Who is God and how should we respond to him? Those are very basic questions that one would think we would have quickly accessed answers to as those who claim to know God. However, these are the kind of questions we sadly spend little time thinking about in our culture – even our church culture. All too often we are asking questions of what our church programs should look like, what type of flavor our singing should have, or how often we should eat together, which are not sinful things to talk about but are quite secondary to the issue of who God is and how we are to respond to him. This is the very question that I want to answer this morning. And the reason I want to deal with answering this question is because it is the question John answers in our text: 1 John 1:5-2:2.

As was mentioned last week, John has a two-fold purpose in his letter. He is writing to Christians from whom had gone a number of individuals who were now denying the basic aspects of the gospel (e.g. that Jesus had come in the flesh and that his death was necessary for the forgiveness of sins) and seeking to draw others into their heresies as well. Thus, with the believers (possibly very young believers) being shaken and tempted to doubt that which they had now placed their hope in, John writes to refute the teachings and actions of those teaching heresy and to encourage and assure those who are remaining in and holding to the truth.

Therefore, fitting with that purpose, in our text, John now declares to them a statement as to who God is and then shows three wrong responses to that (apparently those responses among the group that had gone out) and what the true and right responses should be as opposed to those actions and teachings practiced by the heretics. Thus, the text breaks down with verse 5 as the declaration of God’s nature, verses 6-7 as the first incorrect response countered with the right one, verses 8-9 as the second incorrect response countered with the right one, and finally verse 10 through 2:2 as the final incorrect response followed and countered with the right one. Therefore, as we get to look at this text this morning, it serves as a teaching to us as to what God is like and how we re to respond to him.

First, John declares who God is writing in verse 5, “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.”

In the Scripture light communicates typically two themes. First, it communicates the Lord’s revelation. That is to say, God enlightens or shines upon men, revealing truth to them. We see this in God’s ultimate revelation in Jesus Christ. John records in John 1:1-9 of Christ as the light, writing, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. 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. There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. He came as a witness, to bear witness about the light, that all might believe through him. He was not the light, but came to bear witness about the light. The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world.”

Yet, light also communicates another aspect, namely, the holiness and purity of God. Thus, for example, we read in John 3:19-21 Jesus declaring, “And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their deeds were evil. For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed. But whoever does what is true comes to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that his deeds have been carried out in God.” Do you see the connection between darkness and evil and consequently between light and purity, or morality, or goodness?

Thus, John declares the Lord having revealed himself as one who is pure and good and in whom there is no evil or impurity or immorality at all.

But this is more than just something to which we can respond saying, “Well, good, I’ll file that away in my mind and think of it should it ever prove necessary.” No, rather, we are people who are defined in relation to God. Man is distinguished from every aspect of creation in that he is created in God’s image. After the fall we are in rebellion to God, enemies of God, those under God’s wrath. As believers we are reconciled to God, children of God, those whom the Lord has justified. But everything about us is done in relation to God. Therefore, who God is and what he is like has profound effects because we need to respond appropriately to the declaration of God that John has made in verse 5.

So what is the appropriate response? John answers this by giving three inappropriate responses and then following them with an appropriate response. Thus, we will get a way not to respond and then a way to respond.

First, we cannot ignore sin, pretending that it has no effect on our relationship with God

John writes in verse 6, “If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth.” Probably this was a claim that those who had left the church were making. They were claiming to be in a right relationship with God while living in outright sin. John answers such a claim, however, pointing out that those who claim to have fellowship with God (who is light and in whom there is no darkness at all) and walk in darkness are lying and not practicing the truth.

In short, he says, “Those making such claims are wrong. They are lying.” Therefore, believers do not need to be led astray by such claims.

I moved to Paducah, Kentucky when I was going into the eighth grade. It was a very hard time for me because I had very close Christian friends in the place from which we moved. However, I was pleased to find a number of friends at my new school who professed to be believers. When we got into high school, however, many of my friends showed no evidence of knowing the Lord or wanting to obey his commands. There was regular conversation and gloating about their sexual practices and an obvious attempt to keep some things secret from me, knowing I would not approve of their actions.

And it was a hard time. I remember sitting on my couch one Friday night struggling because I felt very alone and my heart was quite envious of my friends. They seemed to have the best of all worlds. They professed to know God just like I did, but I was struggling in my fight against sin and they were giving themselves over to the seeming pleasures of sin day in and day out. This text would have been a clear answer to my envy, reminding me that though one claims to know God, if he is one who is characterized by walking in darkness, then he is lying about such a claim.

Light and darkness simply do not mix. We cannot pretend that sin does not matter and can be ignored. That is not an acceptable response to the God described in 1 John 1:5. So, what is the appropriate response?

Rather, we must walk in obedience to the Lord

This is the gist of John’s statement in verse 7 as he 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 his Son cleanses us from all sin.” Because God is light (and is in the light), so we must walk in the light. Or, in other words, we must live in obedience to the Lord.

And John adds that as we do so we will have fellowship with one another. Now, isn’t that interesting? One would expect him to say that one would then have fellowship with God. But that’s not what he says. Now, no doubt, John definitely means no less than that the individual would have fellowship with God, but I think the reason he focuses on fellowship with one another is because he wants his readers to see that fellowship with God is expressed in fellowship with one another.

With my friends in high school, I felt very estranged from them. We simply did not have the same goals. We were going after different things. They were not seeking to please the Lord. Thus, we weren’t partners in a common task, which is the real thought behind fellowship. Fellowship isn’t having a glass of tea with a Christian versus having a glass of tea with a non-Christian. No, fellowship is a partnership in the same goal, the same mission. That’s why fellowship is not a possibility between a believer and a non-believer. We can definitely be friends, but we cannot have fellowship because it entails the same ultimate goal between two individuals, and the non-believers goal will never be to live to the glory of God.

But does this mean then that John is himself somehow ignoring sin in the life of believers, even if we are trying to walk in the light? No. For John stresses that as we obey God, the blood of his Son cleanses us from every sin. That is, John recognizes that believers will sin (in fact, he makes this quite clear later), but he stresses that as we obey Christ in faith our sin has been dealt with through the cross of Christ.

Therefore, we must not pretend sin does not matter, ignoring the nature and character of God, but rather, we should walk in obedience even as our Lord is holy.

Yet, there is a second pair of responses John addresses.

We cannot deny the presence of sin in our lives

John writes in verse 8, “If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.” Apparently, again, those who had left the church were claiming that they were not sinful, that they had no sin. Again, far from John advocating that Christians somehow give off the impression that we do not struggle with sin, John says that the one who says he does not sin is deceiving himself and the truth is not in him. That is, he is lying to himself.

Throughout parts of the last two centuries it has become popular among certain groups to claim that they had somehow been transformed in such a way that they no longer sinned. They would claim a work of the Holy Spirit that brought sinless perfectionism to them. In fact, in recent times one popular preacher has stood and proclaimed on television that he had not sinned in a certain number of years. And you can imagine how this makes one among them feel.

I mean, can you imagine being a young believer and hearing all those around you saying, “It’s been ten years since I’ve sinned. How ‘bout you?” “Well, about twelve. And you?” And there you are, thinking, “What is wrong with me? Why has not God done in me what he has done for them?”

That’s probably the picture as these who have gone out from the church are entering back among the church and making these claims. So, John just sets them straight telling the believers, “Listen, they are lying. They are deceiving themselves.” John is not one to deny that believers sin. And, again, he does not advocate covering our sins so that we can always appear to have everything under control. Rather, he gives a right response to our sin in light of God’s character.

Rather than denying the presence of sin in our lives, we must confess our sins

The Christian community is not to be a community of pretending. And isn’t it that so often? We pretend we don’t sin that everything’s okay, that all is under control in our lives. John says, quit it. There is no need. Instead, he writes in verse 9, “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”

Isn’t that an interesting result as we confess our sins? John says that God is faithful and just to forgive us our sins. How can John use those words? After all aren’t we all sinners and born into this world justly under God’s wrath? Yes, we are. Therefore, shouldn’t John stress that God is loving and merciful to forgive us and not that he is faithful and just?

Well, no doubt, God is loving and merciful. But I think the reason John writes that God is faithful and just is because he wants to remind us that our forgiveness is bound up in the cross. That is, he in no way wants to think it is some kind of sappy sentimentalism that makes God one whose job is simply to forgive. No, God isn’t bound to forgive simply because that’s his job. Rather, God forgives because the payment made by his Son as he died on the cross has been credited to our account. And because that payment has been applied to us, God is now not simply being merciful but justly forgiving us, justly declaring us righteous. I think John wants to put a halt very quickly to the idea that God just forgives, ignoring our sin and pretending that it is nothing. God doesn’t forgive simply because he is loving, he forgives because he had made a way to righteously justify his people through the shed blood of his Son on the cross.

Therefore, in light of Christ’s work, we must not be people who deny sin in our lives, lying to ourselves, but rather those who confess our sins, realizing God is one who faithfully and justly declares us forgiven based on the shed blood of Christ.

Then, in 1:10-2:2 John mentions another response.

We cannot deny that we have sinned

John writes in verse 10, “If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.” Now, this seems very close to the incorrect response given in verse 8, but the possible difference based on the different tenses of the verbs used is that in verse 8 John is referring to the presence of sin in one’s life right now while verse 10 refers to one having not sinned in one’s past.

Thus, John points out that such a statement simply contradicts the Bible which tells us that all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God and that there is none righteous, no not one. Thus, if one claims not to have sinned then he makes God a liar and God’s word is not in him.

Therefore, we cannot pretend sin doesn’t matter and we cannot pretend as if we do not sin. John has made this quite clear. We must walk in the light and when we sin (and we will), then we confess our sins.

We must fight sin remembering Christ’s atoning work for us

After verse 10, it seems that John senses a need to correct their possible thoughts. For John has spent much time correcting the thought that Christians have no sin so that these believers would know the claims of the heretics were false and that they could rest secure that they had not missed out of some secret blessing of God. However, it seems that John then fears that his readers’ thoughts might then be, “Okay. That’s right. I sin. You sin. We all sin. That’s life.” And thus they would no longer battle sin. Thus, John corrects them very quickly writing, “My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin.”

John’s purpose is not to give them excuses to sin but to encourage them not to sin, after all, the God they serve is light, and in him there is no darkness at all. But because he knows the struggle with sin continues, he ends this section writing, “But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world.”

Brothers and sisters, it is good that you have hearts that want to fight against sin. That is a sign that you belong to the One who is light. However, we can also be encouraged by the reality that our sins do not put us under God’s condemnation.

This morning we can know that we have one speaking on our behalf before the Father. And he is not someone insignificant. It is Jesus Christ, the righteous one. And he is the one who died on the cross, taking God’s wrath for our sins. Is that not a glorious reality?

Therefore, as we come to the table this morning let us confess our sins, recall Christ’s atoning death for our sins, and pray for the grace to walk in the light as he is in the light. And, finally, remember that this reality isn’t something that we should celebrate and keep to ourselves, but the good news we must proclaim in all the world, for as John writes, “He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world.”

Let us go forth in obedience, as those whose sins have been dealt with in Christ, proclaiming his gospel to others that they might join in fellowship with us. His grace will be with us. Amen.

KNOWING GOD AND RESPONDING RIGHTLY TO HIM