Sunday School | 1 John

Introduction

Alright. Stephanie, are we good? Are you ready? Alright. You guys, we're almost done. We have been at this for months. We're at in 1 John. What we're doing is every week, we're picking one book of the New Testament to study and overview so that when you go back and read it, you'll know what you're looking for. And we have finished all of Paul's letters. All the gospels, I think. Did we finish them all? No. We did. I think we did them all. I think we've done all the gospels, all of Paul's letters. If I'm not mistaken, all we have left is 1 John, we will do today. And then 2 and 3 John, and if you'll forgive me, we're gonna do those in one week because they're this big, tiny. We'll do those. And I think it's just Hebrews and Revelation. I'll double check, but we're pretty close. So let's take a look at 1 John.

This is when we say 1 John, it can be confusing if you're not familiar with how the Bible's laid out. There's a guy named John, and he gets five books in the New Testament. There's John, which is really his gospel, his biography about Jesus' life. Are we murmuring today? We're just footstep-y. Thanks, Aaron. Thank you, Aaron. John's gospel is just named John. And then 1 John, you'll see written. The way we pronounce it is 1 John. What it means is John's first letter, John's first epistle. The first epistle of John, you can call it whatever you want, but we call it 1 John. And then there's 2 John and 3 John as his second and third epistles. And then he also wrote Revelation.

Major Themes and Purpose of 1 John

So what do you guys know about 1 John? Chris. Written by John. And it's got an awesome first. This is parallel about John 3:16 and John 4:7. And both of those are some of the most, at least on social media, the most out-of-context verses used to explain Christ. That God's love the world, that yep. But then also that God is love. Talking about Christ. That we need to love because he loved first rather than God is love so yes. Okay. Excellent. So what Chris is saying is that one of the major themes of John's letter is love. And in fact, that's probably the most famous verse in the Bible, of course, John 3:16, God so loved the world.

In John's gospel, he calls himself the disciple whom Jesus loved. Love is a major theme in all of John's writings, including in 1 John. It's where he says that God is love. He talks a great deal about love. He's very stark, very simple vocabulary in John, but rather complex kind of prose, essentially. So good. God is love. Big deal. You saying something, Bob? You just—I was gonna answer the next question as far as another thing is that we may know. We may know what is eternal life. That's what we may know. And we're gonna I'm gonna spend a fair bit of time unpacking that. But probably the most recurrent phrase in John, there's a couple maybe terms that occur more frequently, but in terms of recurrent phrases, we know, we know, we know, we know, we we know. That if you wanna really understand what's going on in John, in John's letter, you have to understand what is it he wants us to know. What does he think we already know? What are we supposed to know? So we'll spend some time. We'll unpack that. It's absolutely true. Michael? His connection in John 1 and 1 John 1 where he talks about in the beginning was the Word. Yeah. And on the retrospective side, whom our eyes have seen, our hands have handled, the Word of Life. Yes. That connection of the pre-incarnate and then after the, you know, the Christ went to heaven gives kind of retrospect of here's what we actually experienced.

Very good. Okay. So what Michael is saying is it's just kinda interesting. Each letter has a prologue. Not each letter, but John's Gospel, John 1, and then 1 John the letter. They each have a prologue. And it would be interesting, I think, for anybody to go through. Just read the prologue of John's Gospel. Read the prologue of his first epistle and just see what observations you can make there. Michael's pointing out that in the gospel, it's written, you know, its vantage point is pre-eternity. Right? In the beginning, right, the Word was with God, the Word was God. It's super early in the framing of things. And then in the prologue of 1 John, he's no longer going back to eternity past. He's talking about the present moment. It's very sensory. That which we've seen, touched, tasted, licked. Like it's all right here what we've done. You can go back and you can—was that close to you? Is that a little bit too much? And in fact, on the back on the bottom, I've listed those two prologues. I did not make any observations for you, but there's all kinds of stuff you could mind there. So that would be that'd be worth doing.

Excellent. Okay. One or two more observations about 1 John? Things you've seen, things you've noticed, or even that you're curious about. First John. First John. We're good? Okay. Yeah. Chris. The we know is all in there. It's always struck me like there's a—there's a, it's very like hard on sin and being like, you if you don't love, you don't know God. Or if you don't obey, you don't know God. It's very like straightforward. It's always struck me like, I'm supposed to give confidence, but it doesn't always—Yes. That's—that's excellent. So what Chris is saying, this is—and this is a, this is a peculiar fact of John. So John is the one who wrote the gospel of John where Jesus is described as coming from the Father with two very particular descriptors. Do you remember what he says in John 1 about this? That Jesus came from the Father full of grace and truth. And John, it seems, embraces this. So on the one hand, he is so gracious. He's the one who says, We have one who speaks to the Father in our defense, Jesus Christ, the righteous one. He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins. Not only for our sins, but also for the sins of the whole world. It's an incredibly gracious construction. And he's gonna be like, he's just gonna call stuff out in no uncertain terms. Like it's impossible for you to, if you say that you love God but you hate your neighbor, it's like BS basically is what he's gonna say. Okay? So it's, he is high high truth, high high grace. He's he's both of those things. Right? Excellent. Gil? He also says that faith about works is dead. That's James. Okay? So but you're right. So James, he picks up John's starkness. What made you think about that is that John and James are both very terse in telling things like it is. Right? And yet they both live under the grace of the Lord. So very good. Okay. One more, are we good? First John, anything you're loving? Okay. Then let's do this. John's gospel tell me this. Do you know why John's gospel was written? Do you remember this? That's right. So that we would know that Jesus got it. I listed it for you here. Among the similarities between his gospel and his letter, he not only does he have these prologues that have a great deal of similarity, not only is there very similar vocabulary in both, but in both the letter and the gospel, he is very direct about why he wrote. So here's how here's how it goes in John's gospel, the very end of the letter. He says, Jesus did many other miraculous signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not recorded in this book. But these are written, meaning I chose these things to write down. These are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name. He's like, this is full on a persuasion campaign. I want to persuade you that he is the Messiah, that he is God, that you can have everything in him. And he does the exact same thing in the epistle. He's got a different reason, but he's very directed at what that is. So whereas his gospel is written to people who do not know Jesus, so that they will come to know Jesus. In the epistle, he has a different purpose. Listen to what he says. I write, this is still also at the top of that page, it's 1 John 5:13 if you're looking at it. I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God so that you may know that you have eternal life.

The first one is written to the non-Christians so they can come to know Christ. The second one is written to the Christians so they can come to know something else. And that something else, this permeates the letter, that something else is so that you may know that you have eternal life. So there's a doctrine, categorize this differently, there's a doctrine sometimes called assurance of salvation. That it's really helpful if you're saved, meaning if you're safe, it's helpful to know it. It's helpful to rest in it. It's helpful to have assurance of it. And John is saying, I wrote this I wrote that one so you'd come to know Jesus, but I wrote this one so that you would know that you have him. I wrote this so that you would just imagine in a marriage relationship, if you're not sure if you're safe in that covenant. Like, is he gonna divorce me? Is she gonna leave me? It's gonna impact the dynamic of that relationship. And John is saying, no no no, calm down. Take a deep breath. You're saved. You're safe. It's okay. Relax. That's why he wrote the letter.

And when I say he wrote the letter, I really mean it's why he wrote the letter. I've heard this taught many times as if when John says, I write these things so that you'll know you have eternal life. I've read studies and I've just seen the way we treat this text as if these things is just like the preceding paragraph. As if he's not looking back. This is in 1 John 5. When he says I write these things, he's talking about the preceding paragraph and the entire chapter and chapter 4 and 3 and 2 and 1. The whole book. Okay? We will often teach it as if he's just talking about the prior paragraph. And if so, that's true because that paragraph is about that, because that paragraph is part of the book. That paragraph, by the way, is where he says, if you're looking at it, he says, we'll pick it up at verse 9. He says, we accept man's testimony, but God's testimony is greater because it is the testimony of God. A testimony is just like a sovereign statement of fact. You can witness out of things. This is what I saw. This is what is so. Okay? This is the testimony of God which he has given about his son. And then here's the line, anyone who believes in the son of God has this testimony in his heart. Anyone who does not believe God has made him out to be a liar because he has not believed the testimony that God has given about his son. And here it is, here's the testimony. God has given us eternal life and this life is in his son. He who has the Son has life. He who does not have the Son of God does not have life. So I want you to think about it. What John is saying at this moment, this is not the whole argument, this this part of the argument, is that eternal life is a gift. And it comes in a very particular box. That box is Jesus. And if you have Jesus, if you've got the box, then you get what's in the box. You get eternal life. He who has the Son has eternal life. Full stop. But he who does not have the Son does not have eternal life.

So far so good? So John says he's I'm writing this letter so that you will know that you have eternal life. And one simple thing is then to say, well, if I have Jesus, then I have the box or if I have Jesus is the box. If I have Jesus, then I have what's in the box. I have eternal life. I do have Jesus, therefore, I have eternal life. And sometimes we'll just teach it like that. We'll say, well, did you walk the aisle when you were 12? Did you raise your hand at the prayer meeting? Did you whatever, you know, do you have Jesus? And that's that's a good answer. It's true. It's theologically accurate to say, hey, if you have the son, have eternal life. So we're good here. But the problem is that it only raises up a second question, which is, do I have the son? What does it mean to have the son? Is there any evidence that I have the son? Like, I know that I've been going to church for twenty years. Does that lock it up? Like, how do you know that you really are a Christian? You with me? Plenty of people might think they have the box, but don't. Plenty of people might not be sure if they have the box, but they do. And so the rest of the letter is what Bob was referring to earlier. John is going to use the phrase, we know, we know, we know, we know. The majority of not always, but the majority of times that he uses the phrase we know, he's talking about this specific question. How do I know that I am hidden in him? How do I know that I have Jesus? Because the key to being assured of my salvation is having Jesus. How do I know I have him? And so the book is not just giving a theological answer, it is giving a very practical answer. It's giving an examine your life kind of an answer. Make sense so far? Okay.

Evidence of Genuine Faith

So let's take a look. If you go down to the bottom of that first page, I just extracted out all the we knows that I took all the we knows and then I filtered out the ones that are only relevant to this. So look what he says. John is gonna give three lines of evidence. I'm gonna unpack what I mean by evidence in a minute. But look at the evidence. Number one, our lives are increasingly marked by obedience.

When you go through this, look this up. You should highlight these in an actual Bible. He says, we know that we have come to know him if we obey his commands. How do how do I have eternal life? I have Jesus. Yeah. Know. But how do I know I have Jesus? Well, we know that we've come to know him by our obedience. He says in 2:5, this is how we know we are in him. Whoever claims to live in him must walk as Jesus did. And then he says in 3:10, this is how we know who the children of God are and who the children of the devil are. Anyone who does not do what is right is not a child of God, nor is anyone who does not love his brother. How do I know that I'm really in him? Well, one of the three lines of evidence that John gives is that you will be more obedient than you were before, and you're growing in obedience. There are things that you might have said, you know what, so what about that? But you find over time, it's not like binary, right? But you find over time, you are increasingly subjecting your will to his will simply because it's his will. Not because it makes sense to you, not because you think it's a good idea, not because of what you actually wanted to do in the first place, but because you come to the point you realize, you know what, my will is different than his will and I'm going to choose his will and not mine. If that is happening, John is like, well, you know what that means, right? Because normal people don't do that. If that's happening, that is evidence. That's very powerful evidence that he is living in you and that you really are hidden in him. We obey increasingly over time. So far so good? Okay. Robin. I also think it's an increase in more we love him the more he wants to obey. This is absolutely the case. Right? There's this feedback loop, right? I love and I obey and I trust him more and I believe that maybe he's smarter than I am. Or even if I'm not sure that he's smarter than I am, maybe he's worth obeying because he's been so gracious to me that even if I think it's a bad idea and I could pursue happiness in some other way, just because I like him, I'm going to be willing to subdue my own inclination to pleasure. Eventually, might come to find out that that pleasure was actually going to turn into pain and he was trustworthy. But somewhere along the way, he becomes more delightful, more trustworthy, and I will surrender more to him. That process, John is saying, that is evidence of genuine new life. Okay? It's one of three. It's not the whole story, it's the first one.

Tommy? I thought it was interesting. The last part of that, our lives are increasingly marked by obedience. I was saying this is how we know and it continues on. Basically, we're doing what's right. I always saw in there the implicit version of it, idea that if you're doing what's wrong, then you're outside of this. That's right. But it's actually very specifically saying you're doing what's right. Mhmm. You know, we can live a mediocre life where we're, you know, the lukewarm water. You're what's right. Yeah. Really, that's bad, what's wrong. But here at Solikker, where's the positive at? That's You're advancing the kingdom. Not are you perfect? Yes. What Tommy is saying is that if you read 1 John, if you read these passages, you're like, okay, so what's the evidence that you're actually a Christian? You haven't sinned in 17 years. You're like, well, I I don't—that's not what he's saying. Right? Is there an increasing move ever and ever towards more and more obedience? We are—he knows how we are formed, right? He remembers that we are dust. And that our progress, our redemption, our sanctification, our increasingly becoming more like him is a—it's a—there's emotion on that. Okay? Right? And so it's not as if like, well, no, every time you sin in fact in fact, the very risk that you could do something really stupid and therefore conclude that you're not in him, that's what he's—that's what he's talking about. That's why he's writing this. In fact, I'll show you the language he uses in this. Let me do this. We'll move on to the second one because the second one is gonna have more of the language that kinda talks about what Tommy's getting at. Okay? Here's number two. We're growing in love for other believers.

It's not just that I'm obedient, just punctilious rule following, although there's a value to following rules, but rather we grow in love. So in 3:14, he says, we know that we have passed from death to life because we love our brothers. He says in 3:18, dear children, this is the part where he really gets a little more under the hood. Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue, but with actions and truth. This then is how we know that we belong to the truth, and hear this, and how we set our hearts at rest in his presence whenever our hearts condemn us. For God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything.

He's describing that phenomena when you have done something stupid, and your own heart reproaches you. I'm an Enneagram one, so I live in a state of full-volume self-reproach. Enneagram runs, you know this thing of like, well, you're just like, you just know the inner voice of self-reproach. This is what that's about. That when you're like, ugh, Christians don't do that. Like, am I? Maybe not. I don't know. John's no. No. No. Shut up. Shut up. Shut up. Tell yourself more than you listen to yourself, and you need to let the truth of the gospel set your heart at rest in his presence.

And zoom out a little bit. Yeah, that was stupid. Like, yes. However, look at the picture. Do you not see in your life an increasing move toward prioritizing the needs of others? Have you not noticed that you've grown more compassionate? That you are kinder, you are more quick to make self-sacrificial decisions for the good of others? Why do you think that's happening? Right? Yeah. You blew it. Noted. Confess it. Apologize. Make restitution. Move on. And let your heart be at rest because he really is at work in you. Does that make sense?

Number one, we're obedient. Number two, we're growing in love towards others. Catherine? That scripture, it used to come to me all the time, and I don't know where it is, maybe it's this. If it said, if our hearts do not condemn us, we have confidence before God. And is that—I bet that that's that might be a different translation of this, and that's it. This is it. That really helped me. Yes. But another thing that bothered me all the time, all the time, as a new Christian, was, hey, we'll know we're Christians if we don't keep on sinning. And I said, well, forget that. Right. Right. And so but the truth is, okay, so there's we have to live in this tension of, yes, I I'm not I do not believe there's some theological term for it. I forget what they call it. Perfection. There's Christian perfection. Just some people believe that if you're a Christian, you don't sin anymore. I'm like, what is that? There should so we I reject that. But you are not the same as you were five years ago or twenty years. You see it. Right? There's a change. That's what John is saying. Says, look at it. Zoom out. And we're growing in obedience. We're growing in love. And then here's the third one. The Spirit is manifest in our lives. This is how we know. This is third column, 3:24. This is how we know that he lives in us. We know it by the Spirit he gave us. And in 4:13, we know that we live in him and he in us because he's given us of his Spirit. Now, this one is a little bit vague. Right? It could mean a couple of different things. It could mean that the fruit of the Spirit is manifest in our life. I am more loving, more peaceful, more patient, more gentle, all, you know, all there's more of that. Right? It could be that he's talking about a more subjective experience in our hearts that we are born again by the Spirit, and it's the Spirit of God, the Spirit of Christ alive in us that comforts us, that reassures us. He doesn't really maybe it's the gifts of the Spirit. Right? You're seeing supernatural gifting to do the work of the kingdom, it's what you your joys have changed, that I wanna do the things that he's built me to do for the good of others. Right? Any number of things. He doesn't really specify. I suspect maybe it's all of those things. But we know because we are increasingly obedient. We know because we increasingly love. And we know because we are increasingly experiencing the Spirit of God in our life, perhaps manifesting in numerous ways. Get it? Now here's the risk. If all of that's really, really clear, what is the massive risk at this point? Do you know? It's that if we were to turn evidence, these things that are supposed to be signs of what is already true, if we turn evidence into the things that you do to earn salvation, if we turn the results of salvation into requirements of salvation, then you have just built a moralistic gospel which is really no gospel at all. So hear this, I'm not saying, John is not saying, the scriptures are not saying that if you will obey and love and do Holy Spirit stuff, you will be saved. I wanna be perfectly clear on this. This is so important. These are not requirements, they are results. They are not conditions, they are consequences. They are not the things that you do to earn salvation. They are the demonstrated evidence that you already have it. Is that clear? So crucial. If we turn this thing in and say, hey, believing in Jesus is nice and all, but if you want to be saved, then do these three things and then fire me. This is not the gospel message. We are saved by grace through faith. We're not saved by good works, and we're not saved from good works. But we are saved to good works, that the result in our life is gonna matter, and it's gonna look like this. Increasingly, we will bend the knee before his supremacy. Increasingly, we will love him and those that he loves. Increasingly, we will be yielding to the Holy Spirit who lives in us. It'll be his power and his direction that is shaping our life. But they're all results.

The Meaning of Walking in the Light

Yes. That's right. Absolutely. So in any, so these are things that when Jesus says, well, if you love me, obey my commands. It's like, well, yeah. I mean, well, of course. Of course, that's what that's gonna look like. How could I—and John is gonna set up these things of like, well, the alternatives are just kind of absurd. Right? It's like, how can you say that you love me and yet you don't you don't do the things that I've asked you to do? That just wouldn't make any sense. And then you almost get that sense of, okay, John, thank you, captain obvious. Right? But but, yeah, and we do need obvious things said to us for sure.

So when you read John, watch for the we knows. There's some other we knows. I listed at the very bottom of the back page a couple of the other we knows. If you go through, just you could you could either just mark down the ones that I showed you or when you read it, just look for every we know, but just on the front end, they're not all about salvation. There's a bunch of things he wants us to know, and I listed some of the other ones that you'll find as we when you get there. Okay? So far so good? Can we move on? Okay.

The Power of Confession and Living in the Light

Yes. This is hard stuff to get and to do in a lifetime. It's tough, but we try and try to do better, and then we get the gift, which is your box you're talking about. Yep. The box is hard to understand too. Eternity is hard for us down here. What is it and what are the rules when we get to eternity? Are there none? Well, okay. Diana is saying this, first of all, this is hard. So what's hard—the very beginning is being obedient people. Right? Because there's something wrong with us. There's something broken in us that causes all motives to turn inward, causes us to be mistrusting and fearful. There's different things wrong with different ones of us. Like, I got issues. You got issues. Probably don't have exactly the same issues. But it is all hard. And it is to broken people in a broken world that Jesus comes and he basically says, listen, yeah, I get it. You can't do it. You cannot do the things that would please me. And so he has done it on our behalf. He he has lived our life. He has died our death. And in ways that is so hard for us to get through our heads, he really does grant us full credit for his perfections. And he really does take away full culpability for our wrongdoing. It is the most— it is the most unlike everything that you've ever experienced in your life that there could possibly be. Because we all know, like, we live in a—we live in a world governed by merit. Do a good job, get a raise. Do a bad job, get fired. That's just the way the universe works. That is not the way he works. And so this is incredibly countercultural to really embrace grace. And then having lived in it, to live out of gratitude rather than out of fear. Right? To live out of hope of the future. If he is so good to me now, what can I imagine would happen if I just line myself up with the way he's designed his universe, the way he wants us to be?

So, yeah, it's the work of a life to increasingly rest in his grace, to increasingly surrender to his will because we believe that we're safe in him. But that's the whole game. That's what we're doing. And as far as how it will play out in the world to come, I don't know. So there's that. Alright. We'll figure that out when we get there. It'll be great. I'm sure.

Living in the Light and Confession

Okay. Here's another thing. Go back if you go to the back page, just go to chapter one. John's most overarching ideas that we know were in him, but I would say maybe maybe I don't know. Maybe one of the favorite one of my favorite passages in John is in chapter one. Bleeds a little bit into chapter two. And I think it's so crucial. This is when I when I was on staff with crew, we would always very quickly, whenever somebody would come to Christ, we'd always wanna ground them in the faith. We would do these things. We called them crew core values. We had these five one-on-one Bible studies that we would do because with a brand new infant baby Christian, you just wanna give him milk. You just wanna say, this is what you need to stay alive. This is the good stuff. And one of the first things that I would always teach a brand new Christian was 1 John 1. It's about confession. And this is another one of those passages where John is using very elemental images, but I think they're very often misunderstood. So I wanna walk you through this. So listen to what he says.

First John 1: "This is the message we've heard from him and declare to you. God is light. In him, there's no darkness at all."

Now God could have said or John could have said a million things. This is the message we declare. Here it is. God is blank. What could you give me, give me three or four options. What could you put there? God is Love. Love. That would be good. He's gonna say that later. God is light. Light. Okay. God is light. That is the one that he chooses actually here. Right? God is light. That is the one he chooses. God is truth? Yes.

The metaphor he grabs for right here for what he wants to say is light. God is light. In him, there's no darkness at all. And so you might just wonder, okay, that's true. A lot of other things are also true. Why this one? Well, listen to what he says.

And by the way, I've written this as two columns because I want you to see the parallelism. John is essentially writing this like Hebrew poetry. So Hebrew poetry tends to rhyme ideas, not words. You'll see this a lot in the Proverbs. It'll say things like, "A good name is better than much silver." A good reputation is better than much gold. Okay? So that's you're not rhyming words, you're rhyming the ideas. Name is reputation, gold is silver, da da da da. Okay? So he'll do these two concepts, he'll say the same thing in two different ways. That's what he's going to do here. It's a little bit longer than that so it's easier to miss. But he's going to say,

If we claim to have fellowship with him, yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live by the truth.

That rhymes with,

If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.

The way that he gets there from light is a little bit like this: he says, God is light, in him there is no darkness at all. So if we claim to have fellowship with him, yet we walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live by the truth. What he's saying would be, if you go to the Sahara Desert this summer, and you come back from the Sahara Desert, and say that you spent the summer in the shade, then I'm going to say, I don't think you went to the Sahara Desert, because there is no shade. Right? He is light. And if you claim that you're walking with him, but you're actually walking in the darkness, you're lying, because there is no darkness there. He is light.

So far so good? Now, having said that, think about the metaphor of light. When we say that God is light, what does that invoke? What's being conveyed with the notion of the lightness of God?

Robin: Truth.

How so? Who said that? Robin. Okay. Robin. Truth how? Well, the light exposes this. That's it. Okay. That's the keyword. So in normal light, like, we were to kill the lights in here, right? And suddenly it would be dark, you wouldn't be able to see anything. Right? What light does is it exposes. Now I can see it. Doesn't Doug look beautiful? Everybody look at Doug. I can see him. And if the lights went down, I'd be like, where'd he go? So light exposes so that we can see, and it's not always beautiful what it exposes. So when we say that God is light, part of what we're saying is that he is omniscient. He sees everything. Everything is exposed by his gaze. Yes.

And there's usually one other thing that we mean when we say that God is light. You wanna answer that? He's good. Yes. He is. Absolutely. He is good. So there's a sense he's holy. He lives in light and approachable hid from our eyes.

So we have this God who is inherently good, and he sees everything. And John is saying, if we're going to walk with him, we're not walking in the dark. Now, here's where this thing gets confusing to us. If we claim to have fellowship with him, yet we walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live by the truth. Answer this carefully: What would it mean to walk in the darkness? Outside of truth? Chris said outside of truth. Diana? To continue in the same sin with no slow change toward the light. Okay, so now, here's what I want you to get. These two things, we just invoke that God is light, which means He is good and He sees all. If walking in the light and walking in the darkness, if the primary meaning that John is going after here is about being good versus being bad, then we're going to be in a little bit of trouble. Walking in the light is not a metaphor for being good, it's a metaphor for walking exposed. So the reality of our goodness and our badness are both available to see.

This is crucial, and I'll show you why. Look at what he's going to say. The next line:

If we walk in the light, that is if we do this thing, as he is in the light, then we have fellowship with one another and the blood of Jesus his Son purifies us from all sin.

That means, whatever it is, walking in the light has the incredibly powerful effect to purify us from sin. And if walking in the light means be good, then the thing that purifies us from sin is being good. That's gonna be a huge problem for most of us. You get it? Walking in the light here, though God is light and the light is a representation of His goodness, walking in the light John is not saying, hey, you want to have your sins forgiven? Tighten up. That's not what he's saying. He's not saying, be good so that you can have your sins forgiven. He's saying live exposed. Let the light in. Stop hiding. Whatever the reality is, whatever it is, just bring it out of the darkness. Bring it in the light because this is what actually leads to our purification.

And I'll show one second, Lily. I want you to, before you're like, I don't know if I believe him, stay with me. Look at the parallel. If we claim to have fellowship with him, you walk in the darkness, we lie, do not live by the truth. That rhymes with, if we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we walk in the light as He is in the light, then we have fellowship with one another and the blood of Jesus purifies us from all sin. That rhymes with, if we confess our sins, He is faithful and just. And will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. Which is to say, walking in the light is a metaphor for confessing our sins. To confess your sins is to bring it out of the darkness and into the light. To walk in the light is to step out of the hidden places and to live exposed. It's all the same thing.

What John is saying is the thing that sets it flowing is not cleaning up your act, but acknowledging that your act is dirty. If you'll do that, if you'll confess your sins, if you'll walk in the light, if you'll say it's the truth—that's really what the word in English, confess, means: to speak with. In Greek, confess is homologue, it's the same word. Say the same word. Agree. Acknowledge the truth. Stop the masks, take off the masks, step into the light—that is what will set free His forgiveness, His purification, His cleansing of your life.

You can't clean up your act. Right? You have two choices in life: You can look better and get worse. Or, you can look worse and get better. And John is saying, option B: look worse. Turn the lights up and get better thereby.

Lily: I feel like Ephesians has some point. When he first asked what is the darkness, my initial reaction was death. You know, I mean, I mean, ultimately, it leads to, for sure. But I like also that kind of comes into Ephesians in 5. Oh, I guess 5:11. Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but instead expose them. For it is shameful even to speak of the things that have been secret. But then the relevant part is, but when anything is exposed by the light, it becomes visible, for anything that becomes visible is light. And so you see this beautiful transformation of light. Yes. Our sin isn't what it was. Yep. It's become like him. We—yes. So that's—that's it. We're—so hearing that, we like the darkness because it hides things and you don't have to see what I'm—you don't get to see what I'm doing. Right? And I can do all kinds of scary stuff that you don't have to know about, but it's going to kill me. Right? Sin flourishes in the dark, it dies in the light. John is like, just turn the lights on, turn around, come out, and let His—and we—it's so tempting to just keep the mask on, nobody needs to know. And John's like, yeah, but it's gonna go really badly for you. And by the way, not only if you bring it out of the darkness and into the light, just acknowledge it for what it is, not only does He purify us, not only does He forgive us, but He's actually gonna say, I didn't—I didn't continue the thing, but He actually gives us fellowship with one another. Because there's this thing, like, and I are friends. Right? And Gary, well, maybe we are, but maybe I am friends with this avatar that Gary projects that's not the real Gary, and maybe Gary is friends with this avatar that I project that's not the real Tim. And so, like, our little, like, false representations of ourselves, we're friends with each other, and those things can only be so close. But if real Gary is like, okay, but actually, this is the truth, and real Tim, who's willing to step into the light—if we were friends, that would be a far greater level of reality, of intimacy, of connection. And that's what John's inviting us to. Like, just stop all these artificial nonsense games that you play, and let's actually both relish the reality of the grace and mercy of God because the real me has been really connected to the real Jesus, and we can all be friends in that instead of in this artificial self-construct.

Eric: Reminds me of James, when James says, confess—Yes. To one another and pray for one another so that you may be healed. Absolutely. So when you do come into the light and you do confess your sins to one another, then more powerful things can happen when somebody else is a—like, a bunch of people are praying for you. Yes. Herrick: Exactly. So Herrick is saying that James 5 echoes this same thing. First John 1 and James 5 are probably the two, maybe most important passages on confession in the New Testament, and they both—they both amount to the same thing: this invitation that we would live honest lives instead of this kind of wearing masks all the time. That's what he's calling us to do.

Catherine: I had a vision of myself doing this thing, and when you turned your back like that, that's—that's what I'm back here in the light, but it's really the scriptures that I know. Mhmm. So I have to turn my back on—and do—and that's—I mean, that's what I was seeing that you're doing that, and I'm kind of going, you know, so the word choice—we have choice. And that kind of freaked me out a little bit. And so one time I heard somebody say, look, if you're gonna sin, just do it with Jesus then. And I tried that. Yeah. That's such a great line, Catherine. If you're gonna sin, do it with Jesus there, and tried that, it's a little weird, you know? Yeah. Yeah. So in some sense, it would be even more embarrassing depending on what you're into, you know? So when we live in the dark, when—you know, here's what John is saying: when you find yourself and you're like, yeah, I'm walking with Jesus, and then you realize, but there sure is a lot of shade where I'm hanging out. He's like, well, maybe you're really not, and maybe what you could do is just step out of the darkness and into the light. It's very important to John's message.

Conclusion

Okay. So those, I would say, are the probably the two most important things—"we know, we know, we know, we know." How do we know that we're in him? Right? That's important to know. But also, as we walk in him, we want to actually be in him. We want to be living not out in the dark spots, but out in the light. And it's good news that we're not forgiven because of our obedience. We're forgiven because of our acknowledgment of our disobedience, and our coming to Him again.

Now, one more thing I want you to see here in verse nine, this is 8 and 9: "If we confess our sins, he's faithful and just, and will forgive our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness." I don't know if the oddness of that has ever struck you, but if you imagine in this little town of Roanoke, we had two judges, you know? We've got this like very soft, mamby-pamby, merciful judge who lets everybody walk, and then we've got this very by-the-book, he's running for like, you know, state prosecutor or something, and he's like high high justice. Okay? You got two judges. And you did something wrong, actually wrong, and there's some kind of a lottery—I don't know how they assign judges. Which judge do you want? Do you want the mercy guy or do you want the just guy? Which one do you want? I want the mercy guy. And so why is John writing to people to reassure them, hey, it's okay, just—just tell the truth. Step into the light. Speak, with—the same word, like, just confess. And he says, you should confess your sins to the judge because he's just. Doesn't that seem a little bit of a strange reassurance to give? Don't you wish that he said, "If we confess our sins, he's faithful and merciful and will forgive our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness"? Why does he say that he is faithful and just? Why is that good news? Because he's already been paid. Who said that? Bob Blacksmith? He said, because the penalty has already been paid. This is exactly right. God is just, and in Christ, your sin has been atoned for. You don't need to beg for mercy hoping he's in a good mood. You can demand justice because it would be an unjust thing for him to punish you when he's already punished his Son. I stated that way, and you might be like, oh, that's a little strong. Yeah, I know. Okay? And I don't think we approach the throne of grace with arrogance, but we do approach it with confidence. That he is just. And the Father speaks to the Father—I mean, the Son speaks to the Father in your defense. He is the atoning sacrifice for your sins. So his justice, because of Christ, is actually mercy to you. Make sense? Outrageously good news.

Final Thoughts

Okay. A couple other things, and then we've got to be done. John, as I mentioned, stark opposite streak. See light and dark, truth and lies, love and hate, the eternal and the temporary, knowledge and ignorance, life and death, listening and ignoring. John is very, very binary. He loves things to be very stark, very terse. So as you go through, just look at—just pay attention to the language. Very simple language, pretty complex prose, pretty poetic. So John takes a little bit of work to kind of tease out, look for some of those other "we knows," I think that'll be useful. And maybe it'd be interesting just to, on your own, I didn't do the work on this one, but like just read the prologues and make some observations. There's lots of comparisons. There's a couple of things that would be interesting contrasts to make, too. But there's treasure in this book. This would be really worth taking some time. Five chapters, you can bang it out really quick, but this week, if you choose to, spend some time in 1 John, there's a whole bunch of treasure that you might find there.

Jennifer, did you want to say something? I just want to go back to—just. Yeah. So many times we hear "faithful and just" as a group. Yeah. And so if He's just, and we just shared about that, I think he can't forget. Absolutely. So that has a confidence. Yes. Not just that he. Jennifer's saying it's not just that he's just, but he's faithful. He will remember his covenant promises. Absolutely.

Summary

Alright. So enjoy this week, and we'll finish John's letters next week.