Walking in the Light (more class notes)

1 John 1:5-7
5 This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all. 6 If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. 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 his Son cleanses us from all sin.

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Remember, light and dark are two opposing forces. One cannot co-exist with the other (flipping on a light switch removes all the “dark” from the room...). God is here and in many other places illustrated as light---guiding our path (Prov 3:5-6), turning our darkness into light (2 Sam 22:29), in His face (Psalm 4:6), and tons of others (see Psalm 119:130, Isaiah 2:5, Matt 5:14, for more).

When we live in darkness, we are living in ignorance of God and all that He would have for us. What is the result of our darkness? SIN... whether intentional or unintentional, separating us from Him (“...what fellowship has light with darkness? 1 Cor 6:14) and leaving us unsatisfied.

But notice here the root of the problem is not the actions of “sin,” but the INACTION of not living in the light--walking with God every day in the path he illuminates in effort to know Him and learn His will for our lives. To use John’s words, we must “practice the truth.”He deserves our time. He deserves the reward of His suffering—the life that he bought by the death of his Son for us, “even while we were yet sinners.”