Here For It:Wk 2

Intro: Illustration:

Light Side/Dark Side of the Force:

How many of you were in the main service on Sunday? Ok, so this opening question will sound familiar then. How many of you like Star Wars? Ok, how many of you know the general storyline or idea of star wars? Ok good! (Better or worse than Sunday?)

SHOW IMAGE

In star wars, really the big thing that you have to understand is the idea of the Force. The force is the energy or power that binds everything in the universe together. you can feel it if you pay attention to it, and the Jedi are people who are extra sensitive to the Force and learn to wield and use the force. But you have to be careful because there is a light side of the force and a dark side of the force. You can even see in this ad for star wars on Disney plus, the light side and dark side being emphasized. If you look at most movie posters and content for star wars it has this contrast in everything. There is a light side and a dark side and you have to be really careful that you don’t get too emotional or the dark side can just overtake you!

Now, this idea pops up in all sorts of movies, of a good side and bad side, good vs evil, light vs dark… but it’s not just in movies right? Our world is all about emphasizing that idea of an inner balance between good and bad. Yin and yang, good energy and bad energy. Please try to figure out their horoscopes, they’ll grab rocks and try to get good energy from them. I mean people travel across the world to “charge” their crystals with good energy just to try to off set their bad energy…

It sounds wild, but this is all very common today. And the Bible also talks about light and darkness, but in a very different way than our world.

The difference is, the Bible is all about God who spoke and created light in the midst of darkness. As we will see tonight, the Bible teaches that God IS light and there is not darkness in him at all and He sent Jesus into this world so that we could become children of light!

The Bible teaches a different understanding of life. As we will see tonight, it’s not about balance. It is all about the Light! God doesn’t want you to find a balance between darkness and light, Jesus didn’t come to help you offset the darkness in your life, He came to rid you of the darkness completely, He wants you to walk in the light, as children of the light, because GOD IS LIGHT!

Turn to 1 John 1 again with me tonight!

We are in our first series of the year, Here For It. This is all about digging into and remembering, why we are here! What is the purpose of the church, why do we gather as a student ministry, and how do we not miss what God is doing in us when we show up?

Last week, we looked at the first few verses of this chapter and saw John writing to christians gathered in the city around him and was emphasizing that in order for them to have a community of love, Jesus has to be at it’s center! He reiterated the gospel message to them and reminded them that is the basis for everything in their life and in their church! We talked about the idea of fellowship and how essentially that comes down to us doing life together in a very deep, personal and intimate way as we follow Jesus together as a family!

Just like our LIVES will be defined by what we believe about Jesus, so will our community!

Tonight, John is continuing this thought about fellowship but shifting gears to focus more on our fellowship with God! But as we will see our fellowship with God and with one another are deeply connected!

Let’s read the passage together, and it’s awesome because it sounds like a sermon, like as I read this remember it is God’s Word but also imagine it is just John preaching a message to us!

Let’s read:

1 John 1:5–2:2 (CSB)

This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you: God is light, and there is absolutely no darkness in him. If we say, “We have fellowship with him,” and yet we walk in darkness, we are lying and are not practicing the truth. If we walk in the light as he himself is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin. If we say, “We have no sin,” we are deceiving ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say, “We have not sinned,” we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.

My little children, I am writing you these things so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father—Jesus Christ the righteous one. He himself is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours, but also for those of the whole world.

I love it, it really just sounds like a passionate Jesus follower talking to a bunch of struggling christians! And that is what this is!

But we see immediately this idea of Light, all throughout this passage, right?

Remember, there are false teachers that are spreading lies about Jesus to this church and John has that in mind as he writes. So, a lot that he says in this passage is likely addressing the lies that were going around.

And John knows they need to remember who Jesus is and what He did for them as we saw last week, and now he wants them to remember who God is and how they can relate to him.

He starts off, “God is LIGHT and there is absolutely no darkness in him.”

What does this mean?

Well this theme of light and dark comes up all throughout the Bible and God is compared to light a lot.

Psalm 27:1 “The Lord is my light and my salvation— whom should I fear? The Lord is the stronghold of my life— whom should I dread?”

Isaiah 9:2 “The people walking in darkness have seen a great light; a light has dawned on those living in the land of darkness.”

Isaiah 60:1 “Arise, shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord shines over you.”

Jesus helps us understand this imagery in the New Testament:

Jesus: John 12:36 “While you have the light, believe in the light so that you may become children of light.”

John 12:46 “I have come as light into the world, so that everyone who believes in me would not remain in darkness.”

But remember John’s writing this letter and his intro to his Gospel account is similar in many ways to his intro to this letter, and this is what will help us piece everything together:

Talking about Jesus John wrote,

John 1:3–4 “All things were created through him, and apart from him not one thing was created that has been created. In him was life, and that life was the light of men.”

God is light is a statement that God is LIFE itself.

God is light means God is life.

Think about it for a second, we know we need light to live! You take the sun away and the world will quickly die. Did you know, if the sun was just gone tomorrow we could only survive a couple of days longer. Our planet would quickly become nothing but a frozen icy space rock incapable of life.

But God knew what he was doing, he created the sun and set us perfectly spaced from it so we wouldn’t burn up or freeze. It provides us light to see, warmth to survive, vitamins and nutrients that our bodies need and plants use to produce oxygen for us to breathe. We need light to live. But even more the God, who spoke and there was light in the very beginning, created more than that light, he created all life.

He is the one source of life. He is life, and there is no death in him because there is no sin in God, he is perfect and holy.

Death comes from sin, the wages of sin is death Romans 6:23 “For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

So, the light Jesus came to bring, is the abundant life of God. Life free from sin.

God is light means God is LIFE- sinless, abundant, LIFE!

God is Light .

But this is a problem because we know people do have death because they have sin in them!

So, how do we have fellowship with God?

1 John 1:6 “If we say, “We have fellowship with him,” and yet we walk in darkness, we are lying and are not practicing the truth.”

John is pointing out one of the most common problems in the church even to this day. People who call themselves christians, go to church, and then live however they want every other moment.

To say we have fellowship with God means that we have a personal, intimate relationship with God.

We know Him, we love Him, we talk with Him and we follow Him.

To be a Christian: We have a personal and growing relationship with God the Father through Jesus the Son because of the cross.

So, if we claim that, but then continue to live in sin, continue to live a life that looks just like everyone else, well John says, we are lying to ourselves, to others, and to God.

We are living a lie!

We cannot have fellowship with God and walk in darkness.

John keeps bringing this back to the problem of lying about our sin.

1 John 1:7–10 (CSB)

If we walk in the light as he himself is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin. If we say, “We have no sin,” we are deceiving ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say, “We have not sinned,” we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.

We see this tension between walking in darkness and walking in the light.

We are all born children of darkness, lost and dead in our sins, but through Jesus we can be brought from that darkness and death into the light and life of God.

But we must first admit that we have a sin problem. That’s why so many people reject the Gospel, because they are unwilling to admit that they actually do have sin in their life, they are not good enough for God’s perfect standard. We don’t like to hear or admit that, but its true!

It’s essential to being saved, we must admit we have a sin problem. But as christians we cannot pretend we are perfect. Yes, Jesus calls us to go and sin no more. WE do not have to think we will just keep sinning until Jesus returns, but we also have to be willing to admit when we fall short, make mistakes, and sin.

The process of becoming more like Jesus is a slow and sometimes difficult process and we won’t always get it right. We will mess up at times.

This doesn’t mean as Christians its ok to pursue blatant ugly sins and just go oh well,I won’t be perfect until Jesus comes back. But it means as we follow Jesus, we won’t always get it perfectly right, we will have to make mistakes to make progress. Look at Peter...

For instance, I cannot turn back to my selfish pride or lust struggles from before I was saved, that would be a serious problem. But I do have moments where I don’t love people the way Jesus does, I may say something that hurts someone or get lazy and not honor God with some of my time.

It is a process of becoming more like Jesus and we will make mistakes, we will have struggles, we will fall short at times. What John is saying is that, When we walk in the light, we don’t hide our struggles. We don’t act like we’re perfect or holier than other people. WE follow Jesus and own it when we make mistakes.

So what do we do with our sins and struggles?

We must stop hiding our sin and start confessing it.

Confession of sins is one of the most vital practices for the community of Jesus followers because it is the only way we can truly have loving relationships with each other and it is the only way we can experience the healing power of Jesus!

James 5:16 “Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person is very powerful in its effect.”

To act like we don’t struggle and have no sin in our hearts is to make God a liar and suggest we didn’t even need Jesus to die for us.

On the flip side, to regularly and faithfully confess our sins declares the forgiveness that is found in JESUS! See, darkness is an illusion. There isn’t actually any substance of darkness, darkness is simply the lack of light. So, darkness can’t exist in your life if you let Jesus, the light of the world, have his way in EVERY AREA OF YOUR LIFE!

The way we do that is confession.

I get it, the world trains us to hide our flaws, our weaknesses, our sins. But Jesus teaches us to bring the darkness to light.

But when you hide it, it continus to have a hold on you, it hinders you from walking in the light with Jesus. It puts space between you and God and you and others. That’s why John says we won’t be able to have fellowship with each other or with God if we pretend we don’t sin.

Walking in the light requires confession of sin.

I believe there may be some here and in our ministry that have been trapped in sin for years simply because they have been refusing to truly confess it for so long. Hear the Holy Spirit speaking to you, inviting you to confess your sins and find healing! It is only through confession to God and other believers that we can find healing. We let people help us and walk with us through the struggle. THIS IS FELLOWSHIP at work!

And finally, John offers encouragement for when we fail. 2:1 says I am writing these so you may not sin- meaning I am writing all of this so that you will be able to begin living a life in the light, a life free from sin!

But if you do sin, remember: Jesus is our advocate before the Father because he was the atoning sacrifice for our sins.

As we close, get this picture in your minds and never forget it!

Jesus the Son is at the Father’s right hand every moment on our behalf. Because God is life and can have no part of sin, we constantly deserve his judgement but JESUS stands as our advocate, our helper, because he was the payment for our sins!

SO, the Son stands by the Father for us, so that even though we sin and fall short, we can have life with the Father. It’s as if Jesus is saying, yes, they sinned, but my sacrifice already paid for it on the cross because you Love them so much! They are forgiven because of me!

And John finishes this thought by saying Jesus isn’t just the sacrifice for our sins but for those of the whole world!

Walking in light leads us to the lost.

We have found life in Jesus because he is the payment for our sins that allows us to come to life with the Father! We Step into that life through our confession of sins and receiving forgiveness through Jesus. And when we have found this life in Jesus, we can’t help but share it with others.

Everyone you know can have life through the light of Jesus! We have to go tell them about Him! WE have to share the Gospel, we have to live differently and not as hypocrites. We must walk in the light and let that light radiate out of us and into the world around us. Because Jesus paid for the sins of the world on the cross, but only those who come to him to be saved will experience His life now and forever!

Listen, we are called to walk in the light together as we follow Jesus.

This community right here, and at our church, is called to walk in the light as Jesus is in the light! We cannot walk in darkness and claim to know God!

We must step into the light through Jesus.

Confess our sins to God and one another.

And go reach the lost and invite them into the light with us.

Bow your heads with me and respond to God’s Word together. Matt can come up and he’ll lead us in a song to respond in a moment.

There may be someone here tonight who is still walking in darkness. You’ve never followed Jesus into His light! Listen that invitation is open today. You can be set free from your sins and brought from darkness into light, from death into life today! If you call on Jesus tonight you will be saved. Forgiven of your sins, made right with God and given eternal life with Him. Is there anyone here tonight that wants to follow Jesus and be saved?

GOSPEL INVITATION

For everyone who is following Jesus- Let’s walk in the light together this year, let’s see how many of our friends and family members we can bring into the light with us. But know that the biggest thing that will hold us back from seeing that happen is when we lie about our sins. To ourselves, others, and God!

We must practice confession.

Right now, is there sin in your life that you need to confess and finally bring into the light? Maybe you’ve done it before but you have gone right back to it. Will you confess that to God right now? As you do, remember that JESUS is your advocate at the Fathers right hand, standing there as your sacrifice that already paid for your sins. You have forgiveness already so don’t let anything stop you from confessing your sins right now.

But don’t stop there, healing comes as we confess our sins to one another. If you confess your sins to God and then let other’s come along side you, pray for you, walk with you, love you- then you will experience the healing and freedom of the Holy Spirit in your life!

When we sing in just a moment don’t let this be another moment where we act like we have it all together. Where we put up a front and don’t practice confession of sins. Big or small, come talk to me or another leader and bring another student you trust to come with you! let’s practice confession together!

PRAY

Now, stand and as Matt sings, respond as you need to!