Walk in the Light (1 John 1:5-10)
Use this guide to help your group discussion as you meet this week.
Transcript
This is the message we have heard from Him and declare to you. God is light. In Him, there is no darkness at all. This is how we know what love is. Jesus Christ laid down His life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters.
I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God so that you may know you have eternal life. Good morning. My name is Spencer. I am one of the pastors here. So we are in the book of 1 John.
And last week we introduced this book. And when we introduced it last week, we saw that John is writing to churches in the New Testament that are dealing with some false teaching. They are dealing with some people that are leaving the faith. So John, very clearly in this letter, is outlining here are some identifying markers of what it means to be a Christian. This is what Christians look like. And if you don't believe this thing, we looked at true belief last week as a theme that is going to run through the book of 1 John.
If you don't have an obedience that is true, we looked at how true obedience is going to be a theme that flows through 1 John. We looked at true love as a theme that is going to flow through 1 John. That if you don't have these identifying markers, then you are actually not a Christian. And he is very clearly outlining as we walk through 1 John, this is what it means to be a part of the church, to be a part of the family of God. And we introduced the first four verses. We are picking up in verses 5 through 10 this morning where we are going to seek more of how this is outlined, more of what it means to be the people of God.
And we are going to see a teaching that actually shows the church to be beautiful. If we practice and embody what we are going to walk through today, we live out the gospel in a way that is beautiful and is captivating. My wife has taught dance for 15 years. And I have been around for about a decade of those years. And I have seen a lot of dances in those years. A lot of them.
At our old studio, I used to emcee the dance recitals and the Nutcracker events. So I have been in a lot of dance competitions, a lot more recitals, and I have seen some dances that are done really well. I have also seen some dances that are done not well. And if you have a darker sense of humor, which I do sometimes, they can be somewhat entertaining as they are a train wreck in slow motion. It's painful because you see that some of these students have not, you can tell they haven't worked really hard. They haven't been practicing.
And you can't tell, like they're not, you know, my wife, she taught jazz and ballet and contemporary and just all types of dances. And there's all types of lines you have to hit and steps you have to hit. It has to be coordinated. It has to be in sync. There's all these things that go into it. And you look and it's like they're not doing any of that.
This kid's looking off in the distance. This kid has a blank face. The teacher who's kind of coordinating the dance, who's trying to make sure everything's going the way it's supposed to, has this smile, but it's a fake smile. And she's panicking because she's watching all the work that they put in just fizzle out and die. You have parents that are watching, right? And they're hoping their kid doesn't break down in tears.
They're also hoping that, you know, the things that you just make it to the end and there's not a big scene. Like there's all kinds of things that are happening at once. Yet some parents, they're holding the iPad up in the air, taking video. There's all kinds of things that are a little bit humorous to watch. But when you pit those against some of the really good dances, they're done well.
Like when you see some students, you can tell they've worked hard all semester. They've worked hard all year. They have practiced and they're hitting their steps. They're hitting their lines. They're doing the things they're supposed to do. It's awesome because there's a joyous look on their face.
They're a teacher. There's a joyous look on their face. The audience, they're captivated by it. It's a beautiful thing to actually watch when everyone's in sync doing what they're supposed to be doing. Now we're looking at 1 John 1, 5 through 10 today.
And the teaching that we have in this passage is going to call the church to operate in a way where if we do this well, if we obey this teaching well, we are in sync together. We're doing what we're supposed to be doing. And when God sees the church doing this, it's joyous. It's exciting. And if we do this well, it taps into something that is beautiful and compelling that many of us long for. And that hopefully as we walk through this today, we will get to embody and see in our church family on a regular basis.
So let me pray for us and then we will walk through this verse by verse. Lord, we love you and we thank you. God, I pray that you would help us sit under the authority of your word this morning, that we might see what it means to be the people of God and obeying a teaching that is good for our souls and is good for one another. We ask this in Jesus' name. Amen. All right.
So last week, John introduces in the first four verses, he says, Jesus is a real person. He makes that abundantly clear. He's a real person. I saw him. I heard him. I touched him.
He's a real person because there was some false teaching that was saying the opposite at the time. And because that's true, he said, I want you to be in fellowship with us as we're in fellowship with God. That the goal is that you would obey these teachings that you might be in fellowship with God together. Now that's setting up the rest of 1 John. And then we get to verse 5, which is a thesis for the next few verses. But 1.5 is also a thesis for the rest of 1 John.
It is a header for everything that we're going to see. It says, verse 5, This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you that God is light. And in him there is no darkness at all. That sets up the rest of 1 John. God is light. Light in the scriptures is symbolic of moral perfection.
Of excellence. God is light. This is the perfection of God. This is the goodness of God. This is the holiness of God. This is the glory of God.
It's all the things that make him worthy of our worship and our praise. God is light. And there's no darkness in him at all. So darkness is symbolic of sin. We see in the scriptures. There's not an ounce of darkness in him.
Now, 1 John in a lot of ways operates a little bit like a commentary of the gospel of John. There's a lot of interactions that it has further explaining things in John. This is not the first time that God has declared himself to be the light. In John 8.12, Jesus says, And Jesus spoke to them saying, I am the light of the world. The Lord, whoever follows me, will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life. So the idea here is the world is beset with darkness.
It is filled with darkness. God doesn't look at the darkness and say, I'm going to destroy it. He says, no, I'm going to step into it. Light steps into darkness. And he calls us to walk in the light with him. As he steps into darkness.
And he makes it abundantly clear. At the end of verse 5. He says, no darkness in him at all. That's an extra little forceful statement. There's not an ounce of darkness. Not an ounce of sin.
God does not make mistakes. He does not commit transgressions. He is beautifully radiant. Displaying his goodness, his perfection, his glory. So he makes that very clear.
God is light. There's no darkness in him at all. Now that sets up the next four verses that we've got in our passage. Because that's true, pick up in verse 6. 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. So, what follows out of that thesis statement that God is light are five different conditional statements. It says, if we say verse 6, but if we walk verse 7, but if we say verse 8, if we confess verse 9, if we say verse 10.
All that flows out of verse 5. What he's doing here is he's making a logical argument. Based on what he introduces in verse 5, because that's true, here's a logical argument that follows. Let's follow the logic. Verse 6 says, if we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. Again, John's aim is to help him see that you are in Christ, that you have fellowship with us, as we have fellowship with God, that you are in fellowship with God.
But he says, if we say we have fellowship with the God who is light, while you walk in darkness, we lie. You don't practice the truth. So, that begs the question, okay, what is walking in darkness? Jesus taught on this in John 3. He said in verse 19, and this is the judgment. The light has come into the world.
And people love 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. Now, there are two things that are clear from there about walking in the light. The first is that walking in the light is walking in sin. He says, because their works were evil.
Because their works were evil. Now, as we're going to see in a few verses in 1 John, what he's not saying is that walking in darkness is someone who contains sin. Someone that has sin. What he's not saying is someone who actually struggles. Someone whose flame is flickering. That's not what he's getting at.
What he's getting at is that you are walking in darkness in a way that is incompatible with walking in the light. That is in direct opposition to walking in the light. But the second thing he makes note of is that those who walk in the darkness do not want to be exposed. He says, does not come to light, lest his works should be exposed. Those who walk in darkness hide. They don't want to be exposed by the light.
They don't want their works exposed. They want their sin exposed. It's hiding. So, verse 6, back to verse 6. He says, if we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness. While we walk in darkness, like what was just taught there in John 3.
We lie. We don't practice the truth. We lie, meaning you aren't a Christian. You don't practice the truth, which quite literally means do the truth. You don't do the truth. That's a little bit of James.
Be doers of the word, not hearers only. You're not doing what the Bible says. You're not practicing what you preach. You lie. You don't practice the truth. Then he continues the argument in verse 7.
But, 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. So, walking in the light is pitted against walking in darkness. All right. So, then you've got to define what walking in the light means. Now, before we define that, before we see what that means, look at what's offered.
Look at the offering. If you walk in the light, here are the two things that you get. You get fellowship with one another. You get fellowship that your soul longs for. You get fellowship with one another. It's good and it's beautiful.
And the blood of Jesus, his son, cleanses us from all sin. Cleanses us. That's the language of sanctification. God is cleansing us. He's renewing us. That the things that, that trouble you, the sin that plagues you, you get offered cleansing from those sins.
Who doesn't want that? Who doesn't want a fellowship that is good? Who doesn't want cleansing from sin? If that's what's held out in front of us as Christians, the understanding what walking in the light means is unbelievably important. So, what is walking in the light? Walking in the light is standing firmly in the radiance of Christ.
It is living in the light of the glory of God. 2.4, we're going to see next chapter says you know him. That part of the walking in the light is that you actually know God. 2.10 is going to say you're abiding in the light. It's this standing firmly in the light in a way that's different than the rest of the world. And that so much of what we're going to see the rest of 1 John is going to be fleshing that out.
With those major themes that we see. With true belief. With true obedience. With true love. But there's something that you need to know.
You won't understand what walking in the light is. You won't understand the rest of 1 John if you don't understand the important first step for those of us that are Christians. The important first step for humanity in walking in the light is found in these next few verses. And if you don't get these next few verses then you don't get the gospel. Then you don't get anything that he's going to teach next.
You don't get anything in the implications of what it means to walk in the light. So we have to understand these next few verses. It's vitally important. Verses 8-10 he says, If we say we have no sin. We deceive ourselves. And the truth is not in us.
If we confess our sins. He's 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. So part of walking in the light for us is acknowledging that walking in the light is not sinlessness.
Walking in the light is not our moral perfection or effort. It is not that. If we say we have no sin we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. That part of walking in the light is realizing and owning and facing the reality of that we have sin within us. And if you don't do that you don't understand the gospel. There's some folks that used to work for this family business.
And the family owners they have this teaching they believe called Christian perfectionism. It shows up every now and then over the last few centuries. It's this idea. It's debated even amongst Christian perfectionists what that means. But the general idea is that you can actually achieve moral perfection.
Moral obedience. A true love. A moral holistic love and obeying of the scriptures. It's a terrible doctrine. The worst version of it are those that believe you actually can achieve sinless perfection in this life. And this family who owned this business believed that about themselves.
They believed. The owner believed that they had arrived at this state of sinlessness. Now, can you imagine working for an owner that was sinless? That never made mistakes? Anytime a mistake was made, ever. It's never their fault.
It's always your fault. And it was. It was a miserable working experience for anyone that worked there. Because it's delusional. They're crazy. That's nuts.
To think that you are sinless and perfect. And that's what he's getting at. It's delusional. You deceive yourself. Now, I don't know all of you. I know most of you.
I don't know all of you. I don't think any of you are going to say that, right? In fact, it's a cultural vice to say that you're better than everyone else. Like, no one likes that in our culture. All right?
But here's the deal. I think this verse is getting at more than just admitting, oh, I'm not perfect. Everyone makes mistakes. I don't think it's saying just generally, yeah, okay, I'm a sinner in general. I think what this is tapping into is something deeper. That it's getting more specifically.
No, these are the ways in which I am broken. I am acknowledging that there is sin within me. And that sin is harmful to myself and others. And because that's true, and because that's stated in verse 8, these next two verses that come out of it are unbelievably important for how we walk that out. In verse 9, he says, 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.
The part of walking in the light, part of having fellowship with God, is that part of walking in the light, is not just acknowledging sin. It's confessing it. It is a life of confession. So, that's the logic of his argument. God is light. There's no darkness in him at all.
Because that's true. We're called to realize that we have sin in us. To walk in the light as he is in the light. When we do this, we get true fellowship with one another. When we do this, we get cleansing from our sin. Acknowledge we have sin in us.
Confess that sin. Experience forgiveness that is offered. If you don't do this, you're deceived. You're a liar. You don't understand the gospel. The logic of the argument is actually not very hard to follow.
Living that out and applying that is a different story. And that's what I want to spend the rest of our time looking at. Is how do we actually live this out? How do we actually apply this in a way that's practical for our lives? And I have three specific ways. Face reality.
Experience real confession. Enter into a confessional fellowship. We need to face reality. We need real confession. And we need to be a part of a confessional fellowship. So, let's look at that first one.
Face reality. We need to face the reality of our sin. This is not, hear me. This is not just saying, I'm a sinner. I'm not perfect. It cannot be just that.
It is facing the reality of our sin. And how destructive it is to us. And how destructive it is to one another. One of my favorite Denzel Washington performances is the movie Flight. The story of flight is that Denzel is a pilot. And he's a really good pilot.
And one morning at takeoff, as they take off, very shortly after, there's massive mechanical failure. And the plane, and he understands very quickly, this plane is going to crash. And he very miraculously lands the plane. He flies it upside down. And then eventually lands the plane. And only six people die.
They did flight simulations later on, where a bunch of pilots tried to do the same thing with the same mechanical failure. All of them crashed. Everyone dies. He flies it. Only six people die. One of them was his good friend, a flight attendant.
But in the investigation to figure out what happened in the crash, they discover in the cockpit trash can, there are two empty mini bottles of vodka. And what's also happening is we see that he is not just a pilot, he's an alcoholic. And the rest of the story is he is not really facing the reality of his addiction. He's not facing that at all. He's prideful. I'm a good pilot.
I'm the one that landed on that plane. No one else could have done it like me. He's not facing the reality. And then the airline finds out about this, and they are actively trying to keep the authorities and keep the public from knowing about his alcoholism, knowing about his drinking, knowing about that he was drinking on that flight, because it would open them up to liability. So the rest of the story is him not facing his addiction.
It's this airline actively hiding it until you get to the very end where it's at a public hearing. And at this public hearing, it's being questioned about the crash. It's being questioned eventually about the mini bottles that they found. And the legal strategy is for him to pin those mini bottles on the flight attendant, on his friend who died. That's the legal strategy. But they put her face on the screen.
And when he sees her face, he finally realizes that he cannot throw her under the bus. He finally faces the reality of his sin. And he finally confesses. And he says, Nope, I was. I did drink those bottles. I was drunk that morning.
I'm actually drunk right now because I'm an alcoholic. And when you see this, when you see someone who's absolutely, finally owned the fact that they are a sinner, and they've owned their brokenness, when you see this in real life, when you see people finally realize and face the reality of the brokenness that's within, of the sin that's beneath the surface, when you see that, it's beautiful. Because what they've experienced finally is freedom. They've experienced freedom. And some of you have been struggling for years. And you've got sin in your life, and you don't want to look at it.
You don't want to deal with it. Even right now, you're just like, how quickly can we get through this? I don't want to look at this. I want to think about this. Can we move on? And you don't want to face the reality of what's happening underneath the surface.
We need the type of freedom that is offered when we actually face reality. We cannot hide. We need to be exposed. And if you will take a step of faith and allow this to happen, if you'll do this, then you can enter into real confession. We need real confession. Once you face the reality of your sin, we need real confession.
Part of walking in the light is this. Verse 9. If we confess our sins, He's faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Part of walking in the light is this type of confession. So, what type of confession is this? Is it to God?
Is it to God alone? Does it involve other Christians? Does it involve everyone? What does the Bible teach about this type of confession? To be honest, the Bible does not give us some super prescriptive play-by-play, this is how you're supposed to approach confession. It doesn't.
It describes some instances throughout the entire Bible, but it doesn't actually prescribe. This is what it means to walk in confession. So, there are a few things we can very clearly see. Yes, absolutely it is to God. Confession involves confessing your sins to God. We see that all over the New Testament.
Let me just give you just two places that I see it beautifully displayed. In Psalm 32, David is working through brokenness and sin within him. And in verse 3, he says, For when I kept silent, my bones wasted away through my groaning all the day long. Just picture that. Many of us have felt that. But when you keep silent about your sin, when you keep silent about the brokenness within you, it eats you alive.
He says, My bones are wasting away in silence. It's groaning all day long. But he goes on to verse 4. He says, For the day and night your hand was heavy upon me. My strength was dried up as by heat of the summer. Verse 5, I acknowledged my sin to you, and I did not cover my iniquity.
I said, I will confess my transgressions to the Lord, and you forgave the iniquity of my sin. So, I was not going to continue to let my bones waste away in silence. No, I came to the Lord in confession, and He covered my iniquities. And I experienced this forgiveness that He offers. Proverbs 28, 13 says, Whoever conceals his transgressions will not prosper, but he who confesses and forsakes them will obtain mercy. Hiding your sin.
Listen, hiding your sin does not lead to prosperity. Some of you are like, I just hide this. If I don't bring this into the light, it will be better for me. The Scripture says, No, it will not. You're wasting away in silence. You will prosper, and you will experience.
You will experience mercy. You will experience mercy. Do you want to waste away in silence? Do you want to keep this all to yourself? Or do you want what He offers to be covered by His blood? Do you experience His mercy and His grace, His forgiveness and His cleansing?
Do you want to keep this all to you? Y'all, Jesus stands in the heavens right now with holes still in His hands. Still in His hands. Outstretched as our great high priest, waiting for your confession. I mean, feel the reality of that. That Jesus, the one who poured out His blood on the cross for your sins, because He loves you, because He's jealous for you, because He wants you, stands in the heavens and says, I want your confession.
I am your great high priest. I am ready to take it. That's how much our God loves you. He wants you to bring confession to Him. You don't need a priest in this life. You don't.
You have a great high priest who wants you to confess. He does not want you to carry this on your own. He does not want you to deal with this on your own. He doesn't want you to think that you can just cover this up with good works, because you can't. He wants you to humble yourself before the Lord and confess. And when you do this, the next thing that we see in 1 John, something that is beautifully displayed is a confessional fellowship, that we get to enter into a confessional fellowship.
Verse 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, cleanses us from all sin. When you use the New Testament, confess, the word shows up a lot in the New Testament. The overwhelming majority of the time, it's used in the aspect of confessing faith and confessing Jesus. There are actually only four times in the New Testament confession is linked to sins. Only four times. Two of them are described in the same event.
Matthew and Mark both describe that when John the Baptist was preaching a message of repentance, people heard the message of repentance, and they were confessing their sins publicly and being baptized. That's two of the mentions. There's one in James 5 that says, Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another that you may be healed. And then there's our passage in 1 John 1.9. So, with those mentionings of confessing sin, how do you piece those together and get a picture of what we should do? I would argue that we catch a very beautiful glimpse of a New Testament people of churches that knew they needed one another.
They knew they needed one another. I mean, James 5 in particular, Therefore, confess your sins to one another, pray for one another, that you may be healed. That's in the context of a teaching in James where if anyone is sick, call the elders and have the elders come and pray for you. He's teaching that when you're sick, the elders will come and they will pray for you. But then he shifts gears in 16 and he says, Therefore, because all that's true, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another that you may be healed.
And what's clear is that he's not just addressing physical sickness, that he's addressing this spiritual sickness as well that's within us. And he says, A regular practice of what you should do is to confess your sins to one another and pray for one another that you may be healed. That the church should practice this regularly. Confess your sins to one another. Pray for one another that you may be healed. And that is also true in 1 John 1.9.
1.9 Is directly linked to this true fellowship idea. The part of walking in the light is letting those who bear the light. We are called, as Christians, children of the light. It's letting children of the light see your sin and give you the light and give you the gospel in return. This is what we do at care nights. Which, have you ever been a part of groups?
About once every four, five, six weeks on our community groups we have these care nights. And I've heard from some of you, because I have ears, that you're not the biggest fan of care nights. They're not fun or an enjoyable experience at times. Some of you don't like care nights. I get it. So why do we subject you to them once a calendar month-ish?
Why do we do this? Because you need it. Because it is good for your soul. Because you need to live out this teaching in a way that exposes what is earthly within us. Because we desperately need one another. And this journey together and this marathon of faith together.
You need confession. You need to confess your sins to others. And we believe that community groups are a wise place for you to do it. That you have these Christians who are in your life that get to know all of you. Get to know the brokenness within you. And they get to give you the gospel.
They get to remind you of what is good. Does that mean that you have to confess your sins to everyone? No. No, you don't. If any Christian comes up and he says, spill it. You just say, first of all, that's weird.
But no, I'm not. No. I've seen people that have confessed their sins on Facebook. I don't think that's wise. But we do believe community groups are an unbelievably good place for you to actually confess your sins to one another.
If you don't, you are wasting away in silence. Your soul is decaying. You're like a closed-off cellar that gets no air, that doesn't get any light. And inside, it's just mold is growing and it's rotting the wood and it's rotting it from the inside out. When you waste away in silence, when you don't actually practice this confessional fellowship, when you don't let light in from other Christians, it's dark and darkness is growing and sin is spreading, we've got to open the door. We've got to let some air in.
We've got to let some light in. We've got to let Christians see what is earthly within us, what is broken, the sin that is beneath the surface. It says in verse 7, but if we walk in the light as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another and the blood of Jesus' son cleanses us from all sin. In college, I was discipling some guys and then I taught this section of the text and I taught them this. And I said, all right, that's basically exactly what I'm close to what I'm teaching right now. I just said, we need to walk in the light with one another.
We need to actually live this out together. And it was beautiful. I watched each of them as they, some of them for the first time were actually walking in the light and they were confessing sin and they felt this freedom, this burden had been lifted off of them. And I walked away from that and I felt like the biggest hypocrite in the world because I've never actually done that because there was still sin in my life that I've never brought to the surface. And I didn't want to trust other Christians. I didn't want to bring people into this.
I thought I could manage this myself. I'll be okay. And I wasn't. And I felt the weight of hypocrisy. I felt this, this liar that the first John was talking, I felt it weighing on my soul as I can't do this. I can't be a Christian and continue to do this.
I can't be a pastor one day and continue to do this. I've got to take a step of faith. And it took a lot. It took weeks of fearfulness. And finally, I started to. So I talked to one Christian and a couple more.
I started to finally walk in the light. And all these fears and all these outcomes that I played out in my head that were going to go so poorly, God in His grace and His mercy brought freedom. And He brought grace. And He brought mercy. And He brought this fellowship that I've been missing out on. This fellowship that is beautiful and is good.
And ever since then, I said, that's what I'm doing. For the rest of my life, I will walk in fellowship with other Christians. I will bear my soul. They will see the depths of my nature. And I want them to speak the light of the gospel into this. It is beautiful when you have Christians in your life that you can say, this is what it is.
This is what's happening at the surface. And they don't, for a moment, flinch. They're unwavering. And they declare the gospel. They speak light into your life. It is beautiful.
It is like a well-coordinated and well-choreographed and well-done dance. The church needs to be this dance where there is facing reality, where there is this confession before God, this humbling ourselves before God, this confessional fellowship where we are confessing sin to one another and praying for one another and we're experiencing this spiritual healing and this mercy and this forgiveness of sins and this cleansing of sins that's offered but you won't experience this if you don't take a step of faith. You won't experience this if you don't do it. So I want to, for those of us that are still walking in darkness, don't leave this morning.
Don't leave your community group this week. Don't leave without actually experiencing the mercies of God that are offered in this. If you don't, you will only decay away in silence. But if you do, if you do, I'm telling you, you'll experience a fellowship that you've never experienced before. You'll experience fellowship with God in a way you've never experienced before. You will experience the God who is light.
Carson's going to come up and he's going to close this in a song and I want us to prepare our hearts for worship. I do not want us to simply be hearers of this and ignore it. I want us to do the truth. I want us to do this teaching. some of you need to take a few moments and you need to just sit and pray. Some of you need to take a few moments and you need to actually consider. Have I actually done this?
Some of you haven't done this in years. Some of you actually haven't trusted other Christians in years. I'm not saying that wasn't attached to some experiences that could have been difficult. I'm saying that faithfulness here is obeying this teaching is doing the truth and in this church family we fight hard to be a confessional people that give each other the gospel. I want you to take a leap of faith. Do not leave tonight, today, do not leave this week without doing it.
Walk in the light as he is in the light and you will have fellowship with one another and the blood of his son will cleanse you of all sin. That's the promise of the gospel. Let's be a people that lives that out. God, we love you and we thank you. We pray that you would go to work on our hearts. Help us be a people that believe the gospel so firmly and so fiercely that we do not walk in darkness but we walk in the light as you is in the light.
God, I pray right now if there's anyone here that has never done this at all, if they're honest themselves, they don't even know if they believe this fully. God, I pray you'd be so beautiful and compelling to them right now. They would open up their soul and they would confess their sins to you and they would experience faith and forgiveness, the washing and renewal of the blood. God, I pray that you would help them believe the gospel. I pray there are Christians here that have not experienced this walking in the light, they've been holding on to darkness, that's been beneath the surface for decades.
God, I pray right now that you would help them take a step of faith. They wouldn't leave today without grabbing another Christian and confessing sin. But God, we need you. We need the faith that you give so that we can walk in obedience. We ask this in Jesus' name. Amen.