Walking in the Light

IF ONE IS SAVED, HE MUST LIVE IN THE LIGHT.
IF ONE IS SINS, HE HAS AN ADVOCATE JESUS CHRIST. 
WHEN HE CONFESSES HIS SIN, JESUS CLEANSES HIM SO HE CAN WALK AGAIN IN THE LIGHT.

1 John 1:3-2:1

“That which we have seen and heard declare we unto you, that ye also may have fellowship with us: and truly our fellowship is with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ. {4} And these things write we unto you, that your joy may be full. {5} This then is the message which we have heard of him, and declare unto you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all. {6} If we say that we have fellowship with him, and walk in darkness, we lie, and do not the truth: {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. {8} If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. {9} If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. {10} If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us. {2:1} My little children, these things write I unto you, that ye sin not. And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous:”

John states his testimony. 

He tells us that he has seen with his eyes, and touched with his hands, Jesus Christ which he calls the Word of Life. He is not speaking about the spirit, but he is talking about his body that is real physical body. He is saying that Jesus had a real body and John had a real body that could be seen and handled.

John calls Jesus the Word of life. 
“For the life was manifested, and we have seen it, and bear witness, and shew unto you that eternal life, which was with the Father, and was manifested unto us.” (1 John 1:2)

At the time of John’s writing, there were men that were saying Jesus Christ was not really a man. They were saying He was a spirit that seemed to have a physical body. Here, John is saying that Jesus had a real physical body because he had seen Him and not only had he saw Him with his eyes, but he had also handled (touched) Him with his hands.
 

In verse three, John gives the reason for his testimony: so “that ye also may have fellowship with us: and truly our fellowship is with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ.” This is a message that will give you joy. If you want to have joy in your life hear this message and believe this message and act on this message!

Verse five gives us the message that we need, one that will bring us joy so that we can fellowship with God; “that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all.” To understand the message that John wants us to have we need to understand just what light is and what darkness is.

We can say some things about light. We cannot see without light. We need light to see. And in the light, we can see as Paul says in (Ephesians 5:13) “But all things that are reproved are made manifest by the light: for whatsoever doth make manifest is light.” We cannot hide anything in the light but in darkness one thinks that sin can be hidden. Darkness is the place that one thinks can hide.

Now in verse six, John tells us, “If we say that we have fellowship with him, and walk in darkness, we lie, and do not the truth”. To say this truth another way, we cannot have companionship with God because there can be there can be no light in darkness. If there is light in darkness it is no more darkness. Light does away with darkness.   Keep this in mind as we look at the rest of this passage.

In verse seven we are told that if we walk in the light as God is in the light we can have fellowship with one another.
Walking in the light does not mean that one is sinless, for the next verse says, “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us (1 John 1:8).”

There are some things that we need to note about this verse:
1. This verse is for Christians. The whole letter was written to believers, not to nonbelievers.
2. He uses the word “we” which means that he included himself. ‘We’ is a first-person plural pronoun; it means the person that is speaking and some other. It would be just as right if one could say, “if I say that I have no sin, I deceive myself and the truth is not in me.”  John could say that I, John, say I have no sin I been deceived and the truth is not in me. 
3. Because this sentence is in the present tense, it is saying that we all have sin in us at all times, that is, we are in sin at any given time. So, what are we to do?  Can we continually walk in the light and be a sinner? The answer is no. But the thing that we can do is confess our sins so that we will not be trying to hide our sins.
4. There is another thing about darkness to note, it is the place that we hide our sins. If are trying to hide our sins, we are in darkness. If we all always have sin in us, how can anyone walk in the light? Verse nine tells 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 want to walk in the light, we need to stop trying to hide our sins. If we do not confess our sins we are in darkness and if we do confess our sins we are in the light.

If you are saved and trying to live for the Lord, you may still have sin in your life and you need to confess your sins so that God can cleanse you from your sins and you can walk in the light and fellowship with God and with other believers.

6. “If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.”
If you think that you are not a sinner you are making God a liar. The truth is that you are a liar if you say that you have not sinned (1 John 1:10).” 
“My little children, these things write I unto you, that ye sin not. And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. (1 John 2:1).”
These two verses give us some idea of how we are to live in Christ and some idea of what our Lord is doing in heaven. 

1. As we live our life we are not to sin. As I see it, John 1:8 says, “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.”  So, I cannot say that I have no sin in my life for if I do I am deceived and the truth is not in me. 

Not sinning should be the way I want to live my life, but I cannot say that I have no sin for I do have sin in my life. Have I kept the entire commandment? Have I kept the greatest commandment?  “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.”  Or have I kept the second greatest commandment? “Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.” Have I always loved God with all my being? I think not. So then, I am condemned but for the fact that God has given me an advocate so that I can go to Him and confess my sins and He will forgive my sins and clean me from all unrighteousness!

Jesus, as my advocate, has done more than just plead my case, He has made it possible for my sin to be done away with. You can see this in the next verse; “And he is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world (1 John 2:2). “The word propitiation is a big one, but it is a good one. It means that his blood of Jesus Christ, God’s Son, cleanses me from all my sin. (1John 1:7). Jesus’ blood has covered my sins!

2. I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and that He died for my sins, and He was buried and then He rose from the dead the third day. He is still alive today living in heaven as my advocate, my lawyer, with the Father making intercession for me. But if I sin and do not confess it and try to hide it then I am in the darkness and I cannot have fellowship with Father. But if I confess my sins, I am cleansed from my sins and then I am in the light and then I can have fellowship with God.

3. Because Jesus is my advocate, he is also my propitiation, the covering for my sins. There is a story told about a farmer in the west. He had homesteaded in the grasslands. One day he looked in the direction the wind was coming from and saw smoke. It was a fire, a big one and it was coming his way! It was moving fast. He knew that he could not outrun it and he knew that could not go right or left to get away from the fire. There was only one thing to do. He started a fire downwind so that the fire would burn the grass away from his house. He got his family into his wagon, and they went out into the field that had already been burned. So that he was saved and his family for he was on the ground that had been propitiated.

You see that this is what Jesus did for you and me when He died for our sin. Jesus died for our sins and the penalty for our sins has been put on him so that our sin has already been judged and the penalty for our sins has been paid so we are free. This is what Paul means when he says, “There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit (Romans 8:1).”      

FROM THE BEGINNING, GOD HAS ASKED MAN TO CONFESS AND TO REPENT
Since man ate of the fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil that God commanded them not to eat, God has been asking mankind to confess his sin. 

The thing that man learned after he ate the fruit of the tree the knowledge of good and evil was not good but evil. He learned what is not good. He learned that being naked is not good. The first thing they tried to do was to try to and hide his nakedness. When God asked the question, “Where art thou?” God was saying, Adam, you have sinned, and you need to confess it.

Men have been trying to hide sin ever since. This is why John writes, “If we say that 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 (I John 1:8-9).”

It seems to me that all that God wanted from man was for him to own up to the sin that he had done. God wanted Adam to acknowledge his sin and disobedience. It seems to me that God wanted Adam to take responsibility for his own action. But he did not, “And the man said, “The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat (Genesis 3:12).” Adam said the woman is at fault for my sin.  Confession of sin should not be followed with a ‘but’. Our confession should not sound like this, “I did sin but someone else caused me to do it.” 

Here is the way it should sound, “I sinned; God, please forgive me.” 

So let us examine ourselves and confess all our known sins so we can be in the light and the blood of Jesus Christ can cleanse and we can have fellowship with God the Father and our joy will be full! 

Written by Ralph Williams, retired pastor and member of One Hope Mobile.