God is light

2 truths and a lie
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2 truths and a lie
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Sometimes it can be hard to decipher between what's truth and what's a lie. This week at Go Camp we're going to be digging into a book, a letter from the Bible called 1 John. This letter was written to a group of people who had let some lies that they believed divide them and ruin some of their lives. And John is deeply concerned for this group of people and so he writes a letter trying to communicate the truth about God is, who Jesus is, and who they are.
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Lies were different because their lives were different. No social media to tell lies about God. Sports teams/about others. Mirrors to tell about them. But the truth they needed to hear was the same. Let's jump in!
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1 John is kind of broken into two parts. Each part begins with a phrase, "This is the message...". Tonight, we're going to look at the first of these two "messages" in 1 John 1:5-10. Can you turn in your bibles?
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1 John 1:5-10
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"God is light, in him is no darkness"...John uses this image of light and darkness to describe God and what's it like to be connected to God (light) and what it's like to not be connected to God (dark). Now this image of light and darkness can be hard for us to understand because we have electricity, even when it's dark, its still kind of light. When John says darkness, he means darkness.
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Read again in darkness.
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So when we're connected to Jesus, we walk in the light. Apart from him, it's darkness. But John knows that the people he's writing to might want to argue with him. So he considers their arguments. He gives three "If we say" statements
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We are without sin...I know it might be hard to believe this, but there were actually people that John was writing to that believed that they were created perfectly, that they were without sin, and that their natural instinct was never to go against God's design to love one another and forgive one another. Now if you believe that today, have you ever seen a little kid be wronged?
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Illustration
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We all have sin in us, sometimes our natural instinct is to go against God's design.some who say "we have not sinned"...this one we can relate to. There are some of us in the room this morning who we know we have sinned or are sinning, we're doing things against God's design, in the darkness but we want to deny it to everyone around us, even ourselves.homework website way you look in mirror, talk about yourself, and what you're doing to your body friends hanging withOne more objection...we have fellowship with him!....can relate to this one as wellchurch on sundays--drinking youth group on wednesdays--whatever w/boyfriend go camp--football camp acting completely differentAnd deep down, you know you're walking in the darkness. Here's the deal...Jesus wants a whole lot more than your Sunday mornings, Wednesday nights, and one week of your summer. He wants your life. He wants to move you out of the darkness and into the light. He wants to walk in the light with you.Intro into time of response...challenge by choice. If you want to move some things out into the open, if you want to walk with Jesus in the light, I want you to write something in your life that it's in the dark.PrayHere's the deal with darkness and light. They are mutually exclusive. You can only have one or the other. Things are either in the dark, or they are in the light. And often times we believe these lies and we don't just believe them, we live them. And we begin to sin, we begin to do things that are against God's design, things that God doesn't want for us, we begin to walk in the darkness. But when Jesus enters the picture, Jesus brings the light. (Begin Pouring)And when Jesus brings the light he begins to push all of the darkness out. Jesus purifies us, he shines light on our darkness, and he opens us up to love him and love one another in fresh and powerful and unbelievable ways. It's not our strength that we live out of, but our weakness. It's not lies, but truth. It's not darkness, it's light that we walk in. Jesus takes us from the darkness and moves us into the light.Did you guys know that there's something called light pollution? Light pollution prevents people who live in big cities where all this artificial light shines and covers up the night sky from seeing the natural light of the night sky, the stars are covered up in these big cities. This is like science and stuff. There's even documentaries about this! There's one called The City Dark. And there's this powerful scene in the documentary where they take people who have lived in big cities like NY their whole lives, they've never seen the natural light of the night sky, they've never seen the stars. And they take them to these remote places where the stars are most visible, and for the first time these people see the expanse of the cosmos, they see the milky way and the big dipper, and they are blown away. It's a powerful moment and scene to watch. These people are moved into a different spot where they can see the magnificent light of the stars, that's always been there, it was just covered up. The stars had always been there, these people just needed a change of scenery to see it.This is what I think and I hope that God wants to do in our lives over the next few days. This is our change of scenery. That through our small group discussions, our meals, our worship, our serving, opening up God's word, we would be moved into God's glorious light, that like the stars, has always been there. We just needed a change of scenery to see it.