Fellowship in the light

What John tells us his message is about is the character of God. That is God light. This isn’t a definition of character but rather telling us that in God you find the truth. That God, in His nature is morally good. But even more than that, God cannot be in the darkness because darkness and light are complete opposites. They cannot exist together. Where you have light you don’t have darkness, and where you have darkness there is not light. This light is also “the life” and God is the fulness of light and light. This is essential to God’s character because light is revealing, in it you get purity. It isn’t just revealing but it means no secrecy, no hiding, no pretending. Just pure, unfiltered truth and goodness. In the light nothing can hide. We can claim a lot of things about ourselves. We can make our own “profiles” of ourselves at school or on social media and create this character we want others to see. But the light always reveals our hearts. There were those who said they were believers and John wanted them to clearly be able to see who was in the light and who was not. But light isn’t just revealing, it also has helpful properties. It allows us to “walk”, it gives us vision of what is to come. We are to walk in light because in the darkness we have no direction, there is moral gray areas and confusion. We don’t know where we are going in the darkness. “To walk in the light describes absolute sincerity…to be, so to speak, all of a pierce, to have nothing to conceal, and to make no attempt to conceal anything.” So John has 2 statements that are to be revealed as true or untrue. Claims that are to be tested.

What we claim vs what the light exposes

“If we claim we have fellowship with him”

There is this hilarious clip of this guy who wears the jersey’s of a basketball team and he walks onto the court during warmups and goes through the line like he is part of the team but he is obviously not part of the team. He was too short, he was a little bigger, and he was definitely out of place. He didn’t have fellowship with that team, he just decided to pose as if he was.

John states there are two ways this can be false. First, in lying about having a relationship with God.

-How do we know if we have a relationship with God?

-Do we pray and spend time in His Word?

-Do we “have fellowship with one another”? Those who have fellowship with God also have fellowship with His people.

Second, lying about practicing the truth. Or as it says “doing the truth”. This means to live in the truth and avoid sin.

To be in fellowship with God means to not remain in darkness and to not live in a state of death. One cannot have eternal life outside of faith in Jesus because Jesus himself as the life that light reveals. You cannot deny Jesus or His Word and also have fellowship with the one, true God.

Many can claim to have fellowship with God but yet when you look at their actions they are far away from God.

There are many people who can make false claims of fellowship with God but only those who live in Christ have true fellowship.

“If we claim we have no sin”

I think it is hilarious when my children tell me things that are so obviously not true and pretend that it is. And they can try and convince themselves of it and they ALMOST convince me that they aren’t lying. I had a great one today when one of my kids told me they were full and they couldn’t eat anymore and then 10 minutes later tell me they were hungry lol.

These false prophets were claiming that people could be without any sin at all and by themselves not sin. But this rejects the sinful nature of our hearts and makes us think that we can do this on our own. It can also give us pride “I never make mistakes” “other people are always wrong and I always know what I am doing” “why are other people that I disagree with always so stupid and wrong but I am always right?”

As believers we cannot claim to be without sin, rather we claim that Jesus has cleansed us from all of our sins.

It also means when we do sin that we confess that sin and don’t seek to pretend like it is not there or that God doesn’t care about our sins.

This is even better news because then we can say “I messed up but I can continue to grow” “ I sinned but I know that I am still loved” rather than thinking if you sin you are not loved and useless.

If we think we can be a Christian without believing there is a right and wrong then it isn’t a religion it is an allusion. “Sin is always a barrier to fellowship with God.”

The condition of us receiving salvation through the blood of Christ is that we first are honest and sincere about where we have sinned and walked in darkness. The only way to walk in the light is to first recognize that you have been previously walking in darkness. We must have our sins purified in order to have fellowship with God.

To say we do not have sin is not to “lie” necessarily but to have deceived ourselves into believing that we can be without sin. To believe we should never feel guilt or feel like we can do something wrong. Or that because we have a feeling or impulse that it is okay to act on that impulse.

We can admit our sins because God is faithful to us even when we have sinned, and He is good so if He tells us that He will forgive us we can trust what He says. But he can’t forgive what we won’t admit. If your parent says “did you do this?” but you continue to lie you don’t give them the opportunity to forgive you.

God also shows He is just in sending Jesus to pay our penalty, the only penalty that could ever bring true justice to our sins. “God is faithful to forgive because He has promised to do so, and just because his Son died for our sins.”

But there is an even more deliberate lie. That we have not sinned at all.”

If we say this we are calling God a liar because He has told us that we have sinned and we are saying that what His word says is not true.

But John uses a gentle tone calling them his “little children” because he isn’t trying to accuse them but to help them to see the truth, to see the light. He recognizes that they will sin just like he does.

But our good news is the advocate that goes on our behalf in Christ! Jesus defend our cause to the father. Christ “acknowledges our guilt and presents his work as the ground of our acquittal…Christ’s intercession is the continue application of his death to our salvation.

If we deny having sin or that we do sin then what we are saying is that we don’t need Christ, that he is unnecessary.

Reveal the truth

John is telling them that truth is important. The truth about sin, the truth about fellowship with God, the truth about fellowship with others. The truth is that if we are to call ourselves believers we must resist sin (even as we recognize that we will sin) and we must be in fellowship with God and with other believers. If we are not then we aren’t believers.

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