God Is Light and in Him There Is No Darkness at All

In one paragraph

Pastor Ray opened First John 1:5 through 2:2 as the first step toward a coming series on repentance, picking up the thread left at the close of twelve years of expository preaching through the New Testament. The message centered on one claim about God and three conditional statements John builds around it, each one testing whether a person's attitude toward sin matches what they say they believe....

Read together

1. Luke 24 (closing passage) He opened their minds to understand the scriptures, and that repentance for forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in Jesus name to all nations beginning from Jerusalem
2. Mark 16:9-20 briefly mentioned as a passage still to be covered in a future sermon
3. Genesis 1:1 In the beginning, God, cited when explaining what was from the beginning
4. John 1:1 In the beginning was the Word, cited alongside Genesis to identify Jesus as what was from the beginning
5. John 17 The high priestly prayer where Jesus prays for unity among believers and all who will believe through the apostles testimony
6. 1 John 1:1-4 Eyewitness testimony of the word of life proclaimed so that others may have fellowship
7. 1 John 1:5-2:2 God is light, three conditional if-then statements about sin, confession, and Jesus as advocate and propitiation
8. Romans 3 (implied) No one is righteous, no not one, all have gone astray, cited when warning against claiming to have not sinned
9. Romans 3:4 Let God be true and every man a liar, cited in context of not claiming to be without sin
10. James 1 Let not any say God tempted me, because God is good and light
11. Isaiah (unspecified) Sin before God is put behind Him when we humbly confess, cited multiple times in the text
12. 2 Peter 1:10 Used as the benediction, be diligent to make certain of his calling and choosing you so you will never stumble

Talk about it

1. John says he is writing so that his readers 'may have fellowship' with the apostles, with God, and with one another. What does that kind of fellowship actually look like in daily life, and what gets in the way of it?
2. Pastor Ray talked about the first 'if then' statement: if we say we have fellowship with God but walk in darkness, we lie. Where do you see that gap between talk and walk showing up most commonly, in yourself or in the church broadly?
3. The sermon described confessing our sins as 'saying the same thing God says' about them. What makes it hard to agree with God about a specific sin rather than minimize it, explain it away, or ignore it entirely?
4. Pastor Ray mentioned J. I. Packer's idea that repentance means turning over all you know of your sin to all you know of God, and that God will progressively show you more as you do. Has that matched your own experience? What has that progression looked like?
5. The closing benediction from Second Peter says that if you practice these things 'you will never stumble.' How do you hold that promise together with the reality that we all fall short, and what does it mean in practice to walk in victory rather than perfection?