1 John 1:5-2:2 God Is Light; In Him There Is No Darkness At All
This is the message we heard from him and proclaim to you: God is light. In him there is no darkness at all. If we say we have fellowship with him but still walk in darkness, we are lying and do not put the truth into practice. But if we walk in the light, just 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 we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar, and his Word is not in us. My children, I write these things to you so that you will not sin. If anyone does sin, we have an Advocate before the Father: Jesus Christ, the Righteous One. He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the whole world.
H. G. Wells is remembered as the man who threw the whole country into fear and panic with his broadcast of War of the Worlds in 1938. During World War II he faced his own time of terrible fear. He was in London during the bombings of the great blitz. One night, during a blackout, he admitted to a friend that he was terrified, but not of the bombing. H. G. Wells was afraid of the dark. Being afraid of the dark might seem about as rational as being afraid that the Martians have landed. There are no monsters in the darkness, in your closet, or under your bed to be afraid of. But H. G. Wells wasn’t alone in his fear. Others with the same fear include Thomas Edison, Sam Houston, Mahatma Gandhi, and probably quite a few more who never admitted their fear.
I doubt that any of those men ever met, but in a way their shared fear makes them a kind of brotherhood; it gives them a bond, that there are other people who know what I’m going through, who feel like I feel, who share a common enemy.
On the evening of the first day of the week, the disciples were all together, and the thing that bonded them this night was their shared fear. They were all hiding, so why not hide together? Lock the doors, keep everybody else out. They shared a fellowship of fear— “Everybody in this room with me,” they thought, “knows how I feel, shares my fear, and has a common enemy with me. That makes them my brothers and sisters. We’re all one here.”
The disciples’ fear probably seemed a bit more rational and justified than people believing the Martians were going to attack or being afraid of harmless, common, everyday (or every night) darkness. The disciples were afraid of the people who put Jesus to death. And it wouldn’t be long before some of Christ’s followers found themselves under arrest, and the first of them would be martyred for his faith. So they had a good reason to be afraid. Or did they?
If they knew Jesus—if they knew his power, they knew his promises, and they knew who he truly was—then there was nothing to be afraid of. Jesus could and would protect them. And if they found themselves in the hands of their enemies, it was God’s will, and it would turn out for the best, either their deliverance from prison, or their deliverance from this life to the glories of heaven.
On the evening of the first day of the week, Easter Sunday, it was fear that bonded the disciples into a close fellowship. But if you’re afraid of the dark, there is a simple solution: turn on the light. John writes today that God is light. “In him there is no darkness at all.” And John explains how this light gives all of us a close fellowship, oneness, and a bond of unity with each other. We have fellowship with each other because we all share the same fellowship with God.
John explained that in the verses just before our text, verses that served as our text last Sunday. He said, “We are proclaiming what we have seen and heard also to you, so that you may have fellowship with us. Our fellowship is with the Father and his Son Jesus Christ.” We have peace with God. We have his love and his abiding presence. We have seen and known Jesus Christ, God’s Son, so we have seen the light. And you and I have that in common, and that gives us a bond of unity with each other. Everybody in this room knows how I feel, shares not my fears but my hopes, my faith, and my devotion.
And, yes, like the disciples we can say that everyone here shares a common enemy, and for us that enemy is the darkness. To those who have seen the light and live in the light, darkness is the enemy. The problem is, we don’t always fear it. John is talking about the darkness that is sin. “If we say we have fellowship with (God) but still walk in darkness, we are lying and do not put the truth into practice.”
“What fellowship does light have with darkness?” Jesus once said. By definition, darkness is the absence of light, and utter darkness the complete absence of any light at all. When light shows up, darkness flees. They can’t share the same space. They can’t be buddies who hang out together and talk about all the things they have in common. There is no oneness there, no fellowship between polar opposites.
The same applies to our fellowship with God. God is light. John didn’t say God is in the light; God is light. In him there is no darkness at all, and there can’t be. Darkness is the absence of light. If we have fellowship with God, we have an inseparable bond with the light of goodness, truth, purity, love, righteousness, and faithfulness. What bond of unity or fellowship can any of those things have with the darkness of sin, rebellion, hatred, selfishness, pride, envy, or untrustworthiness?
It is our fellowship with God that gives us a bond of oneness and fellowship with each other. It’s not our fear of the dark, but our love of the light that we share in common with each other. But what if I look deep down inside myself, and I find a lingering shadow of darkness? Does that mean I don’t really have fellowship with God, or with all of you who don’t share my particular sin, weakness, and shameful sort of darkness?
Nothing could be farther from the truth. We have this bond of unity, of family and oneness, with each other, not because we’re perfect and nothing but light through and through, but because we all have a fellowship with the only one who is nothing but light, through and through. In fact, John says that if you look deep down inside yourself and you don’t find any darkness hidden there, then you’re just not looking hard enough, or honestly enough. “If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.” If we say that we have no darkness, that doesn’t make us the light; it just makes us liars. And we are lying not just to each other, but to ourselves and to God.
You know you can’t lie to God. His light penetrates every nook and cranny of your heart and reveals the truth. You can lie to yourself, but you’re just hurting yourself when you do. And yet we still do it. Even though we confess every Sunday that we have sinned in thought, word, and deed, every other day of the week (and Sunday, too), we find opportunities to lie to ourselves, each time we make excuses for our sins. We try to turn darkness into light by pretending we had a good and perfectly rational and justifiable reason for doing what we know was wrong.
Sin is something we all have in common. The temptation to make excuses for our sins is something we all have in common. But having this bit of darkness in common does not form the basis for any kind of fellowship or unity with each other. Every sin we commit hurts our unity with our brothers and sisters and with God. Sin tears apart relationships and families; it destroys our ability to trust one another and makes it a lot harder to hold nothing but good and kind thoughts toward each other. Sin is the darkness. But finding that darkness inside myself doesn’t mean our fellowship and unity with each other and with God is gone or hopeless or not worth striving for.
There’s a bit of darkness in all of us, but rather than deny it or ignore it or allow it to become our daily habit and lifestyle, we confess it, to God and to each other. “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” And if we cherish our fellowship with God and with each other, then we will also forgive each other their sins against us and do all we can to restore the light, the love, and the bonds of peace that sin would destroy.
If we walk in the darkness, that is, if we make sin and darkness our everyday habit and lifestyle, and we feel no remorse, repentance, or desire to walk in the light, then the darkness has won, and there is no light in us; no fellowship with God is left. But as long as we cherish the light and oppose the deeds of darkness, trust in God’s forgiveness and seek his help to stop sinning, then finding such lingering shadows and dark corners inside our hearts does not mean we have lost the light and despair of fellowship with God. It means we have stopped lying to ourselves, deceiving ourselves into thinking we are perfect and holy, and it means we are ready to make use of the light to push back the shadows and darkness.
John has two important points to make about sin. One is that we can’t deny that we are sinners or that we continue to sin, in spite of having seen the light and wanting desperately to live a god-pleasing life of faith and love. Repent, confess, receive God’s forgiveness, amend your sinful life as best you can, as God enables you, and always be ready to offer that same forgiveness to others.
The second point is that the whole point is not to sin. Some people think that talking too much about forgiveness or making forgiveness too easy, free, and always available, will encourage people to sin. Why not sin if I can always be sure of forgiveness afterwards? But forgiveness does not make sin more acceptable or tolerable; it makes it more unthinkable. How can I go on sinning against my Lord and Savior who loved me so much that he died for me to win forgiveness for me? How can I go on sinning against my neighbor, whom Jesus loved just as much, when I know that sin hurts us both, hurts all three of us: me, my neighbor, and my Savior who is always right there with us? “My children, I write these things to you so that you will not sin. If anyone does sin, we have an Advocate before the Father: Jesus Christ, the Righteous One. He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the whole world.”
Christ is risen; he lives to guide me with his love and to plead for me above. He lives to forgive all my sins and to help me turn away from sinning. He is the Light of the world, and he lives to make each of us lights in this dark world, that all might see his light and his salvation. In Jesus’ name. Amen.
This is the message we heard from him and proclaim to you: God is light. In him there is no darkness at all. If we say we have fellowship with him but still walk in darkness, we are lying and do not put the truth into practice. But if we walk in the light, just 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 we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar, and his Word is not in us. My children, I write these things to you so that you will not sin. If anyone does sin, we have an Advocate before the Father: Jesus Christ, the Righteous One. He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the whole world.
H. G. Wells is remembered as the man who threw the whole country into fear and panic with his broadcast of War of the Worlds in 1938. During World War II he faced his own time of terrible fear. He was in London during the bombings of the great blitz. One night, during a blackout, he admitted to a friend that he was terrified, but not of the bombing. H. G. Wells was afraid of the dark. Being afraid of the dark might seem about as rational as being afraid that the Martians have landed. There are no monsters in the darkness, in your closet, or under your bed to be afraid of. But H. G. Wells wasn’t alone in his fear. Others with the same fear include Thomas Edison, Sam Houston, Mahatma Gandhi, and probably quite a few more who never admitted their fear.
I doubt that any of those men ever met, but in a way their shared fear makes them a kind of brotherhood; it gives them a bond, that there are other people who know what I’m going through, who feel like I feel, who share a common enemy.
On the evening of the first day of the week, the disciples were all together, and the thing that bonded them this night was their shared fear. They were all hiding, so why not hide together? Lock the doors, keep everybody else out. They shared a fellowship of fear— “Everybody in this room with me,” they thought, “knows how I feel, shares my fear, and has a common enemy with me. That makes them my brothers and sisters. We’re all one here.”
The disciples’ fear probably seemed a bit more rational and justified than people believing the Martians were going to attack or being afraid of harmless, common, everyday (or every night) darkness. The disciples were afraid of the people who put Jesus to death. And it wouldn’t be long before some of Christ’s followers found themselves under arrest, and the first of them would be martyred for his faith. So they had a good reason to be afraid. Or did they?
If they knew Jesus—if they knew his power, they knew his promises, and they knew who he truly was—then there was nothing to be afraid of. Jesus could and would protect them. And if they found themselves in the hands of their enemies, it was God’s will, and it would turn out for the best, either their deliverance from prison, or their deliverance from this life to the glories of heaven.
On the evening of the first day of the week, Easter Sunday, it was fear that bonded the disciples into a close fellowship. But if you’re afraid of the dark, there is a simple solution: turn on the light. John writes today that God is light. “In him there is no darkness at all.” And John explains how this light gives all of us a close fellowship, oneness, and a bond of unity with each other. We have fellowship with each other because we all share the same fellowship with God.
John explained that in the verses just before our text, verses that served as our text last Sunday. He said, “We are proclaiming what we have seen and heard also to you, so that you may have fellowship with us. Our fellowship is with the Father and his Son Jesus Christ.” We have peace with God. We have his love and his abiding presence. We have seen and known Jesus Christ, God’s Son, so we have seen the light. And you and I have that in common, and that gives us a bond of unity with each other. Everybody in this room knows how I feel, shares not my fears but my hopes, my faith, and my devotion.
And, yes, like the disciples we can say that everyone here shares a common enemy, and for us that enemy is the darkness. To those who have seen the light and live in the light, darkness is the enemy. The problem is, we don’t always fear it. John is talking about the darkness that is sin. “If we say we have fellowship with (God) but still walk in darkness, we are lying and do not put the truth into practice.”
“What fellowship does light have with darkness?” Jesus once said. By definition, darkness is the absence of light, and utter darkness the complete absence of any light at all. When light shows up, darkness flees. They can’t share the same space. They can’t be buddies who hang out together and talk about all the things they have in common. There is no oneness there, no fellowship between polar opposites.
The same applies to our fellowship with God. God is light. John didn’t say God is in the light; God is light. In him there is no darkness at all, and there can’t be. Darkness is the absence of light. If we have fellowship with God, we have an inseparable bond with the light of goodness, truth, purity, love, righteousness, and faithfulness. What bond of unity or fellowship can any of those things have with the darkness of sin, rebellion, hatred, selfishness, pride, envy, or untrustworthiness?
It is our fellowship with God that gives us a bond of oneness and fellowship with each other. It’s not our fear of the dark, but our love of the light that we share in common with each other. But what if I look deep down inside myself, and I find a lingering shadow of darkness? Does that mean I don’t really have fellowship with God, or with all of you who don’t share my particular sin, weakness, and shameful sort of darkness?
Nothing could be farther from the truth. We have this bond of unity, of family and oneness, with each other, not because we’re perfect and nothing but light through and through, but because we all have a fellowship with the only one who is nothing but light, through and through. In fact, John says that if you look deep down inside yourself and you don’t find any darkness hidden there, then you’re just not looking hard enough, or honestly enough. “If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.” If we say that we have no darkness, that doesn’t make us the light; it just makes us liars. And we are lying not just to each other, but to ourselves and to God.
You know you can’t lie to God. His light penetrates every nook and cranny of your heart and reveals the truth. You can lie to yourself, but you’re just hurting yourself when you do. And yet we still do it. Even though we confess every Sunday that we have sinned in thought, word, and deed, every other day of the week (and Sunday, too), we find opportunities to lie to ourselves, each time we make excuses for our sins. We try to turn darkness into light by pretending we had a good and perfectly rational and justifiable reason for doing what we know was wrong.
Sin is something we all have in common. The temptation to make excuses for our sins is something we all have in common. But having this bit of darkness in common does not form the basis for any kind of fellowship or unity with each other. Every sin we commit hurts our unity with our brothers and sisters and with God. Sin tears apart relationships and families; it destroys our ability to trust one another and makes it a lot harder to hold nothing but good and kind thoughts toward each other. Sin is the darkness. But finding that darkness inside myself doesn’t mean our fellowship and unity with each other and with God is gone or hopeless or not worth striving for.
There’s a bit of darkness in all of us, but rather than deny it or ignore it or allow it to become our daily habit and lifestyle, we confess it, to God and to each other. “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” And if we cherish our fellowship with God and with each other, then we will also forgive each other their sins against us and do all we can to restore the light, the love, and the bonds of peace that sin would destroy.
If we walk in the darkness, that is, if we make sin and darkness our everyday habit and lifestyle, and we feel no remorse, repentance, or desire to walk in the light, then the darkness has won, and there is no light in us; no fellowship with God is left. But as long as we cherish the light and oppose the deeds of darkness, trust in God’s forgiveness and seek his help to stop sinning, then finding such lingering shadows and dark corners inside our hearts does not mean we have lost the light and despair of fellowship with God. It means we have stopped lying to ourselves, deceiving ourselves into thinking we are perfect and holy, and it means we are ready to make use of the light to push back the shadows and darkness.
John has two important points to make about sin. One is that we can’t deny that we are sinners or that we continue to sin, in spite of having seen the light and wanting desperately to live a god-pleasing life of faith and love. Repent, confess, receive God’s forgiveness, amend your sinful life as best you can, as God enables you, and always be ready to offer that same forgiveness to others.
The second point is that the whole point is not to sin. Some people think that talking too much about forgiveness or making forgiveness too easy, free, and always available, will encourage people to sin. Why not sin if I can always be sure of forgiveness afterwards? But forgiveness does not make sin more acceptable or tolerable; it makes it more unthinkable. How can I go on sinning against my Lord and Savior who loved me so much that he died for me to win forgiveness for me? How can I go on sinning against my neighbor, whom Jesus loved just as much, when I know that sin hurts us both, hurts all three of us: me, my neighbor, and my Savior who is always right there with us? “My children, I write these things to you so that you will not sin. If anyone does sin, we have an Advocate before the Father: Jesus Christ, the Righteous One. He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the whole world.”
Christ is risen; he lives to guide me with his love and to plead for me above. He lives to forgive all my sins and to help me turn away from sinning. He is the Light of the world, and he lives to make each of us lights in this dark world, that all might see his light and his salvation. In Jesus’ name. Amen.
