Living in the Light - Part 1

Do Not Sin - 1 John 2:1-3

1 My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. 2 He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world. 3 And by this we know that we have come to know him, if we keep his commandments.

Through this chapter, I find 4 main steps that we should take if we want to "Live in the Light." This is the first step, and it seems fairly simple. In fact, it is not anything new. If you have been in church, then you have probably heard this over and over. God commands us not to sin. But how easy is it for us to refrain from sinning? Impossible! We know that. We are human, imperfect, and born sinners. We know that we will never be perfect this side of heaven. But that does not mean that we go on everyday sinning just because. We cannot use the idea that we are imperfect as an excuse to sin.

Look at the beginning of verse 1. John tells us that if we are going to live in the light of Christ, we should not sin. But he then recognizes the fact that we are imperfect. He uses the word but, and he provides the answer for that sin. The answer is simply Jesus. He died for those sins so that He could provide a way for us to come back to Him.

Finally, in verse 3 we see that we can truly know Jesus in our lives if we "keep His commandments." So let's review quickly. We are sinners, and we are not perfect. We are called to refrain from sinning, but we will end up doing it anyways. We have seen that we cannot use that as an excuse to keep on sinning. Instead, we must continue to look to Christ, who died for those sins, and keep the commands that He has given us. He has provided a way for us if we just turn and look to Him.

Now how does this tie into our idea of "Spiritual Highs?" Last time we looked at the idea of how we hear a good sermon or go on a good trip and really turn to and live for Christ. But the next day we seem to fall away fast. We get entangled by the world and neglect to live for Christ in the real world. If we want to keep that life in Christ that we experience on these "Spiritual Highs," then we must begin by not sinning. We must truly rely on Christ each day and not let sin run our lives. Christ should be the true Master that we turn to each day.

Next time we will look at the idea of loving those around us as being a way of living in the Light.

Matt