Summer of Love | Are You In The Light? — Forrest Coleman | 1 John 1

Summer of Love | Are You In The Light? — Forrest Coleman | 1 John 1

Transcript

Forrest 0:06

Hey, I'm Pastor Forrest, and welcome to the Multiply Church Podcast. Each week we open God's word together to help you meet God and multiply good in your everyday life. We're so glad that you've taken time to join us for this week's sermon. And if you haven't already, be sure to subscribe and follow us on social media so you never miss a message. Now, let's dive into this week's sermon. Church, I want to tell you about a door that was opened this week. And the story behind it is really of who may walk through the door. But for the first time in four years of being involved at K-State's campus this week, Jamie Oleka from our Frankfurt Ford outreach team and myself got to meet with the president of K-State. And it was a great meeting. And we really just came to them to ask the question how can we better serve K-State students? And the conversation could not have gone better. It was such a great conversation. It led to some invitations from them to us. One being them asking if we would help students move in on August the 13th, freshmen who are coming to our community for the first time to be introduced. Also, they talked about the possibility of doing a K-State Sunday here at Multiply, which is amazing. President Capo talked about the need for host families during Christmas break for students who aren't able to go home. My family and I, we've done we did this in 2023 with a student that lived in South Florida and couldn't make it home for the holidays. And so we opened our guest room for our friend, young man Malik, to stay with us at Christmas time. And he played football, so we ate a lot of food. But we had a great time. My girls still talk about the Christmas that we got to celebrate with Malik. And he the president talked about other students and the need for that. Also led to an invitation for us to in September host a worship night for students on campus. What I'm saying is it wasn't a fully formulated plan, but what it was was the door swung off the hinges this last week. And as I think about students who are arriving in Frankfurt, I'm believing for those students that they're gonna discover that this city is making room for them. This church is making room for them. Reminds me of Lily Ann, who's this last year, she grew up in Phoenix, Arizona, came from Phoenix, Arizona to be a softball player at KSU. And this last year, Lily Ann was baptized here because she came to Frankfurt, wanted to play softball, and she found God while she was here all the way from Phoenix. And I think about that happening over and over and over again. And to listen to the president and the staff say that their hope is that students will find a church home during their four years here. Let me tell you, that's a totally different conversation than what was happening four years ago when we got here. It reminds me of Galatians 6 9 that says, at just the right time, we will reap a harvest of blessing if we don't give up. And as as I I'm excited about this opportunity, and it's not a fully formed plan yet and all that, it's an open door. But I wonder and ask the question for us as I as I'm excited about what's happening, and it excites me to no end. I also asked the question when students walk through these doors here this fall, what kind of church are they gonna find? Are they gonna find a church that's full of the light and life of Jesus? Are they gonna find a bunch of people that are too busy? Are they gonna find ones who are only caring about their own lives and own selves and own family? Are they going to experience the light and love of Jesus that truly changes people? The title of my message today is Love in the Light. As we've gotten into this series, Summer of Love, and this is our last installment of this series, Summer of Love, as we've been getting our hearts in the right place, that our hearts will be motivated, our hearts' motivation will be love this fall as we head into school and all the things that the rest of this year brings, that we make sure that our hearts are in the right place, that our lights, our life is filled with the love of God. And we've looked at 1 John about how God is love. That's where that concept even comes from, is this book of the Bible. And we've been looking at it, and what kind of light and goodness are people going to experience here at multiply? What does meet God and multiply good even mean? Well, to meet God means that you have salvation, that you be saved, and then you meet with God personally and then also together with other believers. And to multiply good, what does that mean? We began this series looking at Jude verse 2. That mercy, peace, and love be multiplied to you. That we would multiply good and multiplying the love of God, multiplying disciples, multiplying churches. Because everybody, every single person wants to have a good life. And we want to have good things in our life. We want to have love in our life. We want to have joy in our life. We want to have great relationships in our lives. We want to have forgiveness extended to us. But where is that actually found? It's found in the light and life of Jesus. And if we don't walk in that light, we're going to miss out on the joy that God has for us, the friends that God has for us, the fellowship that God has for us, the freedom that comes with a life with Jesus. And I think about these K-State students, when they come to multiply, they're going to come. And what kind of people will they find when they do? And so it begs the question as we end this series, are you living in the light? Are you living in the light? What does that even mean? Are we living in the light that we see and see from the scriptures? And as we look at Jesus being called the light and called love, it's easy for us to think about the light and also think about darkness and thinking that that's somebody else. Think about oh, there's some deep, dark, evil darkness. But darkness can also look like hiding or pretending, wearing a mask, being fake, having a surface-level faith, having a surface level Christianity, or just thinking, well, you know, faith is this private thing that I do. And slowly the lights get dimmer and dimmer and dimmer. And if that happens, you're gonna lose out on what God has for you, the joy of this life, and great relationships and friendships and freedom in Christ. See, I want for us to be the kind of church where people don't just hear about Jesus, they experience his life through us. And John is writing at a time where he's watching churches divide and he's watching people who are claiming spiritual superiority, people who are even denying that they're sinful at all, and he's challenging us and he's confronting these people and telling them that they need to walk in the light and then telling them what that actually looks like. And so, are you walking in the light? We just read the first chapter of 1 John. And so we end this series in the beginning of 1 John. Makes a lot of sense, right? We end with the beginning. And is what John tells us is some markers of what it looks like for us to walk in the light and love of Jesus, starting with verse 4 in chapter 1. He says, We are writing these things so that you may be may fully share our what? Joy. We got it up there? 1 John 1.4. We got it. It's coming. We got it. We are writing these things so that you may fully share our what? Joy. Man, it's easy to get in just to a routine with church, and that's just what I do. I just come to church and forget what Jesus has actually done for us. The scripture says, restore to me the joy of my salvation. You know that I don't, it doesn't matter how long you have been a Christian, you never graduate beyond the gospel. The gospel, the fact that Jesus, 2,000 years ago, while we were still sinners, that Christ put on flesh and dwelt among us and came here to this world to go to the cross and to die in our place, beaten and bloody, for the sins of the whole world, yours and mine, past, present, and future, to be placed on his back and for him as a perfect sacrifice to die on the cross and walk out of the grave so that then we could walk in the joy of salvation, that we could have a pathway to God, that we could not be separated for eternity in a place called hell, but be with God forever. And sometimes we can get so familiar with that story of what has transpired and what Jesus has done for us that it's like we forget the joy that it should bring. What's one way that we should be marked? If we're walking in the light and in the love of God, you should be full of joy. That's my first point. What marks us? Full of joy. If you're living in the light, others will see it. Is anybody joyful to be in the house of God this morning? Is anybody thankful for the cross and what Jesus has done for you? Is anybody have any joy about the fact that you no longer are dead in your sin and trespasses, but you have been forgiven by the creator of the universe who loved you so much? It became to die in your place. Joy was never meant to stop with you. When you came in, you saw a bunch of shoes and cleaning supplies that we are taking up this week through our Frankfurt Ford outreach initiative for local schools who asked us for us to provide cleaning supplies to Collins Lane and also new shoes and the initiative with the county school system. And I just can't shake the thought of the joy on a kid's face who didn't know if they were going to get a new pair of shoes, going and picking out one of those fresh pair of Nikes out there, and a smile on their face, and the joy of that. That's joy that is from Jesus in a generous church who enjoy brought a pair of shoes that's gonna bring some joy to a kid in just a few days. Talking about bringing joy all the time. Because your coworkers, they're annoying. They annoy the fire out of you. I know they do. One of y'all told me just the other week that you got cussed out by a customer at work because you were talking about Jesus. They told you to shut up and stop talking about Jesus and get to work. I heard just this last week, a coworker said that they put blessings in an email and had somebody come and chew them out for putting blessings in an email at work and said, get all that God stuff out of here. It's tough out there. You know what? Bring joy anyway. Is that not just a full display of how much our world needs the light and love and joy of Jesus? They need somebody who they can treat like that, and then somehow that person still has a joy that's supernatural. It's not based on present circumstances and how they're treated, and how much money's in the bank account, and it's life all good because we have the joy of salvation in our heart and the Holy Spirit and the light and love of Christ flowing from us. John goes on to say what it looks like if you're living in the light, verse 7. But if we are living in the light, as God is in the light, then we have fellowship with each other. And the blood of Jesus, his son, cleanses us from all sin. John says, if we're living in the light, the light that comes from God, then we're going to have fellowship with each other given to us by the power and the blood of Jesus. What does that mean? Fellowship is this big $10 church word. What it means is that you have Christian friends. You have fellowship and fellowshipping with other believers, having Christian friends that you are with and hanging out with, that you are around in your life and you have a relationship with that. That's a mark of you living in the light of God. You living in the light that God is the light, that you fellowship, that you have friendship with other believers. And even for me, there's times, you know, there's times for me that I don't want to go to small group. It's a long day of work. I'm like, I don't want to go to small group. My wife's like, you know, every time you go to small group that you come back and it was it was worth it. Sometimes I was leading the small group. Fellowship with other believers. And some of you think, well, I just I don't have time for that. I don't have time. I don't have time to have fellowship. If if if the light of Jesus is in you, fellowship is gonna flow out of you. That's the second point. It's what connects us. Because some of y'all say, ah, I'm good on my own. No, you're not. No, you're not. You think you are, but you're not. The way that this Christian life has been designed by God is that this is not a solo assignment that we are a team sport as we are following Jesus, that we're supposed to be in fellowship with one another, loving one another, encouraging one another, walking in the light together. And if you're walking in the light, you're gonna share it with others. You're gonna share the light and have fellowship and get together and have have have a good time. We're here on Sundays. We're gonna be marked by joy and getting to know people and having friends, not just staying isolated and staying anonymous, but you're actually in relationship and you have fellowship with other believers. You're in a small group, you're on a team, y'all should be doing fun stuff together. If you're not having a good time, going vol and doing stuff with your team, with your group, get on your leader. Tell him, call him out. Fellowship, having a good time, we're eating meals together in people's homes and small groups and teams, as people get to know each other. And it happened this last week. Pull up that picture of the teenagers. These about two dozen teenagers leaders out here playing pickleball last night, having a blast. Pickleball for Jesus. And man, they were having such a great time. They were having such every all these students have been telling me about it this morning, about how great times that they had. And I'm so excited about August the 23rd as our youth group is kicked back off weekly and once a month here at the building. Because I think about all the students, all the students that God wants to bring into relationship, fellowship, fun, encouragement, and learning about God and having the light of God flowing out of them. Man, it excites me. It excites me, it excites me because years ago as a senior in high school, God changed, radically changed the direction of my life, and I want to see that happen over and over and over and over and over again for people in Kentucky. Why are we doing all this? For the light and love to flow through us. And then John and just a rich theological passage in verse nine. It says, But if we confess our sins to him, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all wickedness or unrighteousness. I sin every day. Or in Romans, where it says that anything that's not in faith is sin. See, oftentimes we we just want to we wanna we wanna boil down sin to this little checklist, laundry list. Well, I don't I don't smoke, I don't drink, I don't, I don't cuss, I don't cheat. The truth is that we have so much sin we don't even realize how much sin we have. Even the point where it's like the good things I I know that I should do and I don't do them, then they're sin. What that means is that I need Jesus every single day. I need his forgiveness more than I even realize I need his forgiveness. I'm sin in ways accidentally in ways that I don't even realize. I need the faithful, forgiving love of God to invade my life and to cleanse me of all unrighteousness. And you do too. Maybe you're carrying bitterness from some relationship, somebody that hurt you, somebody that stabbed your back at work, or somebody who hurt your family or did something to you, and you're replaying that wound over and over and over again. We know Jesus is the one that said those have been forgiven much, that they forgive much, that we then, as God has is faithful to forgive us, we also need to be faithful to forgive. My third point. We need to be faithful to forgive. You hate someone because you haven't forgiven them. And it's that forgiveness is what actually restores us. They don't deserve it. I'm just moving on with my life. You know, you forgiving somebody else, they don't even have to ask for forgiveness for you to forgive them. If you forgive somebody, it doesn't mean that you need to be best friends again or that you have to have no boundaries in your life. But what it means is that you're gonna take that root of bitterness out of your heart and that you're going to forgive that person, and in doing so, you be set free. As we've looked through James just last week and the week before, we we know that James tells us that if you hate a brother, that it's like you are a murderer and the love of God is not in you. So, how in the world do we overcome that that feeling when we've been wounded, when we've been hurt, and we extend the forgiveness that we have received from God? Because if you're a person, if you're people of the light, you know that forgiveness is just waiting for you. When was the last time you asked God to forgive you? You really asked Him to forgive you. Do you have a practice of confession in your life? Because you sin every day. And if you say that you don't sin every day, that's a lie, and you need to go ahead and confess that as well. That's what the last scripture said. If you think that you don't have sin, then you lied, and so there you go. Go ahead. Do you have a practice of confessing your sin to God, to the one who's faithful and just to forgive you and cleanse you, and for that forgiveness then to flow out of you to others. Anyone got a flashlight? Y'all all have a flashlight if you have a smartphone. Y'all have a flashlight. Now, if I asked that question before 2008, first smartphones, it'd be like a few country boys in here with a flashlight on their belt. But now all of us have a flashlight with us that we can pull that out at any point and light something up. Here's the thing: when it comes to our spiritual lives, to switch the light on, you cannot switch the light on yourself. God has to switch the light on for you. You can't just walk up and switch the light on yourself. You cannot earn your way to heaven. You cannot be good enough. You can't have the more good versus bad. The fact is that we have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. And so that requires of us for the light of Jesus, for the light and the love of God, for you to walk in that light. That means that you need God to be the one to switch it on. You have to have God to be the one to switch it on. You can't earn it, you don't deserve it. You think, well, you know, I'm a good person. If you're standing before God in heaven and he asks you, Why should I let you into heaven? If you say I, if your answer starts with I, that's the wrong answer. But if it starts with Jesus, it's the right answer because Jesus died on the cross for me. Not I was a good person. Not I I went to church when I was a kid. Jesus died for me, and I believe in his death, burial, and resurrection. And I've given my life to Jesus. My full faith and trust is in Jesus. And God sees you and He sees you marked by the blood of Jesus and welcomes you in. You need God to switch the light on. Imagine, imagine this place. Imagine our church being a place where people came in that there was just contagious joy that people felt. Fellowshipping with believers, that that was just this normal thing among us, and that people knew that if they came here to our church, that they will find forgiveness. Not being stuck up, not being a holy huddle, not being judgmental, but that they would find the forgiveness that God is faithful to give. Students from K-State, middle schoolers, high schoolers, young families, when they they walk into this building, imagine that they say, Well, these people really love one another. That's the church that John is describing. And I wonder for you, does the joy of your salvation need to be restored? Do you need to quite quit making excuses about why you can't have fellowship with other believers and why you need to go it alone and all these excuses and actually say, you know what? Yeah, I'm gonna step in. Yes, I'm gonna plug in. Yes, I'm gonna join a group this fall. Yes, I'm gonna get on team. Yes, I'm gonna get to know people. Yes, I'm not just gonna come in anonymous and leave anonymous. I'm gonna walk in the light and love of God, and I'm gonna prove it by having genuine fellowship. I'm gonna receive and I'm gonna extend forgiveness for those who need it. You've been walking with God for some time. You've called yourself a Christian, but you don't feel that joy anymore. I I pray today that God would restore to you the joy of your salvation, that you would preach the gospel to yourself today that you so desperately need. Would you stand to your feet now as I pray over every home? God, right now I pray over every home that's represented here today, God. I pray, Father, for your light and love to flow out of this place, for this place to be a place where people would receive your light and your love and your forgiveness. That Father, they realize that they're not too far gone. Or that people somehow have graduated beyond the cross, but that this would be a place that would be marked by your love. And God, I pray for every home that's represented right now. I pray for every Christian who's in the house right now who claims to follow you. You're in the house today and you are a follower of Jesus, you claim to follow Jesus, you are have been forgiven and saved and set free, but today you know that you need the joy restored in you, that you need love of God to flow out of you more to your friends, to your family, to your neighbors. Would you just raise your hand so I can pray for you? Yep, there's hands all over this place. Father, right now I pray for those, God, who are asking right now, Lord, for you to just restore to them the joy that comes only from you, that you would restore to them, God, love that overflows to those friends and neighbors and co-workers and classmates, God, that you would make this place into a place marked by your love. The people would feel it, they would receive it. You put your hands down. If you're in the room today and you have never accepted Jesus as your Savior, today is your day for you to be forgiven, for you to receive that forgiveness that God is so faithful and just to give to you. Today is your day to trust in Jesus, to receive his death, burial, and resurrection, for you to be bought and paid for, to put your full faith and trust in him. And in doing so, your destination be heaven. If that's you, I want you to pray right now, a genuine heart and mind. Pray, Jesus, save me. I believe that you're the Son of God and that you died on the cross for my sin. You walked out of the grave. Forgive me, cleanse me. Switch on the light so I can be in heaven with you one day. I give you my life as you gave yours for mine. Thank you for saving me.

Sallie 29:43

We're so grateful you joined us for this week's message. At Multiply, we believe life was never meant to be lived alone. If today you made the decision to follow Jesus, we'd be honored to walk with you on this journey. Visit multiplyky.com to let us know. We love you and we'll see you again soon.