In the average baseball or softball game, batters come to the plate anxious to swing the bat. Who doesn’t like to hit? The number of at bats vary from game to game but the goal, almost every time, is to get a hit. Over the length of a season many at bats accumulate. If that batter gets a hit every time he or she came to the plate, their batting average would be 1000%. No one does it, not even the greatest Major league hitters of all time. Almost every baseball fan knows the name Babe Ruth. He was the homerun king for the Major Leagues. His lifetime batting average wasn’t near a 1000%. He had a lifetime average of 342% and held the record, 1330, for striking out for thirty years. What about the man that broke his record, Hank “the Hammer” Aaron? Lifetime average of 305%. The best hitter that I remember was a Padre named Tony Gwynn and his average hitting was 338%. The last person to hit over 400% was Ted Williams and that happened only in the year 1941. His lifetime average is 344%. What’s the point of these baseball stats? No one gets a hit each and every time they walk into the batter’s box. They all fail at some point and do so most of the time.
Matthew 5:48 says “Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.” Is that possible? God never fails but I can think of many times that I have. I know Ecclesiastes 7:20 says “For there is not a just man upon earth, that doeth good, and sinneth not.” Romans 3:23, “For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.” Without Jesus being on the list, can you think of a hero in the bible that lived a perfect life? The only one’s I can think of are Joseph and Daniel. Yet, in the light of verse after verse, in both the Old and New Testaments, I know these two failed also.
The passage I want to call your attention to today is I John 1. This little letter is written to Christians. Often in the five chapters of I John, the words “my little children” a used. The Greek word for “little children” means my “little born ones.” The aged Apostle gives a testimony at the beginning of his words. He speaks about Jesus and those other apostles how they heard, saw, and even handled the Lord. They witnessed Christ’s life and now he is testifying that eternal life is through him and they have it. (1:1-2). This little epistle lets us know that we sin, even as Christians. Two things are easily seen in this little chapter.
1. Possibility of living in Darkness. 1:6, “If we say we have fellowship with him, and walk in darkness, we lie, and do not the truth.” Walking in darkness denotes our lifestyle. Evidently some to whom he was writing were no longer even trying to get a hit when they came to the plate. Trying to bat 1000% was no longer a goal. There is not a week that goes by that the number of inactive members of CBC doesn’t weigh on my mind. People who at one time had a relationship with the Lord and were heavily involved in the Lord’s work no longer do or are. This is true of Christians everywhere not just in our church family. Yet, if I were to ask “what is your relationship with the Lord like?” the response would be “I’m good. Me and the Lord have our own thing going on” to steal a line from an old country song from 50 years ago. There is just one problem with that. The words of a country song aren’t the words from the Word of God. Look at verse 6 again. “If we say we have fellowship.” People can say all types of things but what matters most is what does God say. We can make claim after claim and be vehement about our words but if we are walking in darkness “we lie, and do not the truth.”
2. Possibility of Living in Deception. 1:8, “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.” Not only are we in darkness but now a deception has taken root in our life. We have conned ourselves into believing we are in fellowship with God. I often say that perhaps the worst of all types of deception is self-deception. No one is immune from this. The human heart has the capacity to justify. I can walk through a big box store with a shopping cart and put all types of things in the cart with my heart saying “you need this.” I’ll put a new drill or impact driver in the cart, especially if it is on sale for $99. The others have some age on them. I will then walk down the electrical aisle and put a new circuit tester in the cart even though I have three others. You see, I may not can find the other testers just in case I have the need arise. After I have justified the need for this cart full of things I then can retrace my steps and put back everything in the cart. I can put the cart in its place, get in the truck and leave. I can justify anything. You can do the same thing with the things that interest you. Let’s make a spiritual application. Have you and I justified our lack of commitment to the Lord? Have we told ourselves we are in fellowship? Would we be offended if another brother or sister called our commitment out? Can we look in a mirror and honestly tell ourselves we are walking with Christ in wonderful fellowship? A phrase I often use during the invitation time is “nothing beats honesty with God.” That is absolutely a truth we ought to hammer into our minds daily. What are we to do if we find ourselves in darkness and/or deceived?
3. Possibility of Deliverance. 1:7, “But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ cleanses us from all sin.” That’s a big “if”. You can make a decision to do it or not do it. If you and I choose not to walk in the light then there isn’t forgiveness and the fellowship is marred. There’s a severance. If we choose to walk in the light then sweet fellowship is found with other believers. “Fellowship one with another…” (1:7). Christians ought to desire to be around other Christians! There are no Lone Ranger Christians in the New Testament. The last verse today is 1:9. I call it God’s bar of soap. “If (there’s that word again) we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” Our batting average goes up when we commit ourselves to walk with Christ. I’ll never bat 1000% but I want too! You will never bat 1000% but you should want too! The more you and I practice the better our batting averages will be. How do you practice? Four things readily come to mind. Read your bible regularly. Pray regularly. Be in church regularly. Share Christ with others regularly. You do those four things and your life time batting average will start to climb.