Bible Passage: 1 John 1:1-10; 2:1-2
Pastor: Michael Willitz
Sermon Date: April 18, 2021

Bulletin April 18, 2021

1 John 1:1–10; 2:1-2

¹That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have observed and our hands have touched regarding the Word of Life— ²the life appeared, and we have seen it. We testify and proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and has appeared to us. ³We are proclaiming what we have seen and heard also to you, so that you may have fellowship with us. Our fellowship is with the Father and his Son Jesus Christ. ⁴We write these things to you so that our joy may be complete.

⁵This is the message we heard from him and proclaim to you: God is light. In him there is no darkness at all. ⁶If we say we have fellowship with him but still walk in darkness, we are lying and do not put the truth into practice. ⁷But if we walk in the light, just as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ, his Son, cleanses us from all sin. ⁸If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. ⁹If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. ¹⁰If we say we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar, and his Word is not in us.

^2:1My children, I write these things to you so that you will not sin. If anyone does sin, we have an Advocate before the Father: Jesus Christ, the Righteous One. ²He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the whole world.

Treasure Our Fellowship

1. By walking in God’s light
2. By confessing your sins

Dear fellow redeemed in Jesus Christ, our Life and our Light,

It is now the third Sunday of the season of Easter, and by this point in the season, it might be the case that perhaps a little bit of Easter fatigue has begun to set in. Perhaps you’re growing accustomed to saying and singing “Alleluia,” so that using that word doesn’t seem as quite special as it did two weeks ago. Perhaps you’re getting used to seeing the paschal candle lit, so that seeing that little flame on the top today doesn’t strike you the same way it did on Easter Sunday. You might even find that it’s getting a little more difficult to get up and get going and attend church on these Sundays after Easter, while on Easter itself, there was no question about it. You were going to be worshipping Christ, and you were going to be receiving His gifts.

To some extent, it is understandable that Easter is a special day, and there is a special joy that goes along with that day. That isn’t a bad thing. Yet we don’t want to ever grow tired of the death and resurrection of Christ. We don’t want to ever grow tired of all the blessings that Christ’s death and resurrection have brought to light. We don’t want to ever treat those blessings as old hat, as things that are now so familiar to us that they aren’t worth our attention any longer. No. The blessings that our Lord has won for us in his dying and rising again are blessings that are worthy of our continual contemplation. There is no graduating from these blessings, no moving on to bigger and better things. We have forgiveness of sins, we have eternal life, we have fellowship with God and with one another, and it doesn’t get any better than that.

The Apostle John, in his first letter to his fellow believers, wrote to remind those believers of the blessings that were theirs in Jesus – because he came, because he died, because he rose again. Here, in the beginning of this letter, John focuses in on the blessing of fellowship. He says, “We are proclaiming what we have seen and heard also to you, so that you may have fellowship with us. Our fellowship is with the Father and his Son Jesus Christ,” [3]. So today, as we consider the opening verses of this letter of John, let us treasure our fellowship. Let us treasure our fellowship by walking in God’s light. And let us treasure our fellowship by confessing our sins.

First, we treasure our fellowship by walking in God’s light. In our text, John says this: “This is the message we heard from him and proclaim to you: God is light. In him there is no darkness at all. If we say we have fellowship with him but still walk in darkness, we are lying and we do not put the truth into practice,” [5-6]. When John warns us against still walking in the darkness, it is a reminder that once we did walk in darkness. At one time, we did not know the true God. At one time, we did not know God’s will toward us. Instead, we were wandering about in spiritual darkness, a terrible darkness without light, without truth, without hope, and without fellowship. But then, the light came to us.

God’s Son, the Light of the World, came to you and to me, and he enlightened us. It was as if the floodlights were thrown on in the middle of a dark night. In Jesus we know the one true God. In Jesus we know God’s will toward us. In Jesus, we know that there is a gracious heavenly Father, “who loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins,” [1 John 4:10]. Because of Jesus, we are in the light with God. We have fellowship with God and with one another, the fellowship of walking together in this light forever. It does not get any better than knowing Jesus and basking in his light.

So John warns us against going back to the darkness, and to understand what John is warning against, it is helpful to know a little context behind the writing of this letter. Later in the letter, John mentions false teachers who do not hold to the truth about Jesus. It is believed that John was especially writing against the teachings of a man by the name of Cerinthus. Cerinthus was a dangerous false teacher, and there was a very seductive claim that Cerinthus was making. He claimed that he had received a secret knowledge from God. So he might say something like this, “Those Apostles, like John over there, they can only get you so far. But I have knowledge that is beyond them and beyond their Bible and beyond their message about Jesus. Listen to me, and you can go beyond what John over there is offering you.” But in his teaching, Cerinthus butchered the truth. He denied that the Son of God had come in the flesh. He denied that Son of God had died for our sins. He denied that the Son of God had risen again from the dead. While he claimed to be offering a secret knowledge, Cerinthus was only dragging people away from Christ and into the darkness.

But dear friends in Christ, we have the light, and there is absolutely nothing to be gained by giving up that light. So watch out for philosophies that would detract from who your Savior is. Watch out for teachings that would undermine the work that your Savior has done. It doesn’t matter how new and exciting and eclectic a teaching looks. If it takes away from Jesus, then it leads to darkness.

John makes clear that he and the other apostles weren’t just making things up when the preached about Jesus. They were proclaiming the eternal Son of God whom they saw, whom they heard, whom their hands touched. By their proclamation, we are welcomed to walk in his light and share in his blessings. John says, “If we walk in the light, just as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ, his Son, cleanses us from all sin,” [7]. You are in the light, dear friends. You know that God’s Son became man for you and that he bled for you and died for you and rose from the dead for you. You know that his holy precious blood prevails over all human sin. So we treasure our fellowship by walking in the light. And we treasure our fellowship by confessing our sins.

John says in our text, “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 out to be a liar, and his Word is not in us,” [8-10]. So if we claim that we have no sin, John says “we deceive ourselves.” The Greek word that he uses there describes us as “leading ourselves astray”. It’s the actually very same word that John uses in Revelation when he talks about the devil leading the whole world astray. The reality of your sins might not be a pleasant reality. It’s an ugly reality, isn’t it? Nobody likes to own up to the bad things he has done. But to deny the reality of your sins is to lead yourself astray. You would be leaving the path of truth behind. You would be embracing a lie, and making God out to be a liar. His Word says that we are sinners.

Instead of denying our sins, God calls us to confess them. And even though owning up to our sins gives us no joy on its own, there is abounding joy in the response from our God. He forgives us our sins! He cleanses us from all unrighteousness! And how could he do otherwise? His only-begotten Son died for the sins of the whole world! Jesus shed his holy blood to wash away every sin. And now Jesus is standing there, face to face with his Father in heaven. And Jesus is serving as our Advocate, he is pleading on our behalf. He is imploring his Father for the sake of his sacrifice to forgive us every sin. So we can be bold. We can tell the ugly truth, because our God will not turn against us and strike us down in anger. He forgives us our sins for the sake of Jesus.

God wants you hear that your sins are forgiven. He wants you to believe that your sins are forgiven, and that is why God has given us that gift that we call The Keys. You remember that promise that Jesus made to his disciples? “Whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven,” [Matthew 18:18]. Jesus was inviting us to confess our sins to one another, and he was promising us that when we forgive one another that the verdict in heaven is that same as it is on earth. So when you confess your sins at the beginning of the service and the pastor pronounces the absolution, you get to hear God’s absolution, his forgiveness, spoken through the mouth of that pastor. Or when you’ve got a sin that’s really bothering you and you confess it privately to a pastor or to a Christian brother or sister, when that fellow Christian forgives you, you are hearing God forgive you.

What confidence that gives us! What peace we have! That we don’t have to cover our sins. We don’t have to deny them or pretend to ourselves that they aren’t so bad. John says that he is writing so that we will not sin, but when we do fall into sin, there is a solution. Jesus Christ has died for us, and God forgives us for his sake.

So let us treasure our fellowship! There is no greater life to find than the life of walking with God in the light and receiving the forgiveness for all of your sins. This fellowship, this light, this forgiveness of sins is yours and mine in Jesus Christ alone. To him be glory both now and forever.

Amen.

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