Lord immediately, and you confess it, and you deal with it. You know, Christians, they like to sin, retell, and confess wholesale. Before you go to bed at night, you say, okay, God, just forgive me for all my sins today. And then you go to sleep. That's not the way you're supposed to deal with it. By the way, when the Holy Spirit convicts you, he doesn't convict you of all your sins. He convicts you specifically, individually, and that's how you are to confess your sins, specifically, individually. Again, we're not talking about a salvation issue here. I'm talking about people who are already saved, and you want to continue to walk in fellowship, you have to confess your sins. to have fellowship with God. And it also serves as a deterrent from you easily yielding to temptation in the future. When you go through that whole thing of bringing your sins before the Lord and confessing those sins, we have to see what they are and know what they are specifically. We sing the song, count your blessings, name them one by one, and it will surprise you what the Lord has done. I like to sometimes change the word and say, count your sins, name them one by one, and it will surprise you what you have done. We have to do it specifically, confess those sins. Sin must be exposed, it must be expressed, it must be expelled. The Bible says, if we confess, he is faithful and just to forgive us and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. So that's having fellowship with the Lord. The contrast to the false claim made in verse 10. Notice the false claim in verse 10. If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us. The contrast to that is chapter two, verse one. My little children, these things write unto you that you sin not. If any man sin, we have an advocate with a father, Jesus Christ the righteous. A false believer will say they have not sinned, but a true believer will recognize Jesus Christ as their advocate. He is my advocate. A false believer will be self-righteous. They'll like to boast about their own righteousness, but a true believer knows they have no righteousness. Their only righteousness is Jesus Christ. He is my advocate. He is my righteousness. Martin Luther. one time had a dream. He was very acutely aware of spiritual warfare. And sometimes he would rebuke the devil in spiritual warfare. And a story is told that he had a dream one night. He wasn't sure if it was just a dream or if it was really, or it was just a nightmare. He wasn't really sure, but he was awakened in the middle of the night to see a figure at the end of his bed. He believed it to be none other than the devil himself. And the devil had a scroll, and on that scroll was a list of all the sins that Luther had committed. And the devil was reading them off, and Luther had to admit that that list was accurate. And the devil, after reading them off one at a time, pointed a finger in his face and said, what hope do you have? of heaven. And Luther said he felt as if his very soul was slipping into hell at that moment. And just then, the advocate, Jesus Christ the righteous, intervened and Jesus said, tell the devil to unroll the rest of the scroll. And Martin Luther said to the devil, I command you in the name of Jesus, unroll the rest of that scroll. Reluctantly, the devil unrolled the rest of the scroll and written at the bottom of that scroll in crimson ink were the words, this entire account of Martin Luther is paid for by the blood of Jesus Christ. Jesus is our advocate. He is our defense attorney. And Luther would later say, and I can relate to this, Luther would say, when I look at myself, I cannot see how that I can be saved. But when I look at Christ, I cannot see how that I can be lost. A true believer doesn't look to themself. They look to Christ as their advocate. But let me give you, well, we're finished. Let me just give you this in review. A person who has real fellowship with God, recognizes the holiness of God, realizes the darkness of sin, and seeks to walk in the light, and receives the forgiveness of confession. Let me close with this story. In the 18th century, there was an abbot that was known for disciplining monks. And two monks were disciplined for some infraction. And the rule that was imposed upon them was a rule of silence. They could not talk to one another. So they tried to figure out some way to fill the long hours. And finally, one of them came up with a game where he would take 28 flat stones and he would put numbers on those stones in the form of dots. And they devised a new game with that. And they would use gestures to communicate with each other because they had to keep silent. One of them would keep score. But then they remembered that they were allowed, even though they were told to be silent, they were allowed to do one thing, and that was to pray. They could pray a prayer. Dixi Dominus Domino Meo in Latin. And Domino was really the idea of Lord, calling out to the Lord in Latin. And so when one of them would win in the game, he would yell out, Domino. Thus the game of Domino's was born. That's how Domino's was invented. Everyone in the monastery thought these guys were praying. But they were playing. They weren't praying. Some people seem very sincere in their spiritual life, but they're simply playing a game with God. And you know what? You don't want to play games when it comes to your salvation. A lot of people claim to walk in the light and to walk in fellowship with God, but they're living in darkness. John doesn't want us playing spiritual dominoes. He wants us to truly know that we know Christ, that we're walking in the light. That we run to Christ our advocate. Why? Because God the Father is holy and sin must be judged and Christ is the one who took our sins. Because we are saved, we seek to walk in that light. And when we do sin, we come to God confessing our sins. Because we want to walk in the light and have fellowship with him all the time. That's the characteristics of a true believer. Let's bow for prayer together. Father, thank you for the wonderful salvation that we have in Jesus Christ. Lord, it's my prayer this morning that everyone here on The Sound of My Voice has true fellowship with God the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ, as John writes here. And if there's someone here that is deceived about their own salvation, that all the pretense would be ripped away. If they think that what they have is the light and they're in darkness, that's a dangerous place to be. Lord, may the Holy Spirit of God do that work of conviction of sin, of righteousness, and of judgment, so that every person will run to Christ their advocate for salvation. Put their full faith in Jesus, repent of their sins, turn to Christ, ask for salvation, and have true fellowship with Jesus Christ, and live understanding the holiness of God, the darkness of sin, the blessing of confession and fellowship. Lord, may this be true in every heart and every soul in the sound of my voice. And Fred, with heads bowed and eyes closed as you're there, if there's any doubt in your heart, would you reach out right now in faith? Repent of your sin. Put your faith in the risen Christ. Let him save you. The Bible says, whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. And I plead with you, friends, make sure that you're calling upon the Lord as your only salvation. Put your faith in him. Turn to him that he might save you. Father, bless your word to every heart today. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.