1. Darkness, Light and Love
1 John 2:7-11

2. Constant State of Tension
Pressure from the darkness.
Desire to live in the light.
To walk in the light requires a lifestyle of active love.

3. Dark, Light, Old, New – vs. 7-8
1 John 2:7-8 --
“Dear friends, I am not writing you a new command but an old one, which you have had since the beginning. This old command is the message you have heard. Yet I am writing you a new command; its truth is seen in him and you, because the darkness is passing and the true light is already shining.

4. Out Of The Darkness, Into The Light
1 Thess. 5:5 -- You are all sons of the light and sons of the day. We do not belong to the night or to the darkness.

5. Ephesians 5:8-9 – For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live as children of light 9(for the fruit of the light consists in all goodness, righteousness and truth)

6. The Old Commandment
Deuteronomy 6:5 -- Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.
Leviticus 19:18 -- …but love your neighbor as yourself. I am the LORD.

7. The New Commandment:
Mark 12: Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.' 31The second is this: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these."

8. Anyone who claims to be in the light but hates his brother is still in the darkness. 10Whoever loves his brother lives in the light, and there is nothing in him to make him stumble.
Love Equals Light
Vs. 9-10

9. There IS a difference between “claiming” and “living”.
The test of light living is GENUINE LOVE.
Illustration: Dear Jimmy, I love you, …Marie
We MUST be what God IS:
1 John 1:5 -- God is LIGHT
1 John 4:8 – God is LOVE

10. Hate Equals Darkness
Vs But whoever hates his brother is in the darkness and walks around in the darkness; he does not know where he is going, because the darkness has blinded him.

11. Hatred indicates a failure to love.
Hatred is sinful
Galatians 5: The acts of the sinful nature are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; 20idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions 21and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God.

12. Hatred is like burning down your house
to kill a rat!

13. The Hater IS…
In the darkness
Walks around in darkness
Blinded by darkness