THE “MESSAGE” OF CHRIST

Well, I invite you tonight to turn in your Bibles to the book of 1 John. Continue where we left off a month ago in this book. We are at chapter 1, verses 5 through 10. If you're using the Pew Bible, that can be found on page 1210, 1210 in the Pew Bibles. I'm going to begin our reading at the beginning of chapter 1, and I'll read down through verse 10, but just a reminder: we are focusing our attention this evening on verses 5 through 10.

1 John chapter 1, beginning at verse 1: "That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we looked upon and have touched with our hands concerning the word of life the life was made manifest, and we have seen it and testify to it and proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and was made manifest to us. That which we have seen and heard, we proclaim also to you, so that you too may have fellowship with us. And indeed, our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ. And we are writing these things so that our joy may be complete.

"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 word is not in us."

Well, I've asked you before: what is the most famous and well-known passage in all of Scripture? John 3, 16, right? "For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life." Well, it's at the end of that discussion with Nicodemus that Jesus makes another profound statement. He says this in John 3 19. "This is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light lest his work should be exposed. But whoever does what is true comes to the light so that it may be clearly seen that his works have been carried out in God."

The word "light" in that passage in John 3 19 has both a moral component like as in right versus wrong, evil versus good as well as a kind of revealing or exposing component, like when the light exposes what is in the dark. And what we see in that passage is: for the non-believer, the light affects them by causing them to hide, to flee. Well, at the same time, for the believer, the light has the effect of attraction. It causes them to be drawn to the light so that their works are seen for what they are, having been carried out by God. And so light in that passage produces fear in one person while a kind of confidence in another.

Well, the same thing is kind of what John is describing in our passage this evening. And so I want to approach this passage before you by considering two points: the message and the effect of the message. The message and the effect of the message.

John begins the text here with a link to what he has said previously in verses 1 through 4 with some form of the word "testify" or "proclaim." In the previous section, which we read, he says: "What they have seen and heard, they testify and proclaim." Well, here in our text this evening before us, he says: "This is the message that we've heard and proclaimed to you."

And so the first thing we note here is that John sees and thinks of himself and understands himself and his other apostles as heralds. They're heralds, men who have been commissioned to bring a message to the world: the message of Jesus Christ. He begins to present that message in verses 1 through 4, and he'll continue to present that message here in verses 5 through 10.

You see, whenever someone gets into a discussion about religion, about Christianity, about the truth of Scripture, a question that is often asked today is: "Whose truth? What truth? Who said that?" And that's kind of an age-old question, isn't it? It goes all the way back to the garden: "Did God really say?"

Now today, when this question is asked, what this question attempts to do is move the discussion from the message to the messenger. And what that shift attempts to do is undermine the message by undermining the messenger. We can imagine this sort of thing happening in John's day to the churches that he is writing to. Remember: John, in part, is writing this letter to correct the false teaching of those that he calls antichrists, false teachers and teachings which had arisen within the churches. And it's likely those false teachers were questioning the message and the messenger of the message.

So it's of most importance for John to state right away in his letter what the message of Christ is really all about. And so he does that. He does that up front at the beginning here in verse 5: "He states, 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. And so this message of primary importance.

What we have in these few verses here is none other than the beginning of a summary of the message of Scripture, the message of God, the message of the good news of Jesus Christ. What is that message? It is indeed that God is light. The message of Christianity begins with the message of God: who he is. Who is God? John says, "God is light. He is light, and there is no darkness in him at all." This is a fundamental truth to Christianity. The truth of who God is is a fundamental truth of all truth.

As it has been said, and maybe you've heard in the past, that all false doctrines are founded upon some misunderstanding about God, who he is. But John here, a master theologian that he is, he's not speculating. He's not giving us his personal opinion. He's proclaiming what he has heard, and that is that God is light.

John will go on in chapters 2 and 3 to say that God is righteous. In chapter 4, he'll state that God is love. And each of those truths and doctrines deserve their respective attention. But here in the text before us this evening, he says, "God is light. God is light."

Now, what exactly does the apostle John mean when he says here that God is light? If this truth proclaimed and declared by John is a fundamental truth of Christianity and of all truth, then we should understand what he means when he says this.

Now, the symbolism of light in the Bible has a few different meanings, but two of those meanings that stand out contextually in our text this evening, I briefly touched on in John chapter 3 when Jesus is speaking to Nicodemus. Let me read that again to you: "This is the judgment: Light has come into the world, and people love the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light lest his works should be exposed. But whoever does what is true comes to the light so that it may be clearly seen that his works have been carried out in God."

And so, as that passage states, the two symbolic meanings of light that John is using here is, first, the symbolic meaning of purity, moral purity, and the second, light as truth. symbolically As truth. As one commentator says, "When John uses light here, he's using light as purity and darkness as evil, while at the same time, light as truth and darkness as ignorance or error."

So John is using light here in these two symbolic ways at the very same time. So that when John says, "God is light and in him is no darkness at all," what he means is that God is, first, morally pure. In him is no evil. He's holy. He's perfect. He's excellent in all that he does. But then, in the second sense, light's symbolic of knowledge or revelation and truth. So that when he says, "God is light" here, John means that God is the perfect revelation of all that is true, that he is the reference point of all of reality.

I think the first symbolic meaning of light as moral purity is easy for us to conceptually grasp. Maybe the second one trips us up a little bit more, so let me give you some examples Some examples that may be familiar to us.

Psalm 119: Maybe we're familiar with Psalm 119? "Your word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path." Or Proverbs 6, which speaks similarly: "For the commandment is a lamp and the teaching a light."

Now, we can understand how the word of God, scripture and his commandments could be lights. But what about God himself? Well, we see this symbolic meaning used of Jesus again in John's gospel. In the gospel of John, first, as I already gave to you, John chapter 3, but we also see it in John chapter 1 and John 8, where we find John calling Jesus "the light of the world."

Listen to what John chapter 1, verses 4 through 5 say: "In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it."

Or John 8, verse 12: "Again, Jesus spoke to them, saying, I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.

What these passages teach is that Jesus, as God, brings into this dark world true knowledge of what life and reality are all about. Jesus is the embodiment of all that is true. He is the way, the truth, and the life.

So what John is saying here is that God is the truth, and God is holy. And these two symbolic meanings go right in line with the context of what John says after he makes this profound statement about God. Notice John says in verse 6: "If we say we have fellowship with him while walk in darkness, we what? We lie and do not practice what? The truth."

Walking in darkness means we walk in a lie and are false to the truth. We're false to all of reality, all of existence, all of what life is really all about.

Now, I know that sounds maybe a little science fiction to some of us who enjoy science fiction as if, you know, if we don't know God, then are we in some kind of matrix? But think about it, brothers and sisters: sin blinds us. It blinds us. It blinds us to what is really true. It blinds us to what life, existence, is really all about. So that we live for the futile, weak, and unsatisfying pleasures of life, all the while not realizing what life is really about: God, his glory, his Son, the redemption we can have in Christ.

So we see here that light and darkness have what I describe as an intellectual component a component related to truth and reality. Well, at the same time, there's an intellectual component. or there's also a moral component. When we walk in darkness, we are morally corrupt. We lie. We're false. We see this played out in verse 8: "If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us."

So again, we see both uses here that John is using when describing God as light.

Now, think about this reality of God is light in a kind of practical, contemporary sense. Today, if there is one truth that people reject, that people will not accept, it is that God is light the way John uses it here in this passage. Man can accept that God is love. Man can accept that God is good. Man can accept that God is merciful, that he is gracious, but the truth that God is light, meaning that he is holy and that he is the reference point for all that is true, that reality, that truth, man cannot accept. He cannot accept. He doesn't want to hear because it strikes at the very heart of mankind.

Remember what 1 Timothy 6 says about this: it says that God dwells in unapproachable light. But you see, man, in his pride, in his arrogance, in his sin, believes that he, in himself, on his own, can approach God. He thinks of himself by the fact that he just exists, that he is worthy, worthy to stand before God. And that's why, when moral responsibility of man is brought up in any kind of discussion, men and women excuse themselves. They excuse themselves. They make excuses for their moral failures. In fact, they call them things like "failures," "mistakes," when in fact they're indeed willful disobedience.

The very phrase "sin" is offensive to people, is it not? That's why churches today don't use the term "sin." They don't want to unnecessarily offend people. Everyone knows and understands what's being inferred by the word "sin": we are morally impure. That we've missed the mark of God's holiness, of God's perfect holiness. That we are morally responsible for him. And that's the truth. And that's what's contained, referred, inferred from God being light. God is light, and we are not.

Because this is what God reveals about himself, man can also not accept that God is the reference point for all that is true, all of reality. Man, in his pride and arrogance and his sin, believes and tries to claim that he is the reference point for all that is true. We hear this contained in the statement that we often hear: "What is true for you is true for you; what is true for me is true for me." What person is saying there is that they are the arbitrator of truth. They will determine what is true, not god them And so man, in his so-called wisdom, has made truth relative. He's made truth determined by his whims or desires and will not accept that it's God who is the focal point of all that is true.

This is exactly why the message that John brings here is so critical. It's foundational to understanding the gospel because acknowledging God as light means that we must humble ourselves before him and acknowledge him as he has revealed himself, not as we desire him to be. not as we wish him to be. See, God is not a concept. God is not a genie in a bottle. He's a person. He's God He's God Almighty. He is who he is apart from what we think about him or desire.

And this really leads or begins to get into the second point that we want to focus on this evening: the effect of the message. The effect.

God is light, and that truth has a profound effect upon mankind. Truth and reality is something this truth and reality is something of a divided line. Either we accept it as true, or we reject it. But either way, it's going to affect the way we live our lives. It will affect what we think, how we act.

And that's where John goes next, speaks of the effect of this message. John says in verse 6: "If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth."

No one has genuine fellowship with God and walk in darkness. It's antithetical to who God is and the work that he has done in the life of a believer. Now, someone can claim to have fellowship with God and walk in the darkness. But that's what it'll be It'll be a claim. Maybe sadly you know some people who live this way. They claim to know the Lord. They claim to believe in him. They claim to have faith and trust in Jesus Christ. But their lives show something otherwise. Their lives betray that claim. By their lives, they show that they still routinely and openly walk in darkness; they walk in sin.

I think at this point, it's important to make a a distinction here in what John is saying. John, in this passage, is not talking about Christians who struggle with sin. This passage is not talking about Christians who struggle with besetting or habitual sins. In a sense, all Christians struggle with besetting and habitual sins to one degree or another. This passage is speaking of someone who claims to know God, to have fellowship with God, and yet openly walks in darkness. This passage is speaking of hypocritical people, speaking of hypocrites.

I won't even say "a hypocritical Christian," because, in my humble opinion, there are no hypocritical Christians. A hypocrite is someone who is acting. A hypocrite is someone who is playing a role that is not really who they are. A hypocrite may claim to be a Christian, but they will not live in line with who God is that God is light and he calls us to walk in light as he is in the light.

So yes, Christians can struggle with sin, but Christians don't act. Christians aren't playing a part.

Now, you might ask: "Well, how do we know the difference?" Maybe that's something that you maybe asked yourself. Well, John gives us an answer to that question. Remember: John is writing here these epistles in part so that his readers and listeners may know that they have eternal life in Jesus Christ, as he says in chapter 5, verse 13. But here in our text, he gives us a distinguishing mark for a true and genuine Christian, and it's found in verse 8: "If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us."

A true, genuine Christian, although they may struggle with besetting and habitual sins, will always acknowledge the fact and the reality that they are sinners, That they're sinful, that they will acknowledge that it is God who is the light and they are not. It is God who is the light and has no darkness in him. But us, we are sinners. Sinners in need of the grace of God. We need the forgiveness that comes from none other than the Lord Jesus Christ and his work.

You see, we may by God's grace walk in the light, but we aren't light. God is the light, and we walk in the light only by his grace.

See, the effect of the truth and reality of God is light in the life of a true and genuine believer is humility. Humility. It's A broken heart It's a broken And contrite heart. A heart that genuinely turns from their sin, repents. And remember what Jesus says about such a heart. He says that heart is blessed: "Blessed are the poor in spirit. Blessed are those who mourn. Blessed are the meek."

While it is the proud and arrogant person who claims to have fellowship with God while walking in darkness. They think they can have it their way. They think they can have it both ways. They think they can have fellowship with God while living for themselves. But a person like that is false. They're living a lie. They're deceiving themselves. They're morally corrupt. They're false to the truth. They don't practice the truth.

In fact, John says here that they even make God to be a liar. Verse 10 says: "If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us."

The mark of a false Christian is not only their hypocrisy, but their fallaciousness. They claim to be without sin, or at best, they'll claim to not be a very big sinner. Contrary to that perspective, the true believer sees themselves as great sinners. They say, along with the Apostle Paul, that they're chief sinners. Paul says that when writing to Timothy in 1 Timothy 1. You remember that? He says there: "The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost."

Paul calls himself the chief of sinners, the foremost of sinners, the worst sinner. How can Paul say that?

Now, maybe you might think: "Well, Paul formerly was a blasphemer. He persecuted the church. He even condoned the murder of some Christians." But you see, when Paul says that he is the foremost of sinners, he doesn't say that he was the foremost of sinners. He says he is the foremost of sinners. Paul acknowledges then and there in the present tense that he is indeed the chief of sinners.

How could he say that? I'll tell you why he could say that: because he knew his own heart before God. Paul didn't compare his heart to others. And in comparing his heart to others, see himself as better than others and say, "Well, at least I'm not that bad." Paul compared himself to the God who is light and in him is no darkness. And Paul realized his heart.

Do you know your heart tonight, Christian? Do you know your own heart? Can you say this with Paul: "I, too, am the chief of sinners"?

See, it's a mark of a true Christian to be humble before the God who is light. Kind of like the tax collector, right? The tax collector who came into the temple, stood at a distance, didn't even approach, beat his breast, and said: "Lord, be merciful to a sinner like me."

Yes, the distinguishing mark of a true Christian, a true follower of God, is humble confession of their sin, that they indeed are sinners in need of the salvation that comes only from Jesus Christ.

See, one can claim to know God is light, but your life will always show the truth. And the truth is: a Christian will always acknowledge their sin and their need for Christ.

And that's why John states this beautiful statement in verse 9: "If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness."

Contrary to the reaction of those who walk in darkness when confronted with the truth and the reality of "God is light," the Christian is not to run to hide, to blame shift, to make up excuses, and be false to the truth. No, the Christian confesses their sin. They confess again. They humbly acknowledge their sin and their need of forgiveness in Jesus Christ.

And this is counterintuitive, is it not, brothers and sisters in Christ? I'm sure as many of us have been parents, were familiar with our children being caught red-handed. How easy it is we would imagine our children, caught red-handed, to just fess up just acknowledge what you've done. And yet, even though being caught red-handed, our children will come up with all kinds of excuses to excuse what they've done. They'll blame shift. They'll shift the blame to maybe one of their siblings. And that's sadly true of our hearts as well.

But the genuine Christian who walks in the light acknowledges their sin and their need for a Savior in humility. genuine Christian is honest. Confesses their sin before God. The cat is out of the bag, right? We're sinners. We need God's grace. Forgive us, Lord.

Remember what Jesus says again: "This is the judgment: light has come into the world, but people love the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light lest his work should be exposed. But whoever does what is true comes to the light so that it may be clearly seen that his works have been carried out by God."

Friend, if you're here tonight and the truth and reality that "God is light" is a fearful reality for you, I call you to hide yourself in Christ. Look to Jesus Christ in faith. Trust in him. Place your faith in him. Confess your sin and your need of him as your Savior.

See, there's no need to fear your sin being exposed when Jesus is your Savior and your Lord. John will go on in chapter four to say: "There's no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear, for fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been made perfect in love."

Friend, Jesus came into the world to live and die for sinners such as you. Trust in him. Look to him now.

For those of us who are Christians, the truth that "God is light" is a glorious truth in reality, is it not? It's a reminder to us of the majesty, the glory, the grandeur of our holy and true God and Father. And it produces in us confidence to come before his throne of grace and mercy with confidence, walking in the light as he is in the light, quick to confess our sin, and quick to be thankful for the grace and the mercy that we have in Jesus Christ. Amen.

Let's pray and thank him tonight.

Lord, what rich truths these are before us this evening. You indeed are light, and you dwell in unapproachable light. You are God Almighty. And Lord, we confess tonight that we acknowledge we are not. We have transgressed your commandments, Lord. We acknowledge our sin and our need of a Savior, Jesus Christ. Help us, Lord, to always be thankful for this message. To be confident because Christ, our Lord, has gone before us. And may we continue to walk in the light as he is in the light. We pray this all in his name. Amen.