This message was given at Grace Community Church in Minden, Nevada. At the end, we will give information about how to contact us to receive a copy of this or other messages. Our Father, we come to you this morning and we are so thankful to you for the blood of your Son that washes away all of our sins. Father, we thank You that in the fullness of time, You sent forth Your Son, born of a woman, born under the law, so that He would redeem those who were under the curse of the law. Father, we thank You for Your Son, who is the Lamb of God, who takes away our sins. Father, we thank you for the word that we heard last night of the joy that comes when we enter into a relationship with you, have our sins forgiven, united to you and united to your people. Father, we thank you for these magnificent, glorious blessings that are all ours in Jesus Christ. And we now pray for your help. We pray that you would draw near in the ministry of the Word, and we ask it in Jesus' blessed name. Amen. Last night I gave the royal introduction. This morning I'll give the Nevada introduction. Pastor Conrad Mbewe has found out that Americans do not know their geography. We were in Starbucks and the poor girl serving us coffee asked Pastor Conrad, so where are you from? And he said, Zambia. Do you know where that is? And she made the fatal mistake of saying, yes, where? It's in that place that's far away from here. Pastor Conrad is from Lusaka, Zambia, pastor of Caboada Baptist Church, and I mentioned all the things that he does, and we'll mention those again tomorrow, I'm sure. But one thing is, is he faithfully brings the word of God. And he certainly did last night. And I left with my heart just filled with joy at the word. And so we're delighted that you're here. It's great to see so many of you who have come a distance from Northern California, Southern California, Idaho, Oregon. Oregon is not in the New Testament. Wyoming, of course, but they are here for the twins, there's no doubt. And it's just a blessing to see you. And so, brother, come and bring the word of God to us this morning. Well, it's good to be back after last evening. And let's go back to 1 John. and chapter one, 1 John and chapter one. I'll read beginning with verse five and we'll make our way to chapter two and verse three. I'll later on explain why we are going beyond the first chapter. But let's begin, 1 John chapter one, and verse five reading from the English Standard Version. This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you that God is light and in him is no darkness at all. If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie. and do not practice 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 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 truth is not in us. My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ, the righteous. He is the propitiation for our sins. And not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world. And by this we know that we have come to know Him if we keep His commandments. Well brethren, as we're looking at this book together, we are doing so under the theme of walking in the lights. And as I said to those that attended last evening's youth meeting, the picture of light is one that all of us can identify with and yet at the same time, if somebody was born blind, it would be extremely difficult to convey its meaning to a person. We can try and define, but it would be quite a Herculean task for the person to finally grasp what it is that we mean. And John uses it here, as we shall be seeing this morning, in order to convey very basic truths with respect to the Christian faith. What we did yesterday was to begin with the first part of this chapter and bring ourselves to the point of appreciating that true joy comes from knowing Jesus Christ in a personal way as Lord and as Savior. That which the whole world chases after and almost the whole world misses. is found literally staring all of us in the face through our maker, our redeemer, undercoming judge, the Lord Jesus Christ. We saw how it was that John spoke of him as one who predates time. At least he predated his own coming into the world as one that they had come to know in a personal way and one that they were consequently commending to everyone wherever they went so that they could share in this real, lasting, eternal joy that Jesus Christ alone is able to give. This morning we looking at the subject God is light. And that is the statement that is made in the fifth verse by the Apostle John. This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you that God is light and in him is no darkness at all. Why is it crucial that we should center our thoughts on this subject, God is light? It is primarily because Christianity does not begin with us. It doesn't begin with our likes and dislikes. It doesn't begin with that which makes us comfortable or brings us a lot of joy and happiness. It begins with God, the creator. Begins with him who is alone, eternal. And in beginning with him, we consequently begin to see everything else in appropriate light. It is like an architect sitting down to plan a building. He doesn't just go into a room and begin to put together some drawings, first of all, he gets on site. He asks you, where will the building be? And once you let him know it will be, he begins to look at the entire environment. In fact, even goes further and asks himself an all important question, where does the sun rise from and where does it finally settle? In the light of all those realities, he then goes into his drawing room in order to come up with that building. That's the way it is also with the subject of salvation. It doesn't begin with us and our likes. It begins with the creator himself. Who is he? What is he like? And then in the light of all that, we then say to ourselves, then how should we be? What kind of individuals should we seek to be? Well, that's where John is beginning here. And notice that as he begins, he tells us where this wisdom has come from. It's not from themselves as apostles, after a lot of philosophical thinking, it is from Jesus Christ himself. He says this is the message we have heard from Him. He came into the world from the, as it were, eternal other existence and came to inform us about life as it really is. And what did He say to us? Which, according to John here, we are also proclaiming to you. Jesus Christ came basically saying there is one thing that matters above all. It is this, God is light. And whatever else we're going to think about, it must begin from there. God is light. and he then puts it in the negative. In him, there is no darkness at all. What did this picture seek to convey? I want to suggest at least three truths concerning God that are encapsulated in this phrase, God is light. The first is that of truth, the second is that of goodness, and the third is that of morality or righteousness. Let's quickly capture these. The first is truth. When we think in terms of light, we often think in terms of our ability to see. Let's assume that you were an individual that walked into a room and it was at night and the place was completely dark and you were consequently informed that you must turn to the left or to the right after about three steps, most likely you will bump into something in the process. because of the fact that those three steps could be shorter for a short person and longer for somebody else. And similarly, turning left or right, very few of us can actually turn 45, or is it 90 degrees? We hardly can. Sooner or later you bump into something. But once you switch on the light, You now see things as they really are and where they really are. Consequently, you will make your way through that room with hardly bumping into anything at all. You know, you really know the situation as it is. Well, that's the God of heaven. God is light in terms of the fact that he has truly revealed himself as he is. He hasn't revealed himself in ways that are deceitful to us. As he has revealed himself through the prophets, as he has revealed himself in all creation, as he has revealed himself in our consciences, He is not a hidden God. He is the God of truth. And therefore, we can know him as he is. There is no shadow of turning with this God. As Jesus Christ himself once said, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. So one thing we can take for granted is this, that the God who exists is a God who himself has taken the initiative to switch on the light. And the reason why men and women who still want to bow down and worship all kinds of trees and mountains and images that they themselves have made is because of a deliberate blindness. They close their eyes and refuse to see even when the lights are on. Isn't that the argument of Romans chapter one? That God has revealed enough concerning himself to make us true worshipers. Yet men and women exchange the truth of God for a lie and worship created things rather than the creator who is forever praised. So there is the first, he is light, he has revealed himself. The second is that of goodness, goodness. And there we think in terms of the effect of light on all of us. If you as an individual were to be kept in complete darkness for weeks and months, before long you would shrivel, before long all kinds of ill health would beset you. But it is when we come to enjoy the rays of the sun that there is health, there is growth, there is joy. So again that is captured in this picture. God is good. Whatever else you may want to question concerning God, especially during seasons of frowning providences, he is a good God. And has revealed himself as such. And then thirdly is the aspect of morality. And this is pictured pretty well when you think in terms again of the opposite, darkness. Often in the Bible, acts of wickedness, iniquity and sin would be referred to as acts of darkness, works of darkness. And that makes sense because it is when there is the advantage of darkness that often sinners prevail. Whether it is darkness of lack of communication and consequently corruption ends up taking a strong place in the community, or whether it is the actual physical darkness and consequently thieves and robbers come out of their shelters and wreak havoc in the community. Or the darkness behind which sexual immorality often thrives. Whatever it might be, sin thrives in darkness. And consequently, in the use of this phrase, God is light, we are being told God is holy. God is righteous. He is upright. God loves righteousness. Let me ask you, is this the God you have come to know? When you are thinking in terms of being religious, going to heaven, or whatever other things cause you to think about God, do you think in terms of these three distinct realities, truth, goodness, and holiness, that the God who is there cannot be separated from these realities. Because if you try to remove any of these, you are only cheating yourself. You will end up with a religion that might quieten your conscience now, but it will land you in hell forever. because God is light. Now upon John beginning on that score, he goes on to give us seven implications of that. And each one of them begins with the if clause or if phrase all the way from verse five down, rather verse six, down to chapter two and verse three. And that's the reason why we went that far in our Bible reading. The first that he mentions is if we say we have fellowship with him, while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. He's saying it's not possible. We are only cheating ourselves. And we'll look at that in a moment. And then there's another implication. Verse seven. If we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another and the blood of Jesus' Son cleanses us from all sin. That's the second implication. And it's a glorious implication. as we shall see in a moment. Because the normal tendency that we have, when we know that we are sinners, and we are being exposed to the light, is to quickly run into hiding. Because we don't want to be exposed. And if that's our attitude towards this God, we have missed the point altogether. because this God is a God who delights in forgiving. There are a lot more implications out of that as we go on to see, but let's begin to make our way through these implications and then we'll finish off in the second session this morning. First of all, it is its implication with respect to our profession of Christianity. our profession of Christianity. He puts it this way. If we say we have fellowship with him, while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. If we say we have fellowship with him, If you were here last night, that phrase should not take you by surprise because that's what John was rejoicing about earlier. He had put it this way in verse three. that which we have seen and heard, we proclaim also to you that you too may have fellowship with us. And indeed, our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ. What John was saying there is that we have experienced salvation. And because we have experienced salvation, we know God in a personal way. We relate to him. He speaks to us through his word and his spirit. And we speak to him in prayer in a very real way. We don't just lisp words into empty air hoping that somehow or rather some divine being or rather would have heard us. No, we actually speak to God as though he's sitting there right in front of us as a child speaking to a father. We are in fellowship with Him. And because of this, we come out and share with all around us that it is possible to know this God in a personal way through Jesus Christ if you come to Him in repentance and faith. Now here is the sad reality. Not everybody who claims to accept this message really enters into a relationship with God. Not everyone. Many people will profess repentance. Many people will profess faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. But in actual fact, still remain completely bereft of true spiritual life. I want to repeat, it's a sad reality. But I've been a Christian long enough and a pastor long enough to know that even in the most careful church, with respect to ascertaining the sincerity, genuineness of a professional faith, you will always still have Judas's that make their way through the defense systems and find themselves in the life of the church. Not all of them, initially do so with a deliberate stance to deceive. Many are fairly sincere, they just haven't quite recognized the reality of what true spiritual life is all about, and especially when they are on the younger side of life. They are sincere and they go through the entire process, join the membership of the church, and mingle with everyone else as brother and sister in the Lord. And yet here is the test. Having made such a professional faith, they are not walking in the light. They are walking in darkness. The phrase walking is again one of those picture words that we can understand fairly easily. It speaks about life being a journey from one end to the other. So walking has to do with simply living out one's life. Distance being not in kilometers, but in minutes, seconds, days, weeks, and so on. So you are walking, you are continuing in life. And what John is saying is that many individuals will profess to be in fellowship with God and yet when you peep into their lives out there, behind closed doors, it's a life that is lived in darkness. Let's turn those three phrases around. Instead of living in truth, they are living in hypocrisy. They are living in lies. They are one thing when they are in the presence of church leaders. there are something else, the exact opposite, when they are away from church leaders. Friends, if that describes you, put a very big question mark on your profession of Christianity. Christianity is not like that. True Christianity is not like that. One of the reasons why this messenger who came from heaven and proclaimed that God is light, one of the reasons why he was in sharp difference with the leaders of Israel was exactly at this point. They were by and large a bunch of hypocrites. And his eyes that were able to see through locked doors knew everything about them. And it was disgusting to him. And consequently you will remember towards the end of Matthew how he brought out walls upon walls upon them. because of their hypocrisy. Their hypocrisy. Friends, you only cheat yourself. You don't cheat God when you live a life of hypocrisy. You don't. God knows all things. Even in the darkest, darkest, darkest room, it is as though it is broad daylight before him. So why even begin to entertain hypocrisy? Why? When the very one you are claiming to have a relationship with is disgusted by what he knows is happening in your life. That's not Christianity. It's not Christianity. You're only deceiving yourself. What about the issue of goodness? is yet another reality that we shall be seeing in a few moments, or at least in the next day. And it is the whole area of love and goodness being a blessing to others. Again, that's what Christianity does. Because the God of love comes to dwell in your soul. And consequently, he loves through you. And what happens when you become a Christian? You are surprised about yourself. Because you know yourself too well. And the only way you can explain your life is this must be God living in me by his spirit. and therefore to him alone be praise and glory, even when people are saying thank you to you. You know that. But oh, how often we have, in the very life of the church, individuals who still claim to be Christians, and they seem to thrive on rubbing everybody the wrong way. in spreading misery among the brethren. And somehow, they still want you to accept that that's Christianity. And often it's mingled with this hypocrisy we were speaking about earlier. Where a man may appear to be godly at church, but ask the wife. And she would tell you, he's a wild beast at home. I'm sure you know what I'm talking about. The children have ended up becoming so angry and bitter because of the product of the spleen, as it were, that's poured out all over the home. and then come to church pretending to be that lovely husband and father. The same can be said of wives. So we won't spend too much time there. All I want to do is to emphasize that friends, Christianity transforms us at that level. It makes a people who are impossible to live with to become a people you want to live with. And again, the point being made here, is that if you are an individual that claim to have entered into fellowship with this good God and his spirit is resident within you and yet you are a person whose wrath and anger is pouring out wherever you can with hardly anything that can be said to be good, you are only cheating yourself. That's the point that's being made here. If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, while we spread gloom, we lie and do not practice the truth. And then there is the third aspect, and that's of morality, which again is tied up with those other two. that of righteousness and holiness. Because it matters there, friends. Why should you claim to be saved if you are still in love with sin? Then what has Jesus saved you from? What is it? Because He doesn't just save us from the hell to which sin takes us, He also saves us from the sin that takes us to hell. He changes our hearts and makes us lovers of righteousness. That's what He does. And one reason why this is vital for us to understand is that it makes us realize that I need to go back to God if true Christianity hasn't occurred in my soul. It doesn't matter even if I'm baptized. It doesn't matter even if I've joined the church. It doesn't matter even if everybody around me thinks I'm a Christian. If I discover that although I claim to walk in the light, I'm in actual fact walking in darkness, I should make a beeline to the cross, fall on my knees, and plead with him. Savior, oh Savior, while on others thou art calling, do not pass me by. You came to save sinners. I'm a sinner, save me. And refuse to be satisfied until you can see as it were the fingerprints of the Spirit of God upon your life. Until you can see that you love truth You want to walk in truth, you will fight hypocrisy in your own life to begin with because you want to be transparent. Until you can see that you want to love others. You want to be a means of blessing to others. That it's an overflow of your heart. Until you can see that you want to grow in Christ-likeness. You want to grow in holiness. You want to live a life that is pleasing to God. That's the first aspect. A test of our profession. Let's quickly hurry on to the second part. which in a sense is a bit of a surprise. Because it's basically more of a test of our integrity through fellowship with one another. Look at the way John puts it, verse seven. 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, cleanses us from all sin. First of all, you would have thought that John would say that if we walk in the light as he's in the light, we have fellowship with him. We have fellowship with God. Seems to be the logical thing to say. But John is not primarily interested in that reality, rather he's interested in the proof of that reality. In other words, one of the most important signs of Your vertical relationship is the way in which you treasure the brethren. You treasure the brethren. Christianity is not a me religion. Between me and the Lord, I don't care about the rest of you. I can continue my own relationship up one of these beautiful mountains surrounding here, and even if I don't know you and you don't know me, that's okay. We'll meet in heaven. That's not the Christian faith. The Christian faith is a being joined to a body. the body of Christ. The spirit infuses you into that body. And there are others who also belong to that body. And one of the immediate realities you wake up to is you are interested in fellow believers. Before your conversion, you often go to church the way in which, at least back home, I go to the post office. I often get there with only one interest, to get to the counter, pass the money under the glass, and out will come stamps or whatever else it might be, and I get out of that place. In fact, often when somebody greets me there, I almost jump out of my socks. Because I don't expect that this is a place to fraternize with people. It's a place for quick business, brisk business, in and out. And churches like that before your conversion, You go in, yeah, sing a song or two, hear the same one, and as soon as it's over, you make a beeline for your car. Off you go, you've done your bid for the week. And when people begin to close in on you, you feel a little uncomfortable. Why are they entering into the privacy of my life? Until you get converted. Then suddenly, hi John, even you come to this church, I'm seeing you for the first time here. You get to know one another. And that life pours out into life out there. The brethren become your people. You also become very precious to them. And that life of integrity before God shows itself in the integrity with respect to one another. You become truthful to one another. You become good to one another. And you seek to live a life of righteousness together with one another. That's what he's talking about here. He's saying, if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another. Here is an important test. If you are walking in the light, here is the proof There is rich fellowship between you and other Christians. There is. And it's real. You share with them not only your triumphs, but also your trials. You share with them. Your difficulties, you share with them. They also share the same with you. And that just makes you so precious to one another. Is that true of you? Is that true of you? What I have found is for a lot of people, they, They put up a front, and that's what you live with, a mere front. And there's so much happening inside or behind that front that they don't want anyone else to know, anyone else to know, until God opens the wardrobe doors and the skeletons fall out. Everybody is completely shocked. It's not possible. I used to sit down here with him. Used to sit with her here. We were doing so much together. I can't believe this. That's not fellowship. That's sitting together. But it's not fellowship. Because true fellowship is really entering into a common life, sharing our lives together. The struggles of being a husband or a wife with all the baggage I come with from my past. the difficulties of being a father or a mother. coming from a background where my parents had a broken marriage and now I'm to seek to raise a godly seed and I hardly know where to start from and constantly hitting my head against the wall and I'm there in fellowship with the brethren saying, help me, counsel me, pray for me, pray with me, I hardly know how to glorify God in a practical way in this area. That's Christianity. That's Christianity. And one reason why I rejoice in this, and I must hurry on to close, is that living in the light does not mean that you are Totally sinless, you can't remember the last time you ever sinned. Otherwise, that next phrase, in fact, all the way down to the end of the chapter, wouldn't make sense. For he says, and the blood of Jesus' Son cleanses us from all sin. It's not putting it in past tense that it cleansed us from all sin, but it goes on cleansing us from all sin. In other words, when you are walking in the light, you are continuing to deal with your sins, to deal with your sins. And friends, it's true, isn't it? That when you are in darkness or you are in a room where the light is rather dim, you may make your clothes dirty, perhaps from a cup of coffee or eating chocolate, and you're not conscious of it. You still think you're as clean as you were before. Until you enter into the light, then, huh! Is this the way? and you immediately begin to pay attention to cleaning yourself up. That's the Christian life. The Christian life, as you draw closer to God, you see how dirty you are even more. And it throws you back at the foot of the cross. pleading with the Lord to cleanse you, to make you whiter than snow. And that's the reason why you tremble when you hear of others preferring hypocrisy, living a life of a lie, continuing in the worst form of scandals under the blankets. And then quickly showing up in the midst of the brethren as though they really are walking in uprightness and godliness when in actual fact they are incubating sin. You tremble. You tremble especially because cleansing is free. Jesus says come to me. just as you are, come to me. With all your weakness and failures and sins, come to me. The blood has been shed. It's free. I'm not asking you to be some Captain America of some sort. Come just as you are and let me do the job. That's what he said. And we'll be seeing a little bit more of that when we come to the message, if anyone does sin. Because that's what brings refreshment to our soul. Remember I talked about the fact that often the tendency is to want to run the opposite direction from him, but in actual fact, we run to him. And he is faithful, he is just, he doesn't only forgive, but he cleanses us from all unrighteousness. Well brethren, those are the first if clauses that John deals with. And what I want to say as I close is that it is beginning with God. God is light. And if you forget everything else I've said to you thus far, here is my counsel. Always begin with God. Who is this God? What kind of God is he? And then work backwards to yourself. That's the safe way. That's the way to heaven. Let's pray. Eternal light. Eternal light. How pure the soul must be when placed beneath thy searching light, shrinks not, but in calm delight can leave and look on thee. The spirits that surround thy throne may bear that burning bliss. But that is surely theirs alone, for they have never, never known a fallen world like this. But oh, how shall I, whose native sphere is dark, whose mind is dim, and before the indescribable appear, and on my naked spirit bear, that uncreated being. Lord, help us to ever bear in mind that you are light and in you there is no darkness. And that in finding a way to finally appear before you on the judgment day and all eternity, May we find an answer that bears that fact in mind. You are light and in you there is no darkness. Thank you for the atoning sacrifice of your son, the Lord Jesus Christ. Thank you for the sanctifying work of your Holy Spirit. Thank you for the brethren among whom we can find encouragement and fellowship as we soldier on to heaven. Lord, thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Amen. We hope you've enjoyed this message from Grace Community Church in Minden, Nevada. To receive a copy of this or other messages, call us at area code 775-782-6516 or visit our website gracenevada.com.