I. Fellowship with God by Walking in the Light (1 John 1:1-10)

I. Fellowship with God by Walking in the Light (1:1-10)

1:1-2 The apostle John wrote the Gospel of John to tell sinners how to become saints. He wrote 1 John to tell saints how to enjoy sainthood. The Gospel of John was written to explain how to enter into a relationship with God through faith alone in Christ alone for the forgiveness of sins and the free gift of eternal life. This first epistle of John was written to explain how to enjoy fellowship with God. The Gospel of John describes how to enter eternity; 1 John describes how to experience intimacy with God in history. Just as a marriage or parent-child relationship can be legally secure yet lack intimate fellowship, believers in Christ are legally declared righteous, but do not automatically enjoy intimate fellowship with the Lord. First John is about the test of intimacy, not the test of conversion.

What was from the beginning refers to Jesus Christ and the life he offers. When John talks about Jesus, he’s not delivering second-hand information. He’s communicating about what he saw and observed and touched. The Son of God revealed himself to John and the other apostles in person. Thus, John is essentially saying, “We were there; we know Jesus.” And now we testify and declare to you the eternal life that was with the Father.

1:3 Why is John declaring this? What’s the theme of his letter? Fellowship. The Greek word translated “fellowship” (koinonia) could be used to speak of a business venture or partnership. It means to share something in common. It’s important, though, to understand what God means by biblical fellowship.

When you trusted in Christ as your Savior, you entered into a legal relationship with God. But it’s possible to have a legal relationship with God en route to heaven without enjoying closeness with God on earth. John wrote this letter so that its readers could have fellowship with us [the apostles]; and indeed our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ.

You can’t have fellowship with God apart from the apostles. They experienced Jesus Christ firsthand (1:1-3). People who skip what the apostles have to say about him will invent their own false spirituality. But how can you, in the twenty-first century, hang out with the apostles so you can have fellowship with God that they enjoyed? This goes beyond the legal relationship of justification to intimate communion with the Savior that is available to all believers. The truth of the Bible, when applied to the life of the believer, enhances their fellowship and spiritual intimacy with God.

Cities establish high occupancy vehicle (HOV) lanes to prevent having too many cars clogging up the interstates. In a sense, they want you to be in fellowship while traveling to work. God wants you traveling a HOV lane in life, and he also wants to be your companion in the car.

1:4 John writes so that their joy may be complete. It’s possible to be a Christian and lack joy. It’s possible to merely go through the motions. But John wants his audience to know joy. And when you experience meaningful, intimate fellowship with God through Jesus Christ, you will experience true joy that is not dependent on your circumstances and that is available nowhere else. True joy transcends external circumstances. It is stability on the inside in spite of what is occurring on the outside.

1:5 After concluding the prologue to his letter in 1:1-4, John gets down to business: This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you. What is it? What does John want these Christians to know? God is light, and there is absolutely no darkness in him. This isn’t a mere spiritual platitude. If you want to enjoy closeness with God, you must embrace the truth that he is light because it has significant implications for your life.

When John describes God as “light,” he calls to mind Jesus’s words as recorded in his Gospel: “The light has come into the world, and people loved darkness rather than the light because their deeds were evil” (John 3:19). The function of light is to reveal things as they truly are. Light exposes. If you shine a light down a city alley in the middle of night, you’ll see cockroaches scatter because they want to do their dirty work in secret. If you want God’s personal presence and activity in your life, you must be willing to allow his light to expose your sinful thoughts, attitudes, speech, and actions that are inconsistent with his character.

1:6-7 If you claim to have fellowship with God but walk in darkness, John says, “You’re a liar” (1:6). Fellowship with God isn’t validated by your lips; it’s validated by your walk. Praising God and shouting “amen” have their place. But intimacy with God must be demonstrated through actions, not merely through vocabulary. We have fellowship with the Lord and fellow believers when we walk in the light as he . . . is in the light (1:7).

This, of course, doesn’t mean you must live without sinning. Only God is light (1:5); you are called to walk in the light. You must be willing to let God expose the sin in you. Those who walk in the light aren’t sinless. But the light enables them to see their sin so they may repent. When that happens, the blood of Jesus . . . cleanses us (1:7) so that we may grow in sanctification, spiritual maturity, and intimacy with the Lord. When holy people see themselves in God’s light, they see their dirt. And when they see the dirt, they want God to deal with it—something he is delighted to do.

Only as we live fully exposed to the truth of God is the ongoing cleansing work of the blood of Christ activated to reveal, cleanse, and empower us to address the sin that has been exposed. Then fellowship with God is maintained and expanded. Failure to do this keeps God’s work dormant in the life of the believer (see 2 Cor 3:17-18).

1:8-10 If you deny there is sin in your life, you’re deceiving yourself (1:8) because you’re certainly not deceiving anyone else. On our best days, we fall miles short of God’s holy standard. But if we confess our sins, he is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us (1:9). Why? Well, when we confess our sins to God, we are agreeing with what God’s Word reveals about us. We are admitting that what the light exposes is not just a mistake, a bad habit, or a mere product of our upbringing. It’s sin. This allows forgiveness and cleansing power to flow. To deny your sin is to call God a liar and forfeit the hope of his word doing its transforming work in your life (1:10).