Stories, Part 2

Walking in the light, in right relationship with God, requires walking in authentic relationship with other believers. It means being open about our failures—to God and others—rather than just trying to save face.

This message is based on 1 John 1:5-10.  To read now, click here.
 
 
 
This is the second week in our new series titled, Stories.  The basic idea behind this series is that everybody has a story, and as we share our stories in our community of faith, we build each other up.  And when we share our stories outside the community of faith, others hear the story of God that has shaped our story. 
 
Last week we saw some of the biblical mandates for sharing our story, especially the command to be God’s witness where we are, with those we might not normally talk to, and even to the ends of the earth, and saw some ways we can do that.
 
Essentially our story can be about anything that we could do because of Jesus in our lives.  It’s often about our conversion, and we might talk about what our life was like before we came to faith, a little about our coming to faith, how did we come to know Jesus is Lord, and then how our life has changed as a result of knowing Jesus. But our story doesn’t have to be about our conversion experience.  It could be about anything that we got through because of Jesus.  We have all seen God work, think about those times, and don’t be afraid to share those times. 
 
Today we are going to talk about being authentic, and that means we have to be honest with ourselves, and with each other.  We are going to look at a couple points from our reading this morning that explains the need for this honesty, this authenticity.
 
1. God is Light.  This statement is the very summary of the Gospel message, and gives it to us in to parts.  First, there is a positive part – God is Light, meaning that God is absolutely holy.  The second part, or the flip side, the negative part, in Him there is no darkness or sin at all.
 
From this point, John goes on to deny three different assertions, each of them were a heresy. First, Knowing Christ but living in sin.  Some thought they could say they have a fellowship with Him, even though they continued to live in sin, or darkness.  John counters that claim by saying that we walk in the light, and in doing so, we have fellowship, or a relationship with each other, and the blood of Christ cleanses us form any inadvertent sin.
 
Second, Having no sinful nature.  The next assertion, also a heresy, was to claim that you had no sin, or no sin nature.  In this one, they claimed one of two things, either their sinful nature had vanished when they came to faith, it just went away, or they had progressed to the point that they felt they were no longer capable of sinning.  John points out that they are deceiving themselves.  Remember Paul’s struggles with sin, and Paul may have progressed beyond anyone in the New Testament, yet he was candid about his struggle with sin.
 
Third, committing no sins.  In this assertion, people would claim that they had never sinned, and therefore don’t need a savior.  We are reminded of passages like Romans 2:23, which remind us that “we have all sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”  To claim otherwise, is to say that God himself is a liar.  So the main point here is that God is light, and in him is no darkness.
 
2. Through this light, we have fellowship with one another.  In our last series, we looked at the roles of the church, and we looked at things like fellowship, and growth, and dealing with conflict, and helping others who might be struggling.  Those things only happen when we are in the light.  In our reading, in verse 7, John wrote, “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.”
 
The fellowship we experience here comes from our gathering in Jesus’ name, in our walking in the light as He is in the light.  The encouragement we get from each other in times of struggles, the growth we experience together in small groups and Sunday school, come because we are walking in the light, and as John wrote, if we walk in the light, we have fellowship with one another.  So true fellowship comes as we walk together in Christ’s footsteps. 
 
3.  If we confess He will forgive, if we deny, His word has no place in us.  We have to be honest about our walk.  Do you understand that you are a sinner saved by grace?  John wrote in verse 8, “If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.”  I think this is something we struggle with.  We like to give the impression that everything is good, everything is under control.  But is it really?
 
I know a person who loves snapchat.  She’ll take selfies all the time, and she doesn’t take just one or two, she’ll take like twenty at a time, and then go through them all and pick out the best.  Then she’ll run that through some filters to clean up the colors, make her complexion look better, get herself in the very best light.  And some of the pictures she posts don’t even really look like her.  We do this in the church, too.  We walk around covering up our true selves, afraid of what others might think if they knew who we really were, or what we really struggle with.
 
Tony Evans wrote a Book of Illustrations, and in one of the illustrations, he said, a fake id is normally used to give the impression that a young person is older than they really are.  Many Christians come to church with a fake id, one that gives the impression that all is well when it’s not.  We show an id of harmony when are lives are in complete discord.  We show an id of having it all together when we don’t even know if we still have all the parts.  God saved us for authentic relationship and fellowship with one another.  But we need to be honest with each other if we ever want to experience the grace that comes from those relationships.
 
We’ve got to stop hiding the things we struggle with.  We’ve got to get them into the open so we can start dealing with them, so our brothers and sisters in Christ can come alongside us and help to carry our burdens.  We’ve got to be honest with who we are, and where we can be better, and we’ve got to be helping each other be better.  It is in this journey, in this fellowship, that the blood of Christ purifies us. 
 
We had a lot of mold in the basement of the house in Almond.  We had gone around with a spray bottle of diluted bleach and sprayed the walls and ceiling, but in a month or so, it would be back.  The basement was damp, and damp and dark are perfect conditions for mold to grow.  We started leaving a light on all the time, and the mold problem got considerably better.  Just like mold, sin grows in the dark.  The more we try to hide it, the more power it has over us.  Get your issues in the light, confess them to one another, and we can help each other get past them.
 
One final thought, in verse 9, John wrote, “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.”  One thing that makes Greek a little harder to understand is that they have so many different tenses.  We have past, present, and future tense.  But in Greek, there are nine tenses.  The word confess here is what they call a present subjective active tense.  That sounds confusing, but what it means is that it’s something that is repetitive, continual and ongoing.  In other words, confessing our sin isn’t a one-time thing when we get saved; it’s a continual action, something we have to do regularly. 
 
How often do you wash your hands?  As often as they get dirty?  How often then should we confess our sins? Confess to them to God to receive His forgiveness, but then confess them to each other and receive help as battle those sins in the future.