Being Real With God

1 John 1:5-2:

1. The false comfort of the darkness

Who told you that you were naked?

That was God’s question to Adam and Eve. He had came looking for them because they were hiding from him.

Their physical nakedness was a sign of their innocence and openness. They had nothing to conceal from one another and from God.

They were naked in body and naked in soul.

But when they rebelled against God, they suddenly had things to hide from one another. And so, in their desperation to cover up, they sewed fig leaves together to make clothes. This was no fashion statement. It came from a terrible feeling of dread at what they had done.

Who told them that they were naked? No-one. They didn’t need to be told. They knew the truth, and they could not face it.

We can’t read this story and distance ourselves from it. It’s a mirror in which we find ourselves. If we laugh or scoff at the foolishness of Adam and Eve, we find that we’re laughing at ourselves.

Like them, we find the thought of being seen completely for who we are unbearable.

Bonhoeffer put it this way: Sin wants to remain unknown. It shuns the light.

Everyone has a place they do not want anyone else to see. Each of us lives with shame that burns in silence. Even in our prayers, we dare not speak the whole truth.

We prefer the safety of the shadows.

As T.S. Eliot said, humankind cannot bear very much reality.

Photo by Casey Horner on Unsplash

2. The terrifying light of God

Last week, we were introduced to Grandpa John, the writer of 1 John. His message? He wants us to join with him in knowing Jesus, in whom life itself appeared.

One thing that he learnt from Jesus is foundational:

God is light; in him is there is no darkness at all. Vs 5

What does it mean to say that God is light? He is of course, radiant with the light of his glory. He is the light that guides. He is the brilliant and unquenchable fire of holiness.

This is all true.

But here, Grandpa John wants us to know that there is nothing false in God. His light means his utter truthfulness. He is the truth itself. There is nothing that God does not know.

Which is what makes the fig leaves with which we cover ourselves so ridiculous. We cannot hide from him. We like to think we can, since we are good at deceiving others, and we may even deceive ourselves. We can tell ourselves sweet little lies that start to change our memories of how things were.

But John names our lies:

First, our hypocrisy, in vs 6: claiming to have fellowship with him while walking in the darkness.

And then claiming that we don’t sin, in vs 8: if we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.

It never fails to astonish me how often I hear people, even Christians, deny that they’ve ever done anything wrong. It’s one of the signs of narcissism – that you’ll never say sorry, never admit to any fault.

But it’s surprisingly widespread – especially in our secular western culture, where even the idea of sin is seen as potentially traumatising. Admit nothing, we tell ourselves. Blame the system, the patriarchy, the economy, your parents, or whoever else you can find.

But you cannot face God in this way. If you say you have no sin, you tell God he is a liar, for one thing. Do you dare to do that? To say to the God who is Light, ‘God, you are in the dark’?

The light of God tells us that if we say we have no sin, we’re fools.

The all-seeing gaze of God falls upon your secret thoughts. Not one deception can stand. Not one excuse. The idea ought to make us tremble.

Remember when Prophet Isaiah came face-to-face with the blazing light of God’s holiness? He falls down and says, ‘Woe is me! For I am a man of unclean lips and I live amongst a people of unclean lips!’

We cannot handle the truth. Yet we’ve got no alternative when it comes to the God who is light. For in him there is no darkness at all.

3. The scandalous beauty of confession

But I want to tell you about the scandalous beauty of confession.

However afraid of the truth we might be, self-deception is pointless and stupid.

But God promises to meet our honesty with grace and mercy.

Have a look at vs 9. What happens if we confess our sins to him?

If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.

What’s the promise? Be real with God. Speak to him your actual truth – not the fantasy of your own self-image, but tell him about the real you. Be naked in soul to him.

And what will you find?

That’s the paradox, isn’t it? If you claim to be without sin, you are guilty of the sin of self-deception, and you remain in darkness.

Yet if you admit to sin, you will find yourself forgiven and purified.

Hear what this is saying?

The saint is the one who knows they are a sinner.

To step into the light is not to be destroyed, but to be healed. Confession is not humiliation, but liberation. The proud man says, “I have no sin.” But the saint says, “I am the chief of sinners.” And in that honesty, the floodgates of mercy are opened.

The Pharisee stood proud: ‘Thank you that I am not like other men.’ The Tax Collector could only whisper: ‘Have mercy on me, a sinner.’ Jesus says: it was the Tax Collector who went home right with God.”

That’s why confession, even when it tells God about ugly things, is so beautiful. It can feel like a death, like humiliation. But it is the doorway to life.

I don’t underestimate how hard it is to come to this point for many of us.

Sometimes it's because we are in the grip of our own propaganda.

But sometimes, I have to say, it’s because we’ve been shamed by others. We’ve been told repeatedly by human beings that we’re unworthy. The idea of sin has been weaponised against us.

But notice here: the one to whom we are called to give account is not a sinner like we are. He is light: in him is no darkness at all.
But added to that, he is gracious and just. He does not deny the reality of our sin, but meets us with grace. He does not crush us when we turn to him.

4. The Astonishing Gift of the Advocate

How does that work?

It’s because we have someone who stands for us, an Advocate.

What if we admit that we’ve sinned? What then?

John tells us: You have an Advocate. Jesus Christ the Righteous.

We know what lawyers do: they stand for us in court. And John says—you have one in heaven. Jesus Christ, the Righteous One. And his plea on our behalf is not excuses, but his own blood.

That’s what it says in 2:2 – Jesus is the atoning sacrifice for our sins. He offers to the Father the offering for sin that we could not offer. He dies as a sacrifice in our place so that we can be forgiven. He ‘atones’ – literally ‘at-ones’ us, with the Father.

This is what John means when he says that we are purified from all sin. If we ‘walk in the light’, it is not because we are perfect but because we are perfectly forgiven.

And this means not just as we come to God for the first time and receive grace and forgiveness. It means that as we continue to sin, we can keep on being honest with God. Our purification is ongoing.

John says, ‘Look, I am writing you this good news so that you won’t sin! That would be great. Now that you know that you can’t hide from God and that God meets you with mercy, give up on sin.

But when you do, don’t despair.

You can be completely honest with God because Jesus has already dealt with the worst of you.

4. You, unfiltered: do not be afraid of the light

Photo by Accuray on Unsplash

So do not be afraid of the light! The light is the place where everything is exposed so that it can be healed. Coming into the light of God is like undergoing an MRI of the soul. All the tumours of sin will be exposed. But only so that the medicine of Jesus’ blood can be applied.

Each week, as we gather, we confess our sins to God. It’s a very strange and countercultural thing to do. We do not issue denials. We are not those who cover up or who engage in spin. We’re not in business of issuing soothing platitudes.

We confess.

If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves. We need this truth to break through to the light of grace.

Now, we do not demand of one another an itemised list! There is a place for confessing to one another our particular sins. It can be very helpful to confess to a trusted brother or sister in Christ. But it needs to be done with the utmost sensitivity and care.

But we also confess here together in public because it reminds us of who we, the church, are, together. We stand shoulder to shoulder with the other sinners, to remind one another that our fellowship is in the grace we all need.

Sin isolates us. Its demonic force is that it separates us. Shame and guilt take us away from one another. We die in them alone.

But together as we confess, we come into the light. We are alone in our sin; but we come together to the cross of Jesus Christ.

The church is not a fellowship of the perfect but of the forgiven. The distinguishing mark of the Christian community is not that we are sinless, but that we do not conceal our sin. We’re not a society of the moral elite.

Do not be surprised when you meet sin in the Christian community. But do be surprised when you find sin denied. ‘I’ve done nothing wrong’ is not something that Christians say – for we have.

And we confess our sins together so that we can hear once more the good news: God is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

Do not then be afraid of the light, for it is a light that heals.

This week, pray one unedited prayer. Just one. Don’t curate it. Don’t polish it. Don’t edit it into something you think God wants to hear. Let your prayer be as raw as it needs to be. Tell him the truth. And then let yourself sit in the mercy of Christ.

When we confess together on Sundays, take it seriously. Don’t let the words wash over you like background music. Let them be your words. Bring something real into that confession. The liturgy is not a ritual of shame. It’s a declaration of freedom.

Find one person you trust, and be real with them. Maybe it’s a Christian friend, a spouse, a mentor. Say something out loud that you’ve been holding in the dark. You don’t have to confess every detail to every person, but there is great healing in telling just one brother or sister in Christ: This is me. This is what I’m carrying.

And when someone else does that with you—don’t shame them. Don’t fix them. Don’t minimise it. Point them to Jesus, the Advocate, who already stands for them.

Because here is the good news:
You can step into the light without fear, unfiltered. God already knows the worst of you, and in Christ, he has already dealt with it. And so the most honest version of you—the sinner-you, the broken-you—is the very one invited into fellowship with him.