1 John 1: 5

Order of Service

• Preparation — Reading from Psalm 32:5
• Call to Worship — Lamentations 3:22-24
• Hymn — Great Is Thy Faithfulness (#32)
• Prayer of Invocation
• Psalm Reading — Psalm 32 (Responsive)
• Hymn — Psalm 32 (#551)
• Pastoral Prayer
• Scripture Reading — 1 John 1:5-10
• Sermon
• Hymn — Great King of Nations (#713)
• Benediction — 2 Corinthians 13:14

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Sermon Title: Walking in the Light

Scripture: 1 John 1:5-10

I. Walking in the Light Is Fellowship with God

A. The central declaration: God is light and in him is no darkness at all (1 John 1:5)

1. In the Greco-Roman world, gods were morally reprehensible; this mindset was creeping into the church
2. Greek dualism held that the body was a mere envelope — one could do anything with the body and still have fellowship with God
3. John counters: your moral life is an indicator of your fellowship with a morally pure God

B. Two types of walking in darkness

1. Unsound doctrine of God — those who blatantly practice darkness in public with no shame, because they have a wrong view of God's holiness
2. Sound doctrine, secret darkness — those who say all the right things publicly but live in hidden sin; Luke 12:2 — nothing covered will not be revealed
3. Only God and the individual know what is done in secret; the omniscient and omnipresent God sees all

C. To claim fellowship with God while walking in darkness is a lie — in word and in conduct (1 John 1:6)

II. Walking in the Light Is Fellowship with the Church

A. 1 John 1:7 — walking in the light produces fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus cleanses from all sin

1. John surprisingly names fellowship with the body, not just with God, as the fruit of walking in the light
2. Fellowship with the body is not the condition for Christ's blood covering us, but a manifestation of it

B. Historical problems in the early church paralleled today

1. Greek dualistic factionalism prized individual spiritual enlightenment and created a spiritually elite class
2. Greco-Roman social structure discouraged fellowship across class lines

C. The church fathers and reformers consistently tied salvation to the church

1. Cyprian: "You cannot have God as your father if you do not have the church as your mother"
2. Calvin's Institutes: beyond the pale of the church, no forgiveness of sins, no salvation can be hoped for
3. Westminster Confession 25.2 — outside the visible church there is no ordinary possibility of salvation

D. Modern evangelicalism often downplays ecclesiology in order to preserve soteriology — but the two are organically tied together

1. Evidence of walking in the light: serving the body, feeding on the ordinary means of grace, fellowship with brothers and sisters in Christ

III. Walking in the Light Is Fellowship with Self — Honest Knowledge of One's Own Sin

A. Calvin's Institutes opens with the inseparable connection between knowledge of God and knowledge of self

B. The Greek dualists and Gnostics lacked true self-knowledge; they did not see themselves as sinners before a holy God

C. Two aspects of sin addressed in the passage

1. 1 John 1:8 — "sin" as a noun: our sin nature, the inherent principle of sin; to deny it is self-deception
2. 1 John 1:10 — "sinned" as a verb: actual transgressions proceeding from our sin nature; to deny them is to make God a liar
3. Westminster Shorter Catechism Q&A 18: original sin (the sin nature) gives rise to all actual transgressions

D. The promise of 1 John 1:9 — if we confess, God is faithful and just to forgive and cleanse from all unrighteousness

1. Faithful — God's faithfulness to his covenant promises established in the blood of Christ; the New Covenant in Christ's blood guarantees his reception of our confession
2. Just — God retains his justice in forgiving sin because Christ absorbed the full just wrath of God on our behalf; Romans 3:23-26 — God is both just and justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus

E. Illustration: viewing a solar eclipse

1. Without proper glasses, the sun blinds — outside of Christ, God's blazing holiness is terrifying and drives us away
2. Through the "glasses" of Christ — his propitiation at the cross — God's light and purity become beautiful and draw us into confession, forgiveness, and life in his presence