Walk in the Light (11/5/2023)

Assurance of Salvation in 1 John

So Mark is going to come up with the scripture reading which will be from the book of 1st John. 1st John chapter 1, that's where the sermon will be. Mark's going to read the whole chapter.

So that's 1st John 1, 1 through 10. Good morning. 1st John, starting verse 1.

That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled concerning the word of life. The life was manifested and we have seen and bear witness and declare to you that eternal life which was with the Father and was manifest to us.

That which we have seen and heard we declare to you that you also may have fellowship with us and truly our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ and these things we write to you that your joy may be full.

This is the message which we have heard from him and declare to you that God is light and in him is no darkness at all. If we say that we have fellowship with him and 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 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 that we have not sinned we make him a liar and his word is not in us.

And all God's people said amen. Thank you.

Comparing John’s Gospel and First John

I'd like to talk to you today about a consistent pattern of faithfulness. A consistent pattern of faithfulness. I think that's what we see here in chapter one of John's epistle. Notice what he says in verse 7.

John writes, but if we walk in the light as he is in the light we have fellowship with one another and the blood of Jesus Christ cleanses us from all sin. So I want to start out by asking the question what does it mean to walk in the light?

Well John basically is describing a pattern of life. A consistent walk of faith and we want to make sure we have these patterns in our lives. Our Christian walk. So just the term walking here carries the idea of continual progress.

Just a continual moving forward. Light speaks of purity which of course is God's holy nature. God is pure. So if we walk in the light as Christ is in the light that is really the evidence that we are in fellowship with Christ and in fellowship with his people.

Because I think we know this. Anyone can say you know I believe. Anyone can say I'm a Christian. So how do you know? And it's not really today. It's not about you know how do you know about others. How do you know about yourself?

We want to have that assurance that I believe. That I have this consistent walk. That I am in fellowship with Christ. But how do we know? Well I think this is one of the reasons why John writes this letter.

So I want to compare just to start out with the Gospel of John. If you just want to turn to the Gospel of John for a moment. We're in first John so this is towards the end of the New Testament. But the Gospel of John you know where that is.

Matthew, Mark, Luke, John. We just want to compare how these two books line up and how they start out. Here's what we want to do. Establish why John wrote his Gospel and then why is John writing this epistle.

Compare that and then go from there. This should help us to understand the context. Notice the Gospel of John chapter 1. He says, In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God.

He was in the beginning with God. Verse 3, All things were made through him and without him nothing was made that was made. So John starts out his Gospel by highlighting the deity of Christ. Okay now let's just go back to first John and of course the whole purpose of John's Gospel if you read it through to the end.

Why did John write his Gospel? So that people might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God. So that's why he wrote the Gospel to convince people of that. But I think he wrote his first epistle to maybe add on top of the Gospel, add this assurance.

The Gospel is to get people saved. First John is to strengthen believers so that we can know that we're saved. What does John say towards the end of his epistle? Flip over to first John chapter 5. If there's any one verse that I would encourage you to memorize from first John, it would be chapter 5 verse 13 where John says, These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God.

What? That you may know that you have eternal life and that you may continue to believe in the name of the Son of God. So in other words he's writing the Gospel to get people saved. He's writing his first epistle so that people are strengthened in the faith, that you know that you're saved, that you have that assurance.

Don't you want assurance that when you die you're going to go to heaven? Don't you want to have that assurance that yes I am in fellowship with Christ and with his people, that God loves me? How do I know that?

Because he sent his Son to die for me. That's the whole story of the Gospel. So when we compare John's Gospel to this letter, there's some other similarities. His Gospel starts out as we saw, In the beginning was the Word.

Well how does this letter start out? Verse 1, go back to chapter 1. John writes, That which was from the beginning. So you see the similarity. And then he refers to Jesus as the Word of Life. So he starts out the letters in the books in a very similar way.

As some of you know, the term Word in Greek is logos. And while there's much that could be said about this term, we know that God spoke the worlds into existence. And he did it how? Well I just told you how.

How did God create all things? Yeah, he spoke. And Jesus is the Word. So you could put it this way. Jesus, God used Jesus to create all things. God created through him. Okay, so God created through Christ.

Paul says in Colossians 1 that all things were created through him and for him. And that is in Christ all things consist. So why does this matter? Well, because God the Father doesn't have a physical body.

Here's another reason why John wrote this letter. God the Father doesn't have a physical body, but who does? God the Son has a physical body. And all physical things exist because of Christ and for Christ.

He is Lord over all creation. And John in his, all of that to say this, in his writings, the Gospel of John, he's stressing Christ's divinity. But in his first epistle, he's stressing Christ's what? What's the other part of Christ's nature?

His humanity. Now for us as Protestants or Bible believers or Baptists or Evangelicals, you know, whatever term you just want to use for yourself. I like Christian these days myself. I just want to be called that, I think.

But we tend to put more emphasis on the divine nature of Christ. That's just the nature of it because that's most likely what is going to be denied today in churches, sad to say. But do you realize people were denying Christ's humanity early on in the first century?

This is why John is writing another reason to combat the heresy known as Gnosticism. So there were these teachers, the Gnostics, who were teaching Jesus didn't actually come in the flesh. So they affirmed that he was a divine being, but he wasn't actually a man.

So people today deny Christ's divinity. People back then were denying his humanity. This is why John stresses in verse one. Look at it. What does he say? We have seen him with our eyes. We have handled him like John is saying.

We touched him. Jesus was a man. He was real. We saw him. He had a physical body like us. Why is that important? Well, it's all helpful information to explain how salvation is possible. To really have the assurance of salvation, you have to understand salvation.

Why is it important to kind of go through all this and establish Christ's deity and his humanity? This is why we are saved through Christ. Christ is the bridge. This is the only way we can be reconciled to God through the God man, Jesus Christ.

God is up here. We're down here. God is holy. We're not holy. We're sinners. All have sinned and have come short. How do you bridge the gap? Well, Jesus is the door. He is the bridge because he stands in between.

So right, God up here, man down here. Jesus is our one mediator. Why? Because he is both God and man. That is the only way man can be reconciled to God. This is how Jesus was able to say in John 14 verse 6, I am the way, the truth and the life.

No man comes unto the father except through me. In John's gospel, he says, I am the door. So this is really the basis of our fellowship with God. We have fellowship with God through the God man, Jesus Christ.

So that's how salvation is possible. Jesus died on the cross to atone for our sins. He rose again the third day that we, because he lives, we might live also. So that's the basis for fellowship, faith in Christ, salvation in Christ.

Look at John 1 .1. John calls Jesus the word of life. We saw that verse 2, the life was manifested and we have seen and bear witness and declare to you that eternal life, which was with the father was manifested to us.

So going back to John's gospel chapter one, in the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God. The word came and he dwelt among us. Paul says to Timothy and first Timothy three 16, he says, great is the godliness that God was manifest in the flesh.

Walking in the Light as Evidence of Fellowship

Verse three, John says to the church members that are under his pastoral care, he says that which we probably a reference to the apostles, what we have seen and what we have heard, we declare to you that you also may have fellowship with us.

And the us is probably not just the apostles, but all the faithful Christians who are alive at that time. And indeed all faithful believers throughout history. And because you are in fellowship with the Lord and with us, you can enjoy these benefits.

He continues on. Truly our fellowship is with the father and with his son, Jesus Christ. And these things I write to you so that what your joy may be full. Do you realize that's the, that's the benefit that we have in Christ?

Not just that we're saved, but that our joy may be full. I like one of those songs that you're saying, you know, your presence is what was the line? Your presence is. Yeah. My favorite gift of all is God's presence.

Knowing that God loves us, that his spirit is present with us and we have a home in heaven. If that can't give you joy, I mean, I don't know what can. I mean, people are searching for joy and happiness and pleasure in this life.

And it's very elusive, but Christ came that our joy may be full. So what can bring greater joy than to know that you have fellowship with God, that all of your sins are forgiven and that you have eternal life?

Nothing. There's nothing greater than that. But again, how do you know? Because the devil will try to get you to doubt. Some people might say things to you that cause you to doubt. There's all sorts of temptation and things that might lure you in another direction.

So how do you really know if you're a believer? Well, you know, John wrote first John five 13. We saw the verse. I write these things so that you may know John wants us. God wants us to have this assurance, but what it sounds like, and I don't have time to go through the whole letter, but reading the epistle of first John, it sounds like he may not be completely convinced that everybody is enjoying this fellowship.

Uh, some people, you know, say things, do things fall away. We don't know exactly what John was dealing with. Uh, they had the false teachers, the Gnostics who were starting to maybe convince some people.

So how do you really know that you have this fellowship with God? Well, one way to evaluate this is, is the test that John is presenting. Are you walking in the light? And I think this comes down to that consistent pattern of faithfulness.

Any Christian on any given day, you can do something and you might think to yourself or someone might say, what kind of, what kind of Christian would do that? What kind of Christian would say, have you ever have those moments?

I know you do. Something comes out of your mouth, you do something, or maybe it's just the way you've been living recently. And you think, and you wonder, how do I really know? Well, John wants us to know again, God wants us to know.

Let's just spend a moment on the joy. This is one of the evidences that we are in fellowship with God, that our joy may be full. First John chapter one, verse four, what does it say? In these things we write to you so that your joy may be full.

So Christians should have this joy. You should at least have the joy that you're saved and that you know it, and that you know that you know it. You know what I'm talking about? Fellowship with God, that's reason to be joyful.

And just because some people aren't living and the Bible says the joy of the Lord is your strength, not everyone's walking in the joy of the Lord. And you might wonder, is something wrong? Well, we don't want to misunderstand this.

Having the joy of the Lord is not you're smiling all the time. There's one famous preacher I'm thinking of, he's just smiling, he's like got this permagrin on, he's just smiling all the time. I look at that and I think, what's wrong with me?

Because I'm not smiling all the time. You know, maybe he's like that in real life, maybe he isn't, who knows. But I don't think that's what joy is. You're always smiling all the time and that you have this bubbly kind of personality where you're always upbeat.

That's not really the point because you read about some of the greatest saints in scripture, they had ups and downs and it was just like anyone else. I think of David in the Psalms, he went through great times of suffering and some of the apostles even doubted Jesus, rebuked them for their unbelief at times.

So Christians are going to go through times of sadness, suffering, great suffering perhaps. But here's the thing about joy, our joy is not dependent on our circumstances. You know, happiness is usually what we say, talk about when it's based on circumstance.

And I realize the two are synonyms, but I think there is a difference between happiness and joy. Happiness depends on what you're going through at that moment. Some of you, maybe this weekend, even this morning, something happened and you weren't very happy, but that doesn't mean that you lack the joy of the Lord.

So we don't want to misunderstand this because this would be another way that the devil could get into our ear and tell us, no, you're not really a true believer, otherwise you'd always be happy. This is simply not the case.

That's not what you see in scripture. How do you have joy though? I think there is a way, and this is the acronym that we use for joy, J, right? O, Y, you want to have joy in your life, put who first J yeah, put Jesus first.

And then second, you put others ahead of yourself. And who comes in last in this situation? Why yourself, you, and a lot of people have that inverted, you know, it's upside down and people are self-centered.

They put themselves first. They're always thinking about themselves. It's me, me, I, I, and these are some of the most miserable people you will ever meet. If I focus only on myself all the time, yeah, I'm going to be not very joyful, but when we focus on the Lord and his goodness and put other people ahead of ourselves, it's counterintuitive, but this is really the way to have a joyful life.

Philippians two verse three says, esteem others better than yourselves. If you want the joy of the Lord, just look at where your focus is. Is it on others? Is it on the Lord? Is it on others? I think that can fix a lot of it.

Keeping His Commandments and Loving One Another

And then just ask this question. Am I walking in the light? Let's skip ahead to chapter two for a moment. So how do you know John is again, I think presenting a test. How do you know if you're saved? That's typically how we put it, but how do you know if you have fellowship with God?

How do you know if you are in fellowship with one another? Look at first John two, three, and four. Now by this, we know that we know him. And who is the him? Is it capitalized in in your Bibles? Yeah, well, that's an indication that it's, it's the Lord.

Now by this, we know that we know him. If we do what? Keep his commandments. Again, that's that consistent pattern of faithfulness. Do you break the commandments at times? Do you sin at times? Of course, every Christian does, but do you have that consistent pattern of faithfulness?

Now by this, we know that we know him. If we keep his commandments, he who says, I know Christ and does not keep his commandments is a liar and the truth is not in him. Well, that's pretty clear. That's about the most clear statement you could ever hear.

Now, why would John say that unless he saw some of the church members maybe living in open sin and open rebellion to God and his commandments? You say, well, like what? What was John seeing? Well, look at verses seven and eight of chapter two.

Sometimes you have to read between the lines. John talks about the new commandment that Jesus gave to love one another. So apparently some church members were not obeying this command. They were not loving one another.

Many church members probably, again, reading between the lines, they were mistreating one another, backbiting and all sorts of things going on. You're going to have this in a church. I mean, that's just the reality that sometimes personalities clash.

Not everyone is going to be your best friend. Again, that that's not really the point, but this seems a lot worse than that. Chapter two, verse 11, I think makes it clear that some people were even hating one another.

First John two 11, but he who hates his brother is in darkness and walks in darkness. Why would John say that? Unless that's what he was hearing or that's what he was observing. Can you imagine this? And I've never seen this in church.

I've certainly never seen it here. Although maybe it happened long ago. Maybe some of you have seen, can you imagine being in a church and seeing a brother and a sister or a brother and a brother screaming at each other, yelling at each other, arguing.

And one of them says, I hate you. Maybe it's just clear in the way they're acting that they really despise this. I mean, what, what a bad testimony that is. I won't ask you if you've ever, ever seen that, but Hey, the world's a big place.

There's a lot of churches, a lot of Christians. This has happened somewhere. It's happening somewhere right now. So something like that must've been going on. And what's John's admonition. He doesn't say, Hey, if you treated someone like that, I guess you're not a real Christian after all.

That's not what he does. He just encourages them. Well, he admonishes that behavior, but he says, walk in the light, make a change, apologize. If you don't have that consistent pattern of faithfulness, you know, if you don't have it now, start, start now.

So we started out reading in first John, the word, the word fellowship Christians are to love God, love the things of God, love one another pretty simple, but verses 15 through 17 of chapter two, we learned that some people had a love for the world, right?

And this is always one of the big things that Christians deal with. You know, the world wants, the world wants to own us. The world wants you as one of its own. We are, or we belong to who you're either of God or of the world.

Sometimes people are of God, but they're acting like they're of the world. Again, another admonition, John encourages people to walk in the light. So look at first John one, verse five, try to wrap this up here in a couple minutes, but this is the consistent pattern of faithfulness.

This is the test walk in the light. Starting in verse five, this is the message, which we have heard from him and declare to you that God is what light and in him is no darkness at all. So God is absolutely pure.

Christ was sinless. Verse six, John says, but if we say that we have fellowship with him and walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. So how do you know if you have trusted in the gospel?

Because such faith causes a person at the very least to want to walk in the light, to want to walk just as Christ walk, not in sinless perfection. Here's another thing you don't want to misunderstand about first John.

Some people have read this letter and this is the idea they've got that, Hey, if I, if I'm a real Christian, I'm not going to sin anymore. And there are some verses admittedly that that's sounds like that's what John is saying, but wait, let's go back.

Uh, you're in chapter one, right? Let's look, uh, verse eight. If we say that we have no sin, what we deceive ourselves. So this is not some sinless perfection doctrine. Uh, like some people would have you to believe.

John says, if we claim that we don't sin, if we have no sin, we deceive ourselves. Why does he say that? Cause you're not, you're not fooling anyone else. You know, you're, you're self deceived. If you think you don't sin, but if you do sin, verse nine, if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness in verse 10.

Again, if we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar and his word is not in us. But just going back to this statement, uh, this, the statement of verse seven, but if we walk in the light, as he, as Christ is in the light, we have fellowship with one another and the blood of Jesus Christ, his son cleanses us from all sin.

So let me just leave you with that idea. We want to develop a pattern of faithfulness, not to prove, not even to prove to somebody else. Cause you know, at the end of the day, who decides who's a true believer or not, you know, that that's his job.

That's, that's above my pay grade is, you know, they say, I mean, all you know about someone is based on, you know, what they say and do, but really we want to focus on ourselves. We want to have that assurance that John wrote about first John five, 13, these things I've written that you may know that you have eternal life.

I want every believer to have that full assurance of faith. I want every believer to know that they're a child of God. I want every professing believer to be a believer who is in fellowship with God and fellowship with one another.

And how can we have that assurance walk in the light, develop a reliable pattern of faithfulness to the Lord. And you say, well, again, that's not me. There might be one or two this morning listening later on.

You say, that's not me up until this moment. I I've had a very different pattern. You realize you can change that right now. First John last quote, first John one nine. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

Who is able to do that? Christ, the God, man, God is up here. We're down here. The only way we can come to God, there's one bridge, there's one door and that's the God, man, Jesus Christ. If we profess faith in him, if we say we trust in him, let's live it out.

Let's show that consistent pattern of faithfulness to the Lord. Let's pray. And heavenly father, I just pray that each one would either continue this or put one foot in front of the other to just live a life that is pleasing to you, Lord.

This is where we can find true joy, true happiness, knowing that we have a home in heaven, knowing that God above loves us. And Lord, you have displayed that love by sending Christ into the world to die on the cross for our sins.

Lord, I thank you for each and every person here. And if there's someone who does not have the assurance that when they die, that they will go to heaven, Lord, they can settle that right here and right now.

They can simply bow their head and say, Lord Jesus, I know that I have sinned. I know that I fall short. I'm not fooling anyone else and I'm not fooling myself. I realize I need your forgiveness. Lord, I pray that they would turn to the only one who is able to save their souls, our Lord and savior, Jesus Christ.

And it's in his name we pray. Amen.