Tony Evans - The Activation of the Cross (05/12/2017)
In 1 John 1, the Apostle John teaches that experiencing the reality of God—true fellowship and full joy—depends on living in the light of God's holiness. When we walk in His light, our sins are exposed; but if we confess them, agreeing with God's assessment, the blood of Jesus continuously forgives and cleanses us, restoring and maintaining our fellowship with Him.
The Fellowship That Brings Full Joy
A man one day was riding in the car with his wife, and she said, "When we were dating, we were so close, and now we sit so far apart." To which the man said, "Well, I haven't moved." In other words, if we're apart, it's because you've slid over. I haven't moved. I'd like to suggest to you that whatever breach is existing in your walk with God, it's not because God has moved. He is in the same spot.
The book of 1st John is the most potent writing in the New Testament on experiencing the reality of God. The summary word in the book of 1st John is the word "fellowship." In 1 John chapter 1:3, John says, "What we have seen and heard, we proclaim to you, so that you may have fellowship with us, and indeed our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son, Jesus Christ. These things we write so that our joy may be complete."
He says, "I want to write to you about making your relationship with God real." Fellowship. The word fellowship, or *koinonia* in Greek, means to have or share something in common. If you carpool, that is a fellowship activity. You are riding with someone else to be able to share the gasoline, share the vehicle, get in the HOV lane, share the track that you can go down to arrive at your destination. It is a shared experience. That's what fellowship means: to hold something in common and share the experience of it.
He says in chapter 1, verse 4, "I am writing you that your joy may be full." I don't want you half joyful. Now, the problem in John's writing is the problem that you and I have today. The people he is writing are removed from the personal, physical experience with Jesus Christ. They haven't met Jesus. They haven't talked verbally to Jesus. They haven't visibly seen Jesus Christ. They didn't do what the disciples did when they walked with Jesus. That was not their experience.
John says, "I am writing to you that the fellowship we had with him, you have with him too. Even though you've not talked to him, haven't seen him like and haven't walked with him like we did, you still can have the same fellowship that we had, and your joy can be full." One of the ways you know that the fellowship with God is real is that the joy is full. The joy is full. This volcanic eruption of the soul bringing you joy is operating within you. It is operative because this fellowship is so real.
Understanding True Joy and God's Nature
What do I mean by joy? This joy is the tangible, grab-able realization that you are experiencing the life of God within. Therein is the reality of joy. Joy is not happiness. Happiness is external circumstances going well. Unhappiness is external circumstances not going too hot. Joy is the experience of God within, regardless of what's going on without. He says, "I want you to have full joy. I want it to be complete." He says, "And that's why I'm writing you."
In verses 5 to 10, John lays out the most graphic, substantive, potent, powerful description of how we experience the reality of God—how that reality is activated in our experience through this *koinonia* or fellowship or shared experience with God—that you can find anywhere in the Bible. And so I want to, as clearly as I can, walk didactically through this process; that is, walk through it in a step-by-step teaching mode.
My concern today is that you clearly understand these verses because verses 5 through 10 will give you the key to activating the cross in your experience today. He begins by letting you and I know that in order to have this reality activated in our lives as Christians—because he's writing to Christians; he says that throughout the book; he calls them "my little children," that is fellow believers—we must understand God's nature.
Verse 5: "This is the message we have heard from him and announced to you: God is light, and in him there is no darkness at all." God is light, and in him there is no darkness at all. In case we missed that, let me say that again. John said, "I didn't say it. John said, 'God is light, and in him is no darkness at all.'" If you and I are going to experience God, we must understand the God we wish to experience.
The Incompatibility of Light and Darkness
He says, "Let me explain God to you so that there is no misunderstanding here. God is light." How much light? So much light that there is no room for any darkness at all. It is complete, comprehensive light. Paul calls it "unapproachable light." For God, it's always 12:00 noon. It's never 12:00 midnight. He only exists in light. Now, stick with me. That may not make sense quite yet, but walk with me through this.
God only exists in light, which means He only operates in the realm in which He only exists. He only exists in light. Okay, that's His field of operation. Let me put it that way. He exists everywhere, but I'm telling you His field of operation is Himself, and He is light. The contrast to that is Satan, who only operates in darkness. God only operates in light.
Light, in its essence, is pure, uncontaminated, clear, and clean. It simultaneously exposes what is contaminated, what is unclear, and what is not clean. Because light is free from any defect or impurity, God is therefore free from any impurity or defect. And therefore, to see God clearly, you must see Him in the context of the light in which He operates. This is where He operates because this is who He is. "God is light. In him is no darkness at all."
That's why he says in verse six: "If we say we have fellowship—we hold in common with God, with Him—and yet walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth." He says, "If you say we have fellowship with Him and yet we walk in darkness," he says, "you are confused. We lie." He says, "I don't know what you think you're experiencing, but it isn't God. You can't claim—I can't claim—fellowship with God while operating in a dark sphere. We leave the room where God is."
God is light. In him is no darkness at all. If we say, "Me and God are doing fine," but we're operating in the realm of darkness, you are lying. You and God are not doing fine. The problem is you can get so used to living in darkness that you think it's light because you're operating in that sphere. And if you operate a certain way long enough, you'll think that's normal.
Walking in the Light Brings Fellowship
Verse seven: "But if we walk in the light, as he himself is in the light, we have fellowship with one another." Now, let me explain. The "one another" is not believer to believer. The "one another" is us and God, because that's the fellowship he's talking about. He is saying we have something in common with God. What is the thing we have in common with God? Light. God is light. He operates in light. So when we walk in light, we have fellowship with the one who is light. We have fellowship with one another.
But look at verse eight: "If we say we have no sin," if we think being in the light means there's no sin, "we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us." When he uses the phrase "the truth is not in us," it means we're not operating by truth. We're living by a lie. Any of you know any people who live out a lie? In other words, lying is as real to them as the truth. They even believe the lie is the truth. Okay.
We are prone. We are prone to gravitate to the lie if the lie is more comfortable for us. It's the middle of the night. You wake up; you've got to use the restroom. And you say, "I don't need the light 'cause I've been living here long enough. I know where the bathroom is. I don't need the light." But your little pinky toe misjudged the edge of the bed 'cause you didn't need the light, or you left something out you forgot, only to discover you not only hurt your toe, you done tripped over something, you walked into something, because you felt you could handle the darkness.
The reason why you got a nightstand with a lamp is because it's too far to go to the switch. You see, the design of the light is to show you where the edge of that bed is, to show you whether something's been left out. But if you say, "I haven't left anything out. I know where the edge of the bed is. I can make this forward and back on my own," he says, "You lied. You do not have the truth. You're not operating in the truth. You think everything's all right."
The Resolution: Confession and Cleansing
Here is the resolution. Verse nine: "If we confess our sins," what sins? Those that were revealed while you were walking in the light. "I'm walking in fellowship with God. And I know I am 'cause He is exposing me to me. He is letting me see things about me that I didn't think were there. He's letting me experience things that's revealing things in my heart, issues that now have come out of my mouth. He's revealing me, and I don't like what I see."
Now I have a choice. I can run to the darkness and say, "Didn't happen. Not real." Or I can remain in the light of the exposure and confess. If God calls it sin, you can't reduce it to a mistake. If God calls it sin, you can't reduce it to a bad habit. If God calls it sin, you can't say, "This is my personality." If God calls it sin, you can't say, "I was raised this way." If God calls it sin, you can't say, "I can't help it." If God calls it sin, you can't say, "Everybody does it."
If God calls it sin, you must agree with God that it is sin. Because you're in the light. And the moment you call it anything other than what God calls it, you went to your own private room. Confession is to say the same thing. So God shows me something that I have done that is not consistent with His character, based on the light that He shines on me. And I agree, "You know, God, what I just did, said, thought, or acted, I agree with you that that is sin." Bam. The blood of Jesus Christ has now been activated.
And when you agree with God, the blood forgives your sin. Repentance comes when there needs to be a change of direction. Repentance means to reverse course. Repentance happens because there has been a pattern established, and you need to reverse your way on the highway. Confession is needed when there has not been a pattern established; there needs to be an action corrected.
In other words, if I'm driving down the street and I miss the first street I'm supposed to turn on, I missed that street. I should have turned on that street. I confess I missed that street, but I turn on the next street that will take me back to where I was going. Okay, that was an action taken that I acknowledged that was immediately responded to. All that is needed in that case is confession.
Repentance is: I done gone 10 miles out of the way the wrong direction on the highway, been going this way for days, months, and years. So I need to do a whole course reversal. So confession is an action that is responded to immediately. Repentance is a new direction in life that needs to be taken. Because he's not dealing with repentance here, he's dealing in this context with abiding.
He tells them, "If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." What sin? The sins we confess. But then he says, "I'll throw in a bonus. I'll not only take care of the things you confess, I—with the blood of Jesus Christ, the cross of Christ—will cleanse you from stuff you forgot, stuff you didn't even know was there. I'm going to give you a package deal."
If you bring to me in the light the stuff you know about, I'll take care of the stuff you don't know about or forgot to confess. So if you operate in the light, the blood is so working in the light, it'll take care of the known and the unknown, the obvious and the forgotten. Why? So I can keep you in the light. I don't want you going back to the darkness. I want you to stand in the light, 'cause that's where the power of the cross is activated.
The Danger of Calling God a Liar
He closes with this statement in verse 10: "If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and the word is not in us." If He shows you something in the light and you say, "Nothing wrong with it." If He shows you in the light and you say, "It's not that bad." If He shows you in the light and you say, "Everybody does it." If He shows you in the light and you say, "Well, that's not... you know, that's nothing wrong with me. That's just my background, history, and personality."
He says, "You just told God, 'God, you are a boldfaced, cosmic liar.'" Yes. Now, I don't know who's big enough or bad enough to go up into God's grill and to tell Him, "You ain't nothing but a liar. Been a liar, come from a liar, a liar, will be a liar. God, you just a liar. You just... you just..." He says, "You call God a liar." Now, how is God going to have fellowship with folk up in His face telling Him He's a liar? He says it's sin; you call it something else. God is saying, "Oh, you calling me a liar? You saying I'm lying?"
He says, "If you say I have not sinned, you make God a liar. The truth is not in you." You're operating in darkness. And therefore, chapter 2, verses 1 and 2, won't be your experience. I close with that. "My little children"—Christians—"I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin." I'm not telling you to go sin. "But if you do sin, we have an advocate." The word advocate means lawyer, "with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous," which is why the blood keeps flowing.
"And He Himself is the propitiation for our sins, and not for our sins only, but for the sins of the whole world." He says, "If you will acknowledge what I say about a thing, the lawyer will stand up in the courtroom—Jesus Christ the advocate, who died on the cross—and say, 'God, they just acknowledged to you that what you said about them is right and that they were wrong. So I stand up in the court. Since I'm Your Son, You're going to pay me attention. Since I'm righteous, I'm qualified to stand here. And I want to let you know I have already dealt with what they just confessed. So I want you to remove that and throw in some extra stuff, too: all their sin and unrighteousness, so that you can now keep fellowship with them, keep working with them, keep empowering them, keep blessing them. I'm now in the courtroom.'"
He says, "You said you were guilty, but My Son just stood up for you, and I can't ignore My Son, so I got to relieve you from your guilt so you and I can keep having fellowship with one another." He says, "That's the way the cross is activated in keeping us in fellowship with the living God."