7/27/25 “Walking in the Light”
“Walking in the Light”
1 John 1:1-10
Being somewhat of a Star Wars fan growing up, one of my favorite gifts I received as a kid was my very own - lightsaber…
I can’t even remember who gave it to me….It was probably my Mom & Dad…
(Just out of curiosity….Did anyone else here have their own lightsaber?)
Although the package it came in was labeled “lightsaber”, in reality, it was just a flashlight with a colored lens….and a long plastic tube on the end of it.
Some company really made a killing on those things!
Well….mine was a green lightsaber…just like the one Luke Skywalker had in Return of the Jedi.
For a while, I was the coolest 12-year-old around….or at least, I thought I was the coolest 12-year-old around.
Since my lightsaber was really only usable at night, I would occasionally walk out into the woods at dusk to take on any evil rodents or small mammals foolish enough to cross my path…
One night, I was having so much fun clearing the woods of critters who were undoubtedly working for the Empire, that I lost track of time and soon realized that I had gone especially deep into the forest…
At that same moment, my trusty lightsaber began to flicker….once…twice…
…aaaaand OUT it went.
My trusty weapon had malfunctioned (i.e. the batteries died)
So…there I was in the middle of the woods with literally no light whatsoever…
This was – of course - way before the days of cell phones with built-in flashlights…
So there I was…. groping around in the dark, trying to feel my way back to the house…
Every moving squirrel or muskrat sounded like a coyote…or a bobcat…or a bear.
Well…eventually I made it home, but in the process of stumbling around in the dark, I managed to break the plastic tube on the end of my weapon…
My lightsaber was now reduced to nothing more than a run-of-the-mill flashlight…a Green flashlight at that…not really good for much.
…Just like that, my career as a Jedi knight was over…
Well, today we begin a new sermon series on the epistle (Letter) called 1 John.
…And one of the central themes of this letter has to do with contrasting light with darkness….
Specifically, walking in the light of the Lord – as opposed to - walking in the darkness of sin.
Kind of like a 12-year-old kid confidently walking through the woods at night with a working lightsaber…vs that same kid hopelessly stumbling around with a useless weapon, grasping onto whatever might be around him for support and guidance…
This letter is one of my favorite books in the Bible…
It reminds us all that love for God – as well as love for others – must be central to our lives as Christians…
…and because of what Jesus did for us on the cross – we each must make the decision to respond in obedience to His will….and His commands.
John not only contrasts light and darkness in this book, but he also contrasts a love for the world vs. love for God….
He compares children of God vs. children of the Devil…
He reveals the distinction between love and hate.
If you were wondering…most theologians believe the book of 1 John was indeed written by the same John who wrote the Gospel bearing his name…
…the book we we’ve been in on Sunday mornings for the past few months.
Chronologically, 1 John (Along with the very short letters of 2 John and 3 John) were the last written of all the books of the Bible
Scholars believe that John wrote these epistles after he wrote the book of Revelation…sometime around 90 AD.
And by this time, John was a very old man….probably in his late 90’s…
One of the reasons John wrote this letter was to warn churches of a new kind of heresy that was making its way around the area…something called Gnosticism.
Maybe you’ve heard me mention this false doctrine before…
Gnosticism was a multi-faceted teaching that twisted some of the most basic tenets of Christianity.
It was born out of Greek philosophy…and carried with it the idea that all flesh is evil, and all spirit is good….so – to the Gnostics – it didn’t matter what your conduct was physically, because all flesh is sinful anyway.
They taught that the mere intellectual recognition of Jesus’ identity was sufficient for salvation
…One’s physical actions – then - were irrelevant.
….I wonder what could possibly go wrong with this ideology?
There are so many passages of scripture that refute such thinking, including John 14:15 where Jesus himself plainly says “If you love me, you will obey what I command.”….
…remember going through that passage a while ago?
Gnosticism also taught that scripture wasn’t to be taken literally….and that Jesus wasn’t fully God and fully man at the same time…
….all of these propositions are directly opposed to what scripture clearly teaches.
…But people in some of the early churches began to entertain these ideas…
undoubtedly because it was a belief system that required far less of a day-to-day sacrifice than that of orthodox Christianity…
Jesus says in Luke 9:23 “…If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.”
This means we as believers must continually strive to live in obedience to the moral standards set forth in God’s Word….
…For the Christian, Compliance to the Commands of God is not optional…it’s a mandatory part of submitting our lives to Jesus
So many false teachings carry with them a de-emphasizing of godly obedience….and – not surprisingly – these heresies can become very attractive to many people…
…whenever someone preaches an easy path to salvation…they generally attract large crowds, because – as Paul says in 2 Timothy 4 – man’s ‘Itching Ears’ naturally desire the path of least spiritual resistance…
Wherever ‘cheap grace’ is offered, there will generally be lots of people there to eat it up…
…The largest single church congregation in America has 43,000 attendees….they meet in the old Houston Rockets Stadium…
…But Sadly, their famous pastor never preaches sermons on sin…or hell…or man’s depravity…or man’s need for a savior….or the importance of obedience….
…It’s a church saturated in a modern-day form Gnosticism that essentially preaches ‘self-help’ and ‘cheap grace’…
….man has always longed for messages of salvation that emphasize his own authority & autonomy….
….Why?....because we naturally recoil at the thought of submitting to the authority of someone else – even if that person is God himself.
These are the things that John – the last living original apostle - warns against in this amazing letter to all of the 1st century churches….and to our church today…
Look with me at verse 1 (1 John 1:1)
It says “That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched – this we proclaim concerning the Word of life.”
What a beautiful way to remind his readers that he (John) – and the other apostles – lived life alongside Jesus – the Word of life - during his 3 years of ministry…
John and the others traveled with Jesus…they ate with Jesus…they witnessed the miracles of Jesus…they spoke privately with Jesus…they learned from Jesus…
The salutation of this letter is very similar to how John began his gospel…which he most likely wrote around 5 years prior to this letter….
John 1:1 begins “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God”
…then a few verses later, John reveals who the Word is (John 1:14) “The Word became flesh and made His dwelling among us.”
John is telling us in the beginning of each of these books that Jesus Christ – the Word – was indeed God from eternity past….
…and that he willingly joined himself to human flesh in order to – ultimately – give his life as a sacrifice for the sins of the world.
John is also reminding us here in verse 1 that he was an eyewitness to all that Jesus had done during his years of ministry…
He’s basically saying ”I was there…you can trust me because I experienced it”
A couple weeks ago when we had all of those storms rolling through southern Wisconsin, I was watching the weatherman on television give live updates as to the development of possible tornados…
…At one point, I remember him saying that his radar was indicating a tornado near Sauk City…but…because he wasn’t there in person…there was no way for him to validate what his radar seemed to indicate…
Then, a few moments later, the weatherman’s assistant gave him a message saying that a police officer in the Sauk City area just called to tell them that there was indeed a tornado on the ground near Sauk…
…The police officer knew this to be the case because the tornado was literally right in front of him.
…since police officers are known to be credible sources of information, the weatherman was now able to proclaim – with great certainty – that a tornado was touching down in the Sauk City area…
John is telling us here in the first 3 verses of this letter “I was there”… “I saw it with my own eyes”… “You can believe me”…”I’m a credible source of information.”
You know, John had a special bond with Jesus.
Peter, James, and John were Jesus’ closest companions…his “Inner circle”, so to speak.
…and many believe that Peter may have been Jesus’ closest friend….but – personally – I think it was John.
If you recall – when Jesus is on the cross, all of the other disciples had fled…including Peter….they had all deserted Jesus – all except for John.
John stayed by Jesus’ side until the end.
Jesus even spoke to John from the cross, telling him to look after his mother, Mary.
John was known as the disciple Jesus loved…he was indeed a special friend to the savior…
…and we are blessed to have this letter that he wrote – as well as his gospel – both of which can bring us closer to Christ as well.
In verse 4 (1 John 1:4) John writes “We write this to make our joy complete”
If you are a redeemed child of God, you will most certainly have Joy in your heart – regardless of what is going on around you.
Joy is not a fleeting emotion – it is a deep, settled tranquility of the soul…
…and it can only be manifested through a relationship with Jesus.
When speaking about love & obedience, Jesus says in John 15:11 “I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be made complete.”
Brothers & Sisters…if you are not experiencing the Joy of Christ in your lives this morning…if the weeds of stress & anxiety are choking it out…if relational pressures are squelching your ability to experience the Joy of Jesus…
…draw ever closer to Him!
Get back into the Word…Go to Him in prayer…pick up the phone and talk to a fellow believer…immerse yourself in the disciplines of the faith…
…and you will soon begin experiencing Joy once again – I guarantee it!
The famous evangelist, Billy Sunday, once said “If there’s no Joy in your life, it means there’s a leak in your Christianity.”
Maybe some of you have a leak in your Christianity this morning….maybe you feel far from the grace & mercy of the savior right now…
…maybe some sin has crept into your life that is casting a large shadow over your heart…
Thankfully, there’s a fix for that…
It’s called confession and repentance….
It’s called walking out of the darkness…and into the light…
and that’s what John speaks to in the remaining portion of our passage for this morning.
In verse 5 (1 John 1:5) we are told that “God is light” and that “In Him there is no darkness”
Folks, we serve a God who is holy, righteous, and pure.
There is no other like Him.
Often times in scripture, we see God compared to light.
During the Exodus, God appeared to the Israelites in the form of light – a pillar of fire at night to guide them.
….I could have used that pillar of light 40 years ago when my lightsaber clunked out on me! 😊
When Moses came down from Mt. Sinai, remember how his face was described as glowing from the reflection of God’s light?
At the transfiguration of Christ – something John witnessed firsthand – Jesus momentarily manifested himself as light before their very eyes.
Matthew 17:2 describes it this way: “There he (Jesus) was transfigured before them. His face shone like the sun, and his clothes became as white as the light.”
Jesus declares in John 8:12 “….I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”
…And the Psalmist beautifully writes “For with you is the fountain of life; in your light we see light.”
God’s light of life is manifested in those who love and obey Him….
There’s something about light in general that soothes the soul…is there not?
It’s often reported how there is a correlation between the amount of sunlight one receives...and one’s level of stress, anxiety, and depression.
Chronically cloudy cities like London and Seattle have always reported higher levels of depression than areas than receive more sunlight.
…I know some people that have what are called ‘Sun Lamps’ (Lamps that mimic outdoor natural light)….. they find them to be helpful in reducing stress and depression…
These are nice and all…but the one ultimate source of therapeutic (And transformative) light like none other…is that of Jesus Christ….
…It is only through belief in him that we are able to experience the light of life…the light of salvation.
Verse 6 (1 John 1:6) says, “If we claim to have fellowship with Him yet walk in darkness, we lie and do not live by the truth.”
It’s very easy for someone to say they’re a Christian…
…but if their lives show no evidence of a changed heart – no fruit of obedience – scripture bluntly says that they are lying….
….they’re acting out a spiritual game of charades.
John says those without the light of fellowship with the savoir are walking in darkness…
…like that 12-year-old-boy with a broken lightsaber walking in the darkness of the woods…
….many people today who claim to be believers are stumbling around in the darkness of sin and disobedience…
…falling into shrubs of sexual immorality…or running into trees of idolatry….
…or getting hit in the face by the branches of broken relationships containing thorns of unforgiveness
Such living is abandoning the truth of God’s Word in favor of the things of the world.
Paul describes it like this in Romans 1:25 “They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator – who is forever praised. Amen.
Brothers and Sisters…let’s decide to walk in the light of Jesus rather than in the darkness of Demons.
Verse 7 (1 John 1:7) says, “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, purifies us from all sin.”
Did you see that second-to-last word there?
ALL sin!
Does Satan ever try to convince you that something you did in your past has somehow disqualified you for receiving God’s grace & forgiveness?
Folks….that is a LIE straight from the realm of HELL!
No matter what you may have done in the past, God is waiting to provide forgiveness and restoration to your soul….
….you just need to come to him in confession and repentance…
…forgiveness is waiting for you on the other side of that humble decision of contrition.
John finishes this chapter with a beautiful reminder that even though we all fall short from time to time….God will pick us up – dust us off – and get us back on our way again….walking in the light of His love.
Our 6-month-old granddaughter Evelynn is almost able to stand on her own…
We lean her up against a footstool ad she’ll hold herself up for a few seconds….but then her little legs begin to shake under the weight of her body…
…and before long…..plunk….down she goes.
But then one of us will pick her back up and she’s able to stand for a while again….
She wants so badly to stand up under her own power, but she just can’t do it for very long in her own strength
But if Grandma or Grandpa (…or, Papa-J as I’m called) supports her backside with a hand…she can continue to stand on her own 2 feet for a very long time.
Brothers and Sisters, this is a perfect illustration of the Christian life…
..the more we try – in our own strength - to keep from falling into sin, the weaker our spiritual legs become…
But – on a daily basis - if we ask God for His hand of support under our lives…His strength is able to carry us through temptation after temptation.
It doesn’t mean we’re never going to fall….but God’s power will sustain us when our own strength would have failed us long ago.
Verse 9 (1 John 1:9) is – simply put – is one of the most comforting and joyful passages in all of scripture…
“If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.”
It’s a passage that reminds us of God’s faithfulness in cleaning the stain of sin from the fabric of our lives….
….if we humbly – and sincerely - come to Him with a broken heart of repentance over our sin.
Sin is a great offense against a holy & righteous God…
But the Grace of God…. is even greater than our sin!
Let’s Pray.