1 John 1:5-7 | God Is Light

This is City Post Church, we're about three things, build

equipped and send all under the lordship of Jesus Christ, a

small Church Plant in Fort Worth Texas, who decided to do things

a little differently. I would almost I had to Crystal,

I love City Post because of the people.

It's where I belong, we truly preach the word.

I love City Post because of the community.

We've been able to build to do ministry.

Like Jesus perlite to push back Darkness.

This is City, Post podcast. Hey so this morning we're going

to continue our track in first John so go ahead and get their

first John. Now some of you guys are like

man what's freaky doing on the stage?

So what we're trying to do is we're trying to like ask some

people. You know you just kind of creep

a little bit more to the front so I won't spit on you.

So it's all right. But we're going to be in first

John and we're going to continue our track and first John before

I jump into that. So I moved to Texas when I was

going into To middle school. I was going into eighth grade.

I went to Daggett. Anybody here go to Daggett.

Got like one or two. Yeah.

Now I wasn't in like the honors. I was in the traditional, so

just want to throw that out there.

Ernesto reminds me of that every single time I see him.

Hey, go ahead and put that picture up.

So this was me in the 8th grade. Look at that.

Lady. Killer right there.

Watch out right? I don't know what you heard

about me anyway. So so when I was in the eighth

grade coming from south Florida there like if you want to make

friends you got to go play football and I was like, okay is

that a thing in Texas? It's like yeah, like if that's

like your passage to manhood, you know, so if you didn't play

football forgive me but that's how you made friends.

So I played football at Daggett and yeah, we look like TCU

against Georgia, almost every game.

But I made a lot of friends, and then from there a lot of those

guys, they were like, hey, you should come to the Hispanic

Society. That's like, we're all of us are

kicking it Coach G. That's what we call them.

He's the, like, the leader for that.

He was a retired army General, that decided to give back to the

community. So he would go teach at Daggett

and he led the Hispanic society and they did an annual trip to

the Outdoor Learning. Enter anybody here?

Remember, the Outdoor Learning Center.

That's like, we're like the hood kids went on field trips.

So like other schools, they went to like water parks and theme

parks. We just went to a park, right?

So we would go to Outdoor Learning Center and he would do

an overnight camping trip with students from Daggett, which is

crazy if you think about it. And all I remember, was it was

cold, y'all, like there was no reason to be out there.

I'm not an outdoorsy. Or is like camping.

Let's go camp guy. Like I'll do it to be nice and I

like the challenge. But so I went out there and he

does this game every year and he's known for it where they

played capture the flag at like 10:00 at night.

With eighth graders, like in this huge field, like it's

bananas. Now that I think about it.

So he takes us out to this field.

He divides us up into groups and he's like, here's the catch.

You're not allowed to use a flashlight, and we're all

looking at each other. I mean, we're eighth graders

y'all and I'm like, shoot, I'm Kim.

I bet flashlight my pocket. That's no.

I know how this goes. And so he turned.

So we all turn off the flashlight.

And, of course, those knuckleheads that like flash to

eyes in your face, Yes, because it's funny but what he was

trying to explain to us is like, the way you're going to play in

the way that you win is your eyes have got to adjust to the

darkness. So if you don't have any light,

what ends up happening is your eyesight, kind of gets the

handle of like whether the moonlights breaking through or

like the stars, if it's cloudy, but your eyes really adjust to

the darkness and then you're able to see.

Now, the problem is if somebody throws a flashlight in your

face, You go dark. You have to start all over

again. And of course we had a kid named

George that would do that because we're eighth graders.

It was non-stop just letting you know, and so we never really got

used to it. But I was thinking about this as

we were going, as I was looking at some pictures, some old

pictures. See, what Coach G was telling

us. He was trying to teach us how to

manage the darkness. He wasn't teaching How to use

the light? He's like, in the darkness, this

is how you go through things. This is how you get through it.

This is how like you're able to like manage when you can't see

anything. He didn't get around us and say,

hey Ricky, use the light and the light is going to show you where

to go. See there's a difference there.

There's a difference between managing the dark and living in

the light and using the light appropriately.

There's a huge difference and what we're going.

To look at today is that John is going to continue to push on the

gnostics? Because I remember that's who

he's writing to on, okay? You got Jesus wrong.

That's what we learned about last week.

You got him all jacked up because y'all don't think he's

under percent man, 100% God. So this week, we're going to

look at what they thought about him as far as morality go.

So yes, they had a jacked-up view of Jesus but because of

that they have a jacked-up view of sin.

And they're thinking, you know, what we could do whatever we

want to because it's our body. So they had this war view of Xin

because of their dualism. They had that philosophy where

they thought, anything that happens to the body is

inconsequential, no big deal, but that's not how this works.

So they're going around telling everybody they're enlightened

and that they get a revelation from God and they're doing all

this stuff but the way they live their life does not match up

with what they're saying. That's all Familiar to anybody,

right? I mean, we deal with this all

the time but there's something so much deeper here that John is

trying to point us out too. Because the truth is that if you

are a follower of Christ, if you claim to be a follower of

Christ, then you have a heightened awareness of sin in

your life. That means like sin is not numb

to you, you don't just live life, like everything is okay,

and you can just do whatever you want.

If you're a follower of Christ when you do Do sit.

There's this something in you. That's like, man.

Like this is not okay. I send against the holy and

righteous God. See, a lot of people that I talk

to, when it comes to Christianity, a lot of like,

man, Rick, you know, the I've done so much terrible things in

my life, there's no way I could go to church, there's no way, I

could be a follower of Christ because of all the terrible

things and I'm just thinking, like, congratulations.

That's exactly the kind of thought that you need, God is

working on your heart. You need to have an awareness of

seeing you need to realize that you're jacked up, join the club.

We're all jacked up here, all of Humanity's jacked up because we

live in sin. The danger is when you don't

think you're jacked-up. The danger comes when you don't

think like you sin. You just go through live.

This is me. This is what I want to do is who

I am and That's when John's like no, no, those are The Fakes.

Those are the ones that don't know.

Christ. See believers.

They acknowledge the sins in their lives.

The ones who don't acknowledge the sins in their lives, or the

fake ones. Those are the ones that Jesus

talked about separating, the wheat from the fake wheat.

Those are the Pharisees. Those are the giudices.

Those are those are in honestly, I'm just going to be real just

keeping it honest, that's about 50% of the church.

Church in America. Because when we look at who the

followers of Jesus are, these are the ones that are like, man.

I've sinned against the holy and righteous god.

So let's walk through this. We're only going to look at

three verses today because that's all we got time for.

So look at verse 5. Let's go ahead and jump into it.

Verse 5 says this, because this is the message we have heard.

So this is the message we have heard from him and declare to

you, God is light. And in him, there is no Darkness

at all. If we claim to have fellowship

with him, and walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live

out the truth verse 7. But if we walk in the light, as

he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another and

the blood of Jesus, his son purifies.

Sighs us from all sin. All right?

So let's go ahead and see what this is about.

Remember, John is still writing to the gnostics last week.

He talked about getting Jesus Christ.

Jesus is 100% man. He is 100% God.

I saw him, I felt him. I heard from him.

Not just that, but I could testify to him.

I experienced him. So, yes, he's real.

And I'm there. Now, we're going to talk about

your morality, how you live your life?

You're walking around saying, I'm enlightened and you're

looking at everybody and you're kind of like raining down on

everybody's parade, but yet your life does not look like one who

follows Jesus. So you're walking around with a

false sense of Salvation. So, look at verse 5, he says

this message, we have heard from him and declare to you.

All right? So let's break this down.

What's the message the message? Is that God came down and he

lived a perfect and sinless Life In the Flesh and then he also

gave his life for us. That's the good news.

That's the message and you don't earn it.

You don't have to do anything for it.

All you have to do is accept it. Give your life to Christ ask for

forgiveness, and he will come and live through you.

He will change your heart. The message that he's talking

about was in verses 1 through 4. That's exactly what we saw last

week. Who is we?

We are the apostles who are with Jesus.

Those three years. Who is?

Him him is Jesus. So he's saying, the message that

we who have been with Christ have heard from who him?

I declare to you, what's John saying here, because Paul does

the same thing of Galatians chapter 1.

Galatians 1 · chapter mention

He's like the message that I got is not something that's made up

by, man, I didn't receive it from some teacher.

I didn't receive it from a rabbi, my mama didn't pass it

down to me. My uncle didn't tell me this.

My buddies didn't do it. I didn't get it.

From a school? No, I got it.

Directly from Christ. This is the message.

I'm Paul even goes on and says, listen anything.

That is the fake gospel, man. God have mercy on your soul

because this is the message. John is the oldest living

Apostle, right? Now?

That was walked with Christ. He's it.

And what he's saying, is the message that we declare to you,

I'm not making this up, he gave it directly from his lips to me

to tell to you guys. And remember verse for from last

week. So that way your joy may be

completed. So, what's the message?

What is the message that he wants to give God is what God

say? God is what light, that's the

message God is light and in him, there is no Darkness at all.

Man, this is so significant right here.

So what John does is immediately in verse 5, he starts off with a

standard, okay? So you guys want to live a moral

life. You think you guys are great

morally. Everybody is good.

Okay. But then what's the standard,

how do you measure it? So what's your standard of good?

Well, like I haven't killed, anybody have no, not like

there's got to be a standard that you measure your goodness

and your morality and the great things that you do in this

world. By what's the standard of good

that standard must be perfect. So the standard is God, so he's

getting this message from the highest standard ever, which is

Jesus. And in God, I mean in in John,

what John does here, is that John?

He uses metaphors and images Is that are, like flashes to the

mind of the reader. If you read the book of John,

you see a lot of this. So what does he use to describe

Jesus here? He uses light said, God is

light. Only John does that?

And I want y'all to understand something like, so I like

hip-hop. Okay.

I like rap. I don't like the rap now.

Like I'm not a big Turn Up rap guy like the yeah yeah,

whatever. That means nothing to me.

I'm too old for that. But I like Lyricist, I like,

guys that like Drop Like lyrics, like tell stories like, like do

like play with words. And when we were at passion, San

Juan and Anthony had this ongoing battle, who was The

Goat, Who was the greatest of all time?

And what's on? Why would say is like, now Drake

is but they would Anthony would say is Kendrick Lamar and I'm

like, yeah, Kenny Laurie's free, good.

But if you, if you think about this, listen like what he say.

So like in someone kept using this example, he's like, no,

Drake is right? He did the whole like like last

name ever first name greatest. Like a sprained.

Ankle boy, ain't nothing to play with.

I hear that. I'm like oh snap bars.

No, that's not how I act. That's not my reaction to it.

I'm like that's cute. You know, that's that doesn't

tell me nothing. I don't know who you are.

They came on 2016. You see the thing is what Drake

is saying? Like, that's very introspective,

that's who he thinks he is. He thinks he's the greatest,

he's thinks he can measure up but then when you hear a real

Lyricist or a poet and I mean, use propaganda as an example,

he's a Christian artist, he'll say something like they're going

out here, canceling Quinceaneras.

Because little mamas fixing to be one.

You see the reaction there. Everybody's like, who that hit?

I'm telling like, yeah, and I was real, we lived it.

You see, that wasn't just introspective, that's also

retrospective. That means is not what I'm

seeing right now, but that's what I experienced in the past

and it's also prospective which means that this is going to have

an impact on the future. You see?

So what John is doing here when John says God is light,

everybody's like who Because that's not just introspective,

God. Experienced in the past, I mean,

John experiencing in the past he witnessed his resurrection, he

hung out with him and he was with him as he ascended the

future and what the gnostics are saying is like, no, we're

enlightened, that's introspect. That's a Drake. but what John is

saying, is all of the above That's propaganda.

See the difference there. John is dropping these, is he

dropping bars, is so weird, but John is he's dropping these

metaphors. He's, he's describing these

things and then he says, God is light.

And in him, there is no darkness and I'm just going to run

through these real quickly because this message is the

Apex. God is like John uses this a

lot, John 15. So, in the book of The Gospel of

John, John 1:5, the light shines in the Darkness, John 16 witness

John 1:5

to testify to the light John 3:19.

John 3:19

This is the Judgment that the light has come and Men.

Loved the darkness rather than the light.

John 320 everyone who does evil hates the light.

John 8:12. I am the light of the world God

John 8:12

is light is a drumbeat in John's life, this is his major theme,

this is what he is giving his life to the.

Let everybody know that John, I'm that God that Jesus is the

light. Of the world and that there's no

sin in him. These are some Seminary words.

God is light, is what we like to call a positive assertion and

every time you have a positive assertion, you have a negative

denial. So God is like positive

assertion. There's no darkness in him -

denial. These are things that go

together. So, I want to talk a little bit

about. What does it mean for God to be

light. So, two things, God is light

number 1. That means that there is no sin

in God. There's no sin in God, period.

That means that God is perfect. He's perfect.

And what everything has been his character, his words, his deeds,

his actions, his thoughts, his motives, everything about God is

Flawless, there's no fault in God.

All he says, does acts is what perfect, any answer God gives to

you is perfect. His will for your life is

Providence for your life, his provision for your life.

The unfolding of events in your life, everything.

Life is perfect and I got to any Garth Brooks fans here.

You gave I was like nah, wrong crowd.

I know. Speaking of Middle School,

right? When I was in Middle School?

There was always, this song called unanswered.

Prayers by Garth Brooks that he always close sometimes.

God's greatest gifts are unanswered prayers, And I'm

like, Garth. I understand what you're saying.

Maybe if you got your heart broken, maybe with some chick

that you loved. But that ain't God.

Because all of God's answers are perfect.

It's not that they're unanswered.

Know, God knows what he's doing because he's all Sovereign.

So when you don't see anything working, guess what God is

working? When something is working, guess

what? God is working?

He's always doing something he's always working.

Why? Because he's perfect.

And you know what? And I know a lot of us don't

like talking About this. You know, what else is perfect

his Wrath? We don't talk about this stuff.

His vengeance is perfect. It has to be perfect.

Because if it's not expressed and he can't be perfect.

So his wrath do sin in our lives is perfect.

His vengeance is perfect. That is God.

That's the god that we serve. So, number one, there is no sin

in God. Now, we're going to look at what

John is talking about. Here he goes after the moral

now. He's going to go after the

intellectual piece. Number 2, There's no error in

God. There's no error in God.

That means there's no untruth. There's no, there's no Miss

statements, there's no falsehoods, there's no Miss

information, there's no fake news, right?

There's none of that stuff comes from God.

Listen, you will never hear God. Say words like my bad, I

apologize. Lo siento.

I'm sorry, I messed up on this one.

I love. There's a t-shirt.

That's like, you know, I am somebody because God Don't Make

Junk. Yes.

You know why? Because he's perfect.

So even though our perception, and our perspective of things

might shift the way the culture moves, my shift, some things.

God doesn't shift because he's perfect.

Matthew 5:48 says, your heavenly father is perfect.

Matthew 5:48

So the gnostics claim to have this Divine Enlightenment in

them, so that means that they have like the lights coming from

me. So they might go around say like

Hey, I received a revelation from God and he wants me to tell

you guys all of this stuff. And let me just throw this out

there, we have his word. This is how he speaks to us.

So if somebody comes up to you and they're like, hey Rick, I

got this thing. I need to tell you, God put on

my heart if it does not match up with this or if it contradicts

it, no, they just had a vision, they didn't have a vision at a

Daydream. You that's fake.

If it does not align with his word that listen, you just

trying too hard, you're trying to be like the gnostics.

You're trying to be so relevant. And John says, Nope, God is

light. If you're not aware of your sin

in your life, then you are far from fellowship with him which

moves into the verse 6. So now he's going to go after

the false teachers. He's going to go after those

guys that are like infiltrated. The church walking around

neighborhoods calling people out.

Look at verse 6. He's like, listen, if you claim

to have fellowship with him and yet, walk in the darkness, we

lie and do not live out the truth.

See, I like how he uses the word we because he throws himself in

that Circle as well. See, we're all accountable.

Like I said we are all jacked up.

People, we're not perfect. So we have got to walk in

fellowship with him. So John is he's going after

those those teachers those false teachers that say, one thing but

their lives look different. They're all talk, but there's no

action. Fill in the blank.

See their living life, they have like salvation.

But honestly, they don't have a false sense of Salvation, which

is so dangerous. And what John is saying, is

like, if you are a follower of Christ, then your life must show

that you experience a transformative.

Jesus, I almost couldn't say that word, right?

Like Christ transforms you It's not about like just going to

church, it's not about singing songs.

It's not about like I used to cuss, I don't cuss no more.

No, like this is so much deeper here.

Jesus transforms the heart of, man, he's the only one that

could do that in a Christian. Doesn't just talk about it, but

he backs it up verse 6 is these are for the false converts.

These are like for the people that claim to know him but they

don't, these are the religious folks that John is calling out.

So if we claim to have Fellowship, Ship.

Now, you guys remember last week, we talked about this

Fellowship, Koinonia you know, both parties, same thing,

salvation if you claim that fellowship with Christ, but yet

you walk in the darkness, that means that you're a liar and

you're not living in the truth. So what does it mean?

And what I want us to understand here is that this is deeper than

Behavior. This is deeper than habits

Because what Jesus does is that because he's the light of the

world he gets beyond the surface.

So he digs through like your bad habits, your behaviors that

generational sin, the fatherless homes, the abusive situations,

all of these things that cause us to reject him.

God bear he digs deeper than that and Delight.

What the light does. It exposes the need that you

have for a Pure because we're sinners.

You see walking in the darkness? What does that even mean?

Now when we say walking in the darkness a lot of us distinct

like oh you're just a bad person like you do evil things, you get

drunk all the time. You do drugs you you know, you

beat people up, you steal you Rob but John that that that's

too easy, that's too shallow, that's to surface-level.

John is going deeper here. because what he's saying is

that, if sin doesn't bother you, then there's something wrong

He's talking about walking in darkness means that you have

become numb to your sin. There's nothing in your life

that says I want to know Jesus. I want to get to know him, I

want to worship him. I want my family to get to know

him. I love being with him.

And more importantly, my my sin is not exposed.

I don't have this conviction of sin in my life, there's

something wrong there. And if that's you, that means

that you're not walking in truth.

So you can't claim to be a follower of Christ.

If there's nothing in your life, that shows it, and I'm just

going to say this out loud. Listen this goes beyond Church

hurt. This goes beyond somebody hurt

my feelings. This listen, I've been a part of

that too. I've been part of some jacked-up

churches. But nothing in my life because

of my relationship with him will be like, well, I'm just not

going to be about that anymore, I keep it moving like.

Okay Lord, that wasn't it. What's next?

Show me where you want me to serve?

You see when we get to that point of walking in him and in

the light our conversation changes, it goes from Like,

where do you want me? Where can I go to be

comfortable? Where can I go to?

If you give me things too, where do you want me to go serve?

Where can I be of use? God, where are you leading me

to? Those are the differences here.

So we got to practice the truth. John is pointing out that this

is a lifestyle. This isn't some like thing that

you learn. But the agnostics they see it as

ungodly living. They, they see it as believing

that they could do whatever they want to in life and then we go

into verse 7. But if we walk in the light, as

he is in the light, shout out DC Talk, we have fellowship with

one another and the blood of Jesus, his son purifies us from

all sin. You guys catch that from what?

Awesome. You see what we need to

understand that Jesus died for every single sin in this world

so that way, no one could be excluded from his forgiveness.

He died for the murder just like he died for the rapist.

He died for the child molesting monster just like he died for

the person that lied on their taxes.

He died for everyone. So that way everyone can

experience his forgiveness. For we have all fallen short, Of

the glory of God, we're all Sinners, but he died for us.

All you see the real ones? The authentic followers of

Christ. Look at verse 7, says they walk

in the light because he is in the light.

You see. So they're not pointing to their

selves. When you walk in the light you

defer back to the light. Have you ever flashed the light

at a mirror? What happens to it?

If you shine a flashlight to a mirror that the light reflects

back to somewhere else, we are to be his mirror.

So when Christ shines his light in us that second Corinthians

2 Corinthians 4:6

4:6 the Light of Christ in our lives.

We don't take it and say, yeah, look at me, look how good I am.

No, it's look what God did in my life to transform me.

I'm deferring it back to him. That's the way it should look

like, but I walk in the light. Why?

Because he is the light nothing that I did.

Did you didn't do anything. He's the one that did

everything. We have fellowship with each

other. Remember, we talked about that?

Because we have fellowship with the father.

We can have fellowship with one another and the blood of Jesus,

his son purifies us from all sin, all sin, which is pretty

incredible. So, as we just closed for today,

just just three things I want to talk about when it regards to

light, because John is claiming he's like, listen.

G God is light. We know what that means.

We saw what that means. God is light and in him, there

is no Darkness. So you're not enlightened

because God is light. So what your the way you're

living your life, there's no proof of the Light of Christ in

you and you need to realize that real quickly because you're

going to be pretty disappointed. When you go stand in front of

God and glory and he says I have no idea who you are.

So we got understand is so what does light do?

Number one, light reveals sin, light reveals sin, what John is

talking about here. Walking in light is not about

living a specific way. It's about exposing your sinful

nature, and the closer that you have a relationship with Christ.

The deeper that light goes and the stronger.

Your relationship with Christ is the more the junk in your life

is going to be exposed. We've kind of like, what coach

D, we've come become accustomed to managing in the darkness.

We've gotten so used to our eyesight, we've gotten used to

living in darkness that we think it's okay.

And then you get hit with that light.

You're like, whoa, wait a second.

It's not that's not the way it looks.

And in that light, just penetrates deeper and deeper.

So the closer that you walk with Christ, a stronger relationship

comes with Christ. The more that junk is going to

be exposed in your life, why? Because God is not going to burn

up anything that you don't offer him at the altar.

So yeah, you're like well God knows my heart God knows me.

He knows like what I'm bad at. He knows what messes me up.

Yeah. But are you willing to go to him

and say God forgive me of this. Are you willing to verbally?

Say it out loud? You know why we don't say it

pride? Man pride is a heart man.

Prides an amazing thing. We're prideful individuals man.

That's our heart, the heart gets what the heart wants.

We learned about that at Bible study and what I want to

understand to, why does light expose our sin?

Because God is a holy God, there is no darkness in him.

I think of like Isaiah chapter 6, you know, he talks about.

Isaiah 6 · chapter mention

Holy holy, holy what was he saying?

Is like you're not just holy your holier than that.

And then you're also the holiest being in the entire universe.

Verse, there's no one holier than our God no matter what so

because God Is So holy, there could be absolutely no darkness

in his presence so that light needs to expose that sin in our

life. So that way we look at our

hearts and say, man, we are in need of a savior we're in need

of forgiveness, we're in need of Hope and then we ask him to

forgive us and you know what he does.

He does it he forgives us. It's so great.

Eight. So the closer that we live with

Christ, his slight reveals our sin, and what I want us to also

understand tools that God's restrictions are our

protections. So when we read this word and

we're like no man, the Bible says ABC and D were like, man.

That's not what the culture says God is like no I love you.

So I'm trying to protect. I want the best for your life.

That's why I have given you my word. so we want to live in

wisdom and forgiveness and true freedom and if we want to do

that, Then we have got to get to a place where we allow God to

shine his light on our life and exposed our sin.

Our Darkness, the things that we know we have.

And the things that we don't know, we have David says it

best. He's like search me o.

God, show me my my fault. He's my bad.

Like the ways that I've jacked it up, that word, search means

to dig dig deep in a lot of us need to ask God to dig Lord.

What a my fault? What am I sitting in?

What's stopping me from having a great relationship with you see,

that's how followers of Christ. Think those who walk in the

light, that's what it looks like.

So number one, light reveals sin but number two, light reveals

truth, light reveals the truth. Why does he say that?

Because if you look at verse 6, He says, listen if you're not

walking in the light, if your life looks different, you're

lying. So, what does that mean?

So, if you claim to be a follower of Christ and you're

not a follower of Christ, every time you tell somebody about his

word, every time you tell somebody about church, every

time you sing these songs, you're living a lie.

Cuz you don't even believe it. Like hey, you should do this

ABCD like no but you're not a follower.

You know, it's like it's like, people that try to give you

parenting advice, but their kids are bad like, hey, man, you

should really put like your kids are terrible.

Like, don't talk to me about that, right?

Yeah, or like single people. I give advice to married people.

Like you ain't there, you know. Or like people that try to teach

you to work out but they're like, super out of shape, like,

bro, you're bigger than me. Like you tried to tell me to

lose weight, you lose weight, you see like it just doesn't

make sense. And what the light does, it

doesn't just reveal the sin in your life, because you think,

you know, and that sin comes out, but it reveals the truth in

your life and for some of us, the truth is that you're not a

follower of Christ. The truth is that you're not

walking in the light. The truth is that there are

there is some sin, in your life. Life that you have not handed it

over to Christ. The truth is that I need to read

God's word, more. I need to be a I need to follow

him closer. And that's what happens.

And then the last thing and went with this, Is that light light,

reveals reality, light reveals the reality of the situation?

So, I know, y'all are thinking y'all are smart folks.

Y'all are thinking, Well, Ricky whatever happened to the

Capture, the Flag game, who won. At the beginning.

And the truth about all this is that during that game, we

actually never even got to play it because everybody kept

flashing their lights at each other's faces because we're a

bunch of eighth graders. So as coach G is trying to

explain the rules and separate us and tell us how to play the

whole entire time. Everybody's like, hmm, and you

can't see. So the whole time people are not

able to play, why? Because they're mixing light

with Darkness. and when you mix light with Darkness, there's

frustration, there's confusion. There's hopelessness.

It's difficult. You can't achieve what God is

wanting you to do, because you're mixing light with

darkness. And I think for some of us

today, we've got to kind of take an inventory of our lives and

say, Lord am I walking if I claim that you are the light of

the world of I claim that there's no darkness in you.

But I've I claim that I'm a follower of Christ.

Are you walking in me and through me, or am I still in the

Darkness? No, I love about first John, is

that there is no gray area where first John, it's like it's black

and white. It's either.

It is what it is or it is. What's not?

There's no? Like well the culture says know,

what will my life? I've experienced.

No, like you either walk with Christ.

Are you don't period? And you have got to make that

decision. Like the reality for many of us

is that were walking in a world where our light is super dimmed,

we're walking in a place where it's like, you're kind of in the

shadow and the Darkness, but you're like trying to be in the

light and what John is saying is like that's not going to work,

you can't mix the two together. Because light always overtakes

the darkness, it's impossible for it to happen.

So, how do we live this out? You know, we had a great example

that passion. I remember like they asked

everybody take their cell phones out, and I'm not going to do it

here because some of y'all don't know how to use her cell phone.

But if you turn your flashlight on on your cell phone, you know,

like that top corner. Is pretty simple.

You just like walk around, you could just turn it on but what's

Wild is that if you put it on selfie mode, Your light

automatically turns off. Why Apple gets it?

Because you can't shine your light and want to look at

yourself at the same exact time? It's impossible.

You see? So when we say God is lie, when

we claim that God is light That means that he is living in us

were followers of Christ or his light shines, through us.

It's not you. It's him.

We deferred back to. But the moment that you start

looking at yourself and everything's about you, your

light turns off, So how do we do this?

We make sure that he shines a light in us, but that means that

we have to have a relationship with him.

We have to get close to him and we got to want to be with him.

That's what the real followers do.

So I want to ask you today this morning, can you honestly say

I'm a follower of Christ. So I have the confidence to do

that. I went to some little different

this morning. So as we close in worship, where

a time of response and if that's you and you're like manrique, I

don't I don't know. If you want to be short today as

we have a time and worship where I'm going to ask you to come in

front, like, come see me. I'm gonna be over here.

What will go to the side? Will pray together.

We also have Robert back there. If your hand, we have my dad

back there, so if we have Rachel in the back, just going to back.

So maybe the front might be a little too intimidating.

Go back there. If you just want somebody to

pray with you, we have people that want to pray with you.

But don't let this time go by with you, not knowing whether

I'm a follower of Jesus or not and you just walk around.

Guessing God is, John is very clear but also there's other

things in your life that you want to straighten out.

Maybe whether it's baptism where maybe there's just some that

you're fighting with just want to talk to somebody my folks in

the back that want to do that with you.

So please pray together father we love you and we thank you so

much. and Lord, I pray that Your lytics exposes.

The truth exposes our sin and reveals who you are and Lord.

We also know unearthing that light does is that once were

able to see, we're also able to see what you have done in our

lives. And because you've done so many

good things in our life because you saved us, because you

forgiven us, because you've given us Freedom Way able to

worship you. And were able to remember the

things that you have done for us.

So God As we sing as we respond to you, father, I pray for

anybody in this room. That your heart convicts Jesus.

We love you. We probably sings in your holy

and righteous name. Amen?

Sing together.