KINGDOM LIFESTYLE : Walk In Light

We are in a series right now called Kingdom Lifestyle. It's been going for two weeks now, and we're going to be doing walk in the light today. Before we get into the actual service, I wanna tell you something that God revealed to me this week, I wasn't sure if I was gonna talk about it or not, but some of you may know, but if you don't, me and my wife just purchased our first home and got moved into it. It's only by the grace of God that we have it.

If you'd have known where we was five years ago, you wouldn't believe where we stand today, I promise you that. It's 100% it's God, because I know I couldn't do it. So, but I was standing at my garage the other day, and for the past two weeks, we've had the topic of walk, and I was kinda just dwelling on that, tossing around some ideas in my head, and then it got pressed into my spirit, got spoke to me, and when I say got spoke to me, I don't mean that the sky boarded open and I heard this loud thunderous voice or that. I would love for that to happen, but that's not the way it happens for me.

It was thoughts that came into my mind that I knew were not my own. And I began to think about how joyous I was to stand on this piece of property that we earn, how much excitement the house brought me, you know, having my own garage and that. And God told me, He said, the reason you're joyous in it is because you own it. It's yours.

And He began to speak to me of, it should be the same with me, the spirit that's inside of you, that is of me, own it, it's yours. But most importantly, at my house, I don't have a landlord or anything like that, or nobody can walk in my house and tell me, hey, you have to paint that wall this color, or you have to decorate it this way, or you have to arrange your furniture this way. Now, you can come in and give me suggestions, maybe you have, as Ms. Christen, we go to her for knowledge of what paint colors to use, you can give me suggestions, and I can choose to follow those suggestions.

But it's ultimately my decision of what I do with it, what I make it look like, how I walk around it. And with our Christian walk, with the spirit of God that's inside of us, we need to do the same thing. You need to own it. Your walk is your walk.

You get to determine what it looks like with God. I can stand here and give you suggestions of what God is saying to me, what my walk is like, what is up to you to take those words and choose to implement them into your life, or to choose to dismiss them. But more importantly, it is your choice to go back to that word itself, look at it for yourself, and determine what your house looks like, what your walk looks like. So that's what I really want you guys to understand today, is own your walk.

I kind of want to re-tidal this message of that. I do. So, it's like everyone, walking light, last two weeks we had Seth who did walk in love and Fred did walk by faith. Who knows what the light is?

Nobody? Jesus, there we go, Jesus. So that's what we're gonna be walking in today is Jesus. This is a word that I completely cannot pronounce in the Latin form of it.

As Seth told you guys the other week, I like to call it peripatetal. If you want the real pronunciation of it, you can see Fred after service, he's really good with that stuff. But it means to make one's way, progress to make do use of opportunities, to make do use of opportunities. So, where we're gonna be headed today is, first John is what we're going into.

Now, this book was written by John himself, not to be confused with John the Baptist. This is John that physically walked with Jesus. He wrote four other books in the Bible. You've got first John one, or first John one, first John, the second John, third John, the Gospel, and the book of Revelations.

This one is not titled, first John is not titled as a book. It is titled as a letter. And this is a very unique letter. It was called, I believe, a correspondent letter, which was supposed to be sent throughout many churches.

It was not addressed to one single church itself, as some of Paul's letters and other letters that are inside of God's word. And here's what I come to learn about that. It wasn't just for the churches of that time. This is a letter that is meant to go to the church of today also.

So, it wasn't specifically for the Romans, or the Galatians or that, which those are God's word, they're very valuable to us. And there's still a lot of that that we do need to implement it for our life. But this one is for the church in general. And what it is, it's John addressing some things in the church that is taking place of false teachers, man-made teachers that are trying to teach you that it is their idea that you should be implementing into your life.

John is very good at telling us, go back to the beginning and start there. John was the brother of James. We know that from Mark I, where it tells us, and going on a little father, he saw James, the son of Zebedee, and John, his brother, who were in their boat, mending the nets. And immediately he called them, and they left their fathers Zebedee in the boat with the hired servants and followed him.

I bring you that verse to tell you who John was, but to also tell you again that John walked with Jesus. And who better to get information from than a firsthand account, not through the chain of people or that, or not a third and fourth-hand knowledge. This is a man who stood with Jesus and heard the words that physically came from him. I wanna read something to you that came out of my fire of study Bible.

At the beginning of that, it gives like a tutorial of what this letter is about. And this one's entitled Purpose. This is an English Standard Version Fire Bible, Purpose of the Letter. John had two primary purposes in writing this letter.

To expose and challenge the doctrinal beliefs and the ethical behaviors, behavior errors of the false teachers. And to challenge his spiritual children, to hear this, to pursue a life of purity and companionship with God, that should be shown by their devotion to what is true and right. Such life is characterized by the full joy and discernance of eternal life that comes from the obedient faith in Jesus as the Son of God and by continual presence of the Holy Spirit. It's a joy that's brought to you, but I want you to see that last part, a continual presence of the Holy Spirit.

Continual. The Holy Spirit is not something that just comes upon you and then takes off for a day or two so that you can go rip and run. And then it comes back around to straighten out a little bit, a continual presence of the Holy Spirit. We're gonna get into that a little bit more here, a few verses down into this.

So like I said, we're gonna read first John. It's a very short chapter inside of this letter. And before we start reading it, as always I wanna encourage you, make sure that you go back and read this for yourself. Take your own walk.

This chapter is 10 verses, but I encourage you to read the whole book of First John, or letter, excuse me. Let's go ahead and read through it. Starting right in First John, verse one. That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we looked upon and have touched with our hands concerning the word of life.

The life was made manifest and we've seen it and testified to it and proclaimed to you the eternal life which was with the Father and was made manifest to us. That which we have seen and heard we proclaim also to you. So that you two may have fellowship with us. And indeed our fellowship is with the Father and with the Son Jesus Christ.

And we are writing these things so that our joy may be complete. This is the message we have heard from him and proclaimed to you that God is light and in him is no darkness at all. If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. 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.

Verse eight, if we say we have no sin, we deceive ourself and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar and his word is not in us. I wanna pray over the top of this message specifically real quick.

Father God, we thank you for His words, you've given us, we thank you for the heart that comes behind it. God, we thank you that John was able to walk with you to speak to us today and we thank you that your word is living and breathing and is very much alive today. God, we just continue to tell you that we love you and we thank you that you are always with us, you never leave us, nor forsake us. And God, I just ask right now in Jesus' name that this message be 100% of your words led by the Spirit, but also heard by the Spirit of ourselves.

In Jesus' name, amen. So verse one said that which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we looked upon and have touched with our hands concerning the word of life. And I told you that John is really opening up this letter with stating, I was there and I did it. I was with him.

Notice that he does not say, John the apostle. He doesn't give himself a title, even though Christ gives their titles to us, John is not in no way trying to attract attention to himself. He wants from the first words of it, for you to know that it's 100% Jesus that I want you to concentrate on. I don't want you to see me at all.

I often think about that myself, there's times I'd like to just put a veil up here across the front of the stage and make it all about 100% of God's word, not no human performance involved in it whatsoever. You'll notice that he opens this, the same as he opens his gospel, which is where I believe that he's allowing them to know really who it is that is speaking this. And I want to stress that point real quick of he walked with him before we get into this. So truly he was there, he did this, you can't get a better account of it.

But I want you to see two words that are in here. The word seen and the word looked. The first one seen where he says, which we have seen, if you look at the definition of tracking back that word seen, it says to see with eyes. So it's a physical thing, it's not an ingesting thing that you're taking.

I was just, I seen it go by, I was there with it kind of thing. So what I really want to show you is the difference of why he says seen and looked. Because if you look at the word looked, it means to view attentively, contemplate, look on with admiration, take view of to perceive. So John is very much making us aware, not just that he's seen this, but that he spent time with him, that he ingested it, that he thought about it.

It wasn't just a mere thing of I was near it. This is something I've dwelt on. And I want you to know that the letters that John wrote, he spent many years after the death barrier on resurrection of Christ and to write these. He wrote these somewhere 80, 85 to 95 in that time frame, along with his other letters.

So this isn't something that he just jotted down on paper real quick. And he was also very close to the end of his life. And he's believed he died somewhere around 80, 99, 98, 99, somewhere in that era. So he just wrote these right before his death, lived a full life contemplating and thinking about the things that he not only seen, but that he walked with.

First two says the life was made manifest, and we have seen it and testified to it and proclaimed to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and was made manifest to us. The life was made manifest. The word was brought from heaven and brought into physical form. But he clarifies it that this was brought to us from the beginning.

But he's also referring back to his gospel here in John 114. And he says, in the word became flesh and dwelt among us. And we have seen his glory, glory as of the only son from the Father, full of grace and truth. At last part, there are full of grace and truth.

It's very important, just keep that in the back of your mind for a second. But I wanna talk to you on this verse about eternal life. There is only one way to eternal life, one. That is by Jesus.

And it's not by just saying, I believe in Jesus. It is with a personal, intimate relationship with Jesus. It is not just seeing Jesus. It is contemplating on Jesus.

It's dwelling on Jesus. It's receiving Jesus. What John also says in his gospel with eternal life, he says, when Jesus had spoken these words, he lifted up his eyes to heaven and said, Father, the hour has come, glorify your son, that the son may glorify you. God, I'm not just glorifying myself with the flesh.

I wanna make sure that it is you who's seen in this situation. Since you have given him authority over all flesh, God, you've given me all authority over and I still don't wanna glorify myself. I want you to be glorified in it to give eternal life, to give eternal life. I want you to understand that, to give.

It is not something that you can work for. It is not something that you can purchase. It is not something that you can sit at this altar a hundred times and receive. It is something that he gives to you, but only with a personal, intimate relationship.

And this is eternal life. This is eternal life. Jesus is giving these words that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sinned. I don't know how to put it much clearer.

As a matter of fact, that is as clear as it can get. Eternal life comes from one thing and one thing only. That they know the only true God. There is no other.

Eternal life. I hear a lot of people say, I can't wait to spend eternity with God. Stop waiting. Stop waiting.

It's here, right here, right now. The second that you receive Christ, you receive eternal life. You don't have to worry about it. You don't have to think, oh well, man, I'm gonna get to the pearly gates.

And what am I gonna say to him? Or how am I gonna plead my case or that? Yes, he does tell us we will give an account. Well, guess what?

In many times I've been on my knees already given God an account of everything I've done. You don't have to wait till a timeframe of after a physical death. You die spiritually and it gives you eternal life. You are born again into an eternal life.

Start walking in it. Start walking in it. And with eternal life, there's only one way to walk in it. Again, we say a personal relationship with Christ.

Once you show, this is a main theme throughout the entire book of 1 John. Through six tells us, whoever says he abides in him ought to walk in the same way which he walked. Remember I talked at the beginning there of how you're gonna paint your house, how you're gonna arrange your house, of getting the advice of how to do it. Well, here's the advice, walk as he walked.

Live as he lived. 1 John 2, 23 says, no one who denies the son has the father. Whoever confesses the son has the father also. Let what you heard, listen, listen, from the beginning abide in you.

If what you heard from the beginning abides in you, then you too will abide in the son and in the father. Guys, I cannot stress this point enough. I can't teach you into heaven. Fred can't pray you into heaven.

Seth can't teach you into heaven or give you enough verses into there. It's a personal choice for you to walk on intimate relationship with Christ. 520 says, and we know that the son of God has come and has given us understanding so that we may know him who is true, and we are in him who is true. In his son, Jesus Christ, he is the true God and eternal life.

We're just on the point that when you receive Christ, he takes up residency inside of you. This is another one of those verses that proves it is eternal life begins here and now. Or when it is that you received. If Christ has already died and risen and has eternal life and Christ lives inside of you, how can you die?

How can you die? Your spirit, your fleshly thing has already passed in Paris once God takes up that residency. Now, I want to identify something with you now. This is kind of a complete side note.

It is something I learned this week, as most of you know. I bought my high school diploma. I am not very well educated, so I thought it was pretty cool that I learned this. So I want to teach you guys it also.

You guys like that? So if you look at the end of verse one and the beginning of verse three, there is a thing there called an M-dash. What this means is that you take a side track. John is speaking one thing and he got tangled up in another thought, ran off track for a second, and then verse three brings us back.

Now listen, I know that it says, don't add or take away from God's word, and we're not doing that whatsoever. But sometimes when you see this, I want you guys to be able to acknowledge it too, as I learned it, Fred pointed out some more to me this morning. But if you read verse one and three together, it makes a little bit more sense of what is being said. So just food for thought for you guys.

Like I said, it's pretty cool that I learned something. But verse three, verse three reads this. That which we have seen and heard, we proclaim also to you. What we have seen and heard.

This isn't something that we made up. This isn't something that we're embellishing on. The only thing that we're teaching you right now is what we learned from the source. So that you too may have fellowship with us.

And indeed hear this, indeed, our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ. Guys, we congregate in a church. And it's the reason we're called a congregation. We fellowship in Christ.

It is that common denominator that is between all of us is what brings us together. How do you meet new friends? If you own a classical car, you probably hang out with people who have a classical car. If you're a car dealer, you probably have friends that are card dealers.

It's that common interest that somebody wants to see right afterwards, he said he needs a friend. So it's the common denominator that brings us together. Have you ever noticed that you can talk more freely? If you are a true God for your Christian, that you can talk more freely to another Christian.

There are a couple of worldly heavons in there and life gets kind of chaotic. But it's a common denominator that is between us. I want you to see that word fellowship. Do we have that?

So the word fellowship is, I want you to see two of the things that it says in there. An intercourse and an intimacy. An intercourse and an intimacy. Fellowship is an intimacy.

It's not a friendship. It is an inside personal to you. It's the two are intertwined together. But that word actually derived from a shorter word that we pronounce it as common.

So again, I'm not good with my latin in that. I make a fool of myself if I try to pronounce them. But I want you to see what says in Acts about this. Driving back to the original word, it says in all who believed were together and had all things in common.

That is our fellowship. We have all things in common. Now that does not mean that you do the exact things that I do. That doesn't mean that you have the exact things that I have.

But what it does mean is the things that I do and the things that I have are based and centralized around Christ. The things of my life, everything out here, if I have Christ inside of me, all of this is based around Christ. If you're doing the same thing, then we have a common denominator. But it takes not just a single common denominator.

It makes all things in common with each other because we're basing it all around Christ. Once you see how the Apostle Paul talks about this common thing that we have. If you look at Philippians 1,7, it says, so it is right that I should feel as I do about all of you for you have a special place in my heart. You share with me the special favor of God, both in my imprisonment and defending and confirming the truth of the good news.

The common thing that he's proclaiming that we have in common together is that we all share in the special favor of Christ. That special favor is a few different things. It's God's grace, unearned favor, love, and God's help through Christ that he gave us to sacrifice for our sins. But most importantly, the special favor that we get is the gift of the Holy Spirit.

Now, I wanna drive home that point today of the Spirit lives inside of you. And your walk, once the Spirit is inside of you, that your walk is continually with the Spirit. It's not a day by day or choice by choice or situation by situation. It is a continual walk that you have with Christ.

Again, and John Gospel, he tells us, and when he had said this, he had breathed on them and said to them, received the Holy Spirit. That special gift. Romans 8, 1st, 9 says, you however are not in the flesh but in the Spirit. And if in fact, the Spirit of God dwells in you, anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him.

God has taken up ownership because he's taken up residency. Just like I took over ownership of a home and I have residency there now. It's exactly what God is doing, bought and paid for. Romans 8, 11 says, if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your immortal bodies through the Spirit who dwells in you.

Everlasting life, and he's clear about it, that it will be given to your immortal bodies. Again, it is not something that we have to wait on. I get so, so frazzled in the thing of I'm waiting on God. Well, what'd you do?

Did you leave him with a bus stop? No. Stop waiting on him and start walking in him. Start acting in him.

The words that you speak are not of my own. They are of Christ. Why? Because Christ is inside of me.

Verse four says, and we are writing these things to so that our joy may be complete. Our fellowship with Christ is the result, excuse me, our joy is the result of our fellowship with Christ. Now, please hear me on this. Your happiness is not your joy.

Your happiness is brought to you by the things of the world. Your happiness is brought to you by your spouse, your car, your house, all those kinds of things. If you place your joy in those things, you will have no joy. Your car will break down.

Your wife will piss you off. Your house will be dirty. You will have multiple problems. Stop placing your joy in other people.

Stop placing your joy in Christ. It says that he is faithful. He will never leave you nor forsake you. Your joy comes from him.

Now listen, this does not mean that your life is going to be all peachy once you receive the joy of Christ. But if I know I have everlasting life, eternal life, the few moments that I spend here have no bearing on that. John tells us this, John 1511, these things I've spoken to you that my joy may remain in you and that your joy may be full. My joy is what makes your joy full, is what Christ is saying here.

John 1713 says, but now I come to you. And these things I speak in the world. Again, clarifying that it's in the earth that he was speaking this, that they may have my joy fulfilled in themselves. I don't, I have yet to find anywhere in scripture, that where it talks about joy, that it comes from anything, but Christ.

Again, that's not going to mean that you're going to have a smile when you're faced all the time. You're going to have hard times in life. I didn't have much happiness this morning and this dumb little box would not work for me. And I don't know much about them, so it made my happiness even worse.

My joy, though, came from knowing that Christ had the situation. My joy came from knowing that, hey, if I don't have a computer, oh, well, this can still happen. And if I bomb it, I bomb it. Oh, well, I get to still live forever.

It's not the end of things for me. Your joy comes from your walking and eternal life. And eternal life makes the things of the world nothing. You will get to see far better than the things that you see now.

Once you hear two quotes by Charles Spurgeon for joy. Says, the Christian joy is important and assaulted on many fronts. External circumstances, moods and emotions or sin can take away your joy. Yet the Christian joy is not found in the things of the world, as good as they might be when John wrote about these things.

He wrote about this relationship of fellowship and love we can share in with God the Father and the Son, Jesus Christ. The joy comes from the fellowship in Christ. Second one that he wrote was too many Christians. Hear this, too many Christians are passive in their loss of joy.

They need to realize it is a great loss and do everything they can to draw close to God and reclaim that fullness of joy. If any of you have lost the joy of the Lord, I pray you do not think it is a small loss. If you are in a situation where your joy is not full, you need to check if you've let Christ into that situation. Too many times we want to rely on our own strength, our own power, our own understanding.

We need to start allowing all of that inside of Christ. Let's talk about that with the light here in a second. First verse five says, this is the message we have heard from him. Again, John is proclaiming this is not of my words.

He's emphasizing this the whole way through the book of John and proclaim to you that God is light and in him is no darkness. Some of you may know this, but light is the absence of darkness. Darkness cannot consume light, but light can consume darkness. If we took this sanctuary and shut all the shutters tight, turned out the lights, it would be dark inside of the sanctuary.

If I took a flashlight and set it center stage, pointed straight up, an area here would light up. Yes, there would still be darkness outside of the light. Now, once you guys to hear that, that the light that is inside of you does not mean that the darkness around you disappears. But if I walk back over here to my nifty little flashlight, imagine he's sitting in the middle of the floor and I take it over, what happens?

The light now penetrates outward and consumes that darkness. What are you walking in? Which way are you pointing your light? How are you setting your light?

What are you doing with your light? The light of Christ that is in me today used to have an on-off switch, just like my flashlight, not today. And that's what we need to walk in. We need to take the on-off switch completely off of the light and just continually walk in the light.

That's what's going to show it to this dark world out here. I just want to clarify something real quick. I didn't know if I was going to use this or not. We'll go ahead and use it.

God created the world to be good. Do we understand that? God created the world to be good. It is because of man, I'm putting a side note in there, taken after woman that created the darkness inside of it.

That's a filzum that is there. No, the darkness that is in this world was brought because of man. I want you to hear that because the darkness that's in your life is because of you. Because you have a sinful nature.

Yes, you was born into it. You may not have initially caused it, but you have the choice today of whether you continue in the darkness or whether you hit the switch and turn on the light. For success, if we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. Practice the truth.

I want you to hear this before you end up practicing. Just because you have darkness does not mean you have sin. I want you to understand that. Darkness means much more than just sin in your life.

What I believe John is trying to clarify here is if you're not walking in Christ, you're walking in darkness. If you're denying who you are, you're walking in darkness. If you were denying who created you, you're walking in darkness. The light is not inside of you.

Sin is a part of darkness. I will agree with you there. The way I read it this week, it said, walk in darkness is denying my sinful condition while claiming to be in fellowship with Christ. Are you denying the things in your life that are the darkness?

Also, do you compartmentalize your light? I'll allow God in the sanctuary but not in the office. I'll allow God in the car but not in the bedroom. We must understand that if there's darkness inside of our light, in our life, it's because we've put some type of veil or barrier from the light to be in there.

You've closed the door on it. So if you have a part in your life where, my answer might be God calling, do you have an area in your life that you haven't allowed the light into? Are you walking in something that is troubling to you that you're finding no joy in the situation? Listen, if you're not finding joy in your marriage, you might want to put Jesus at the center of your marriage.

If you're not finding joy when you walk in your home, you might want to start putting some Christ in your home. The areas of your life that you're continually saying, I don't have joy in, it's because you haven't put it in there. Also, walking in darkness does not, it isn't just a one-time thing. A lot of people get the impression of, well, if I have a sin in my life or if I have a trouble in some area in my life or something like that, I must not have Christ inside me.

I must not be saved. I must not have eternal life. Walking in the light does not mean you were perfect. Again, lights are out, use my flashlight.

I still have, even though I'm shining the light out this way, I still have the chance of tripping over a chair leg or somebody's foot hanging out in the aisle or something like that. And I want you to understand this, that just because a sin arises in your life or there's an issue in your life or a dark spot in your life doesn't mean that you're not full of light. We are human. We have troubles.

We have spots in our life that are going to take our happiness. What our joy continues. Verse seven says, 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 sin, his son cleanses us from all sin. Again, walking in the light is knowing that I am a sinner.

That means a Savior, knowing that I am not perfect. It is he who is perfect. Another thing was walking in the light in this fellowship is knowing that I'm not better than you, knowing that because I have a microphone attached to the side of my head doesn't mean that I stand above you. We all stand on the same.

We're all the same sinner saved by the same grace. Walking in the light, you cannot sin your way out of it. I hear me. You cannot sin your way out of it.

Listen, I can't tell you how many times since I've started walking with Christ that I have stumbled over the same stumbling block. It was a factor because I didn't move it. You, the way that you can know that you walk in the light is if you have conviction by it. If you continually stumble in the same area because you keep walking into the same area, you may want to check that.

What if it's something that arises when you want to happen? You're like, ah, I didn't like that. That didn't feel good. That is, I mean, you call it your conscience.

You call it whatever you want to. But I call it walking in the light. That's what allows you to know of exactly what we're saying of your sinner that needs to save you. Also, that we're walking implies an action.

That word walking implies an action on your part. It doesn't mean that you just get to sit down and it's all taken care of. You have to put in the effort to walk to Christ. Christ is standing there waiting on you.

Christ is willing to receive you. So it's a thing that you have to do though. In there it says the very, the very end of that verse here where it says, the sun cleanses us from all sin, all sin. I cannot tell you how many people who have sat in front of me and said, well, you don't know how bad it was.

You don't know what I did. Listen, yes, I do know what you did. Been there, done it. Been there, done it.

And I want you to understand that there is no sin. There is a thing that you can do that it talks about. We're not going to get into that. Everything from a little white lie to murder itself.

They're all sin and God's eyes. They're all the same. Just as you and I are the same, the sin is the same in itself. And I want everybody to really ingest that.

You're not too bad for God. You haven't sinned too much. The same Holy Spirit that lives inside of me that was hell on wheels five years ago is the same Holy Spirit that's in every other one of us. You're not too bad for it.

The verb that John uses cleanses, again, it's a verb. It's an action. But I want you to see how it uses it. If you go back and look at it, it is a present tense.

Your past sin has already taken care of. It was already paid for on the day that it all took place. Your future sin hasn't happened yet. It's going to be cleansed also.

It's a present tense verb right here, right now. I don't care if your thoughts are sitting here running rampant. I don't care if you're looking at things, don't Facebook that you're not supposed to be looking at right now. You are good from it.

What I find with people is that because they find one little spot of darkness in their life or they sin one little time, they then want to take 10 steps backwards from Christ because of that. Well, you just sinned nine more times because you didn't want to accept that that first one got cleaned up. Stop running from God because you have an issue in your life. Stop thinking that God doesn't love you anymore or that God doesn't live in you anymore because you had one little issue.

Think of it as marriage. Just because you have one argument with your spouse doesn't mean your marriage is over, does it? Just because you didn't clean up the dinner dish at one time and she got loud with you, doesn't mean that your marriage is over. Think of the simple terms with Christ also.

The things of it, he is married to you. He is intimate with you. When things happen with Christ, he's good with it. Now, it doesn't give you a right.

It's also sad that that doesn't give you a right to keep on sinning, but it gives you a right to be okay where you're at. It gives you a right to be accepting of who you are today. He'll work on you. He'll change you.

Those things will come. You can only come to fellowship with God by dealing with the sin problems through the blood of Jesus. You can't tithe your way into it. You can't Old Testament law and slaughter a goat up here on the altar.

You can't do it. It doesn't pay for it. There is only one way to cover that sin. And it's simple for you and I.

It's with accepting that Christ already paid the price for it. Verse 8 says, if we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. We deceive ourselves. You may be able to pull the wool over top of my eyes, your wife's eyes, your neighbor's eyes, but most importantly, you will not pull the wool over God's eyes.

If you say that you are sinless, you may want to reexamine your life. And it says that the truth is not in them, but also if you're saying that you have no sin, but God is saying that you have sinned, you're calling him a liar, which we'll get into in the next verse. But if God is light, he can't lie. And we need to be willing to accept that.

We need to be willing to accept the state and condition that we are in to be able to receive Christ. Verse 9 and 10, 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 a liar and his word is not in us. Once you hear that first part again, if we confess our sins, this does not mean to run home today and draw out a checklist of every wrong that you've done in your life.

So put it in layman's terms. It's just accepting who you are. It is not, it's not an accountability kind of thing. When you're wrong, yes, I wholeheartedly believe that you need to say to God, I was wrong.

That hurt. I don't want to do that. I was wrong. That's a conviction.

That's that gut feeling that you get. We need to listen to that more often. God is the judge, jury and executioner in this situation. If you walk into a courtroom, this is what it's like.

If you walk into a courtroom and you stand before the judge, you say, yes, I did it. I committed the crime and the judge looks at you and says, that's all right. The guy sitting next to you is going to pay the penalty for it. That's a simple way of understanding what it is that Christ has done for us.

Your punishment, your sin has already been put on his back, has already been put on that cross and we need to be willing to accept it. It says that he is faithful and just to forgive our sins. He is faithful in it. And I go back to the saying of, you can't send your way out of it.

He is faithful. His word says that he will forgive you in it and he is faithful in it. It is on your part to accept it. Whitney, can I have you?

Again, I want to send you out here today with walking in the light. It's knowing who you are, walking in the light. It's knowing when you're wrong. And listen, if you didn't know you was wrong on it today, he'll let you know tomorrow.

Well, the next time you do it, I've heard stories of people who have big issues in their life and they, well, I can't quit cussing. Sorry, I got to work on that later. There's got some bigger things to deal with right now. We're willing to accept it.

But what I want to encourage you guys today is to earn your walk with God. Begin to walk in it. More importantly, begin to utilize the power that it has given you. It is inside of you.

Stop speaking future tense of it. Stop wishing for it to happen and utilize the command that Jesus gave you of the authority over the situation. Most importantly though, relax who you are and be willing to accept who you are in Christ.