Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Hello everyone.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: This is Pastor Benjamin.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: You're listening to Sermon Audio from New City, Orlando.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: At New City, we long to see our Father answer the Lord's Prayer.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: For more resources, visit our website at Newcity Orlando.com.
Hannah Corlew: Heavenly Father, we wish to see Jesus.
Hannah Corlew: By your Spirit's power, give us eyes to see his glory through Christ.
Hannah Corlew: We pray.
Hannah Corlew: Amen.
Hannah Corlew: If you're able, please remain standing for today's scripture reading, which comes from John 1, 1 through 10.
Hannah Corlew: That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon and have touched with our hands concerning the word of life.
Hannah Corlew: The life was made manifest and we have seen it.
Hannah Corlew: And we testify to it and proclaim to you the eternal life, which was the Fat which was with the Father and was made manifest to us.
Hannah Corlew: That which we have seen and heard, we proclaim also to you, so that you too may have fellowship with us.
Hannah Corlew: And indeed, our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ.
Hannah Corlew: And we are writing these things so that our joy may be complete.
Hannah Corlew: This is the message we have heard from him and proclaimed to you that God is light, and in him there is no darkness at all.
Hannah Corlew: If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and we do not practice the truth.
Hannah Corlew: But if we walk in light as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another.
Hannah Corlew: And the blood of Jesus, his son, cleanses us from all sin.
Hannah Corlew: If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.
Hannah Corlew: But if we for if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
Hannah Corlew: If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.
Hannah Corlew: This is God's word.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Well, welcome.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: My name is Benjamin.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: I'm a pastor here, and I have a public service announcement, which is that tomorrow, January 12th, is National Quitter's Day.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: So statistically, most people have quit their uh New Year's resolutions by tomorrow.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Uh that's important.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: And interestingly, there's another stat that says that if you just simply tell your resolutions to somebody else, you're 65% more likely to keep them.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: And even more, if you schedule a follow-up meeting with the person you tell to follow up with you about your resolution, you're 95% more likely to keep your resolution.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: That's amazing to me.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: And it's actually quite relevant because last week we talked about what it means to be called into community, communion, excuse me.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Today we're going to talk about being formed in community.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: There's something about our willingness to share in life with other people that is profoundly formative for us.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: So we have a definition of a disciple here, which is that disciples of Jesus are united to Jesus in communion with God, community with one another, and co-mission for the world.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: We are called into communion and we are formed in community.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: That's what we're going to talk about this morning, how we're formed in community.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Now, we did, uh you've probably heard me say this before.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Um, as churches, it can be hard to measure what matters.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: It can be hard to count what really counts.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: There's some things that are easy, like numbers of people in this room or budgets.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Those are easy to count.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: That's why most people do that.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: But if your aim is actually transformation into the image of Jesus Christ, that's a little harder to measure.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: And so I've said before that there's really only three ways you can do that stats, stories, and self-report.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: And so we created an assessment, a self-report assessment called the Disciple Defined Check-in.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: And we've we've actually surveyed a handful of people in our congregation, and we found that actually New City is really remarkable at things like experiencing God's delight in them despite their behavior.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: New City actually has uh people answered this question positively.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: They said, in the last week, I can can I can think of a time when I did something because Jesus told me to, or didn't because Jesus told me not to.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: So we're quite obedient in certain ways, too.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: One of the things we found, though, is that we have room to grow in our willingness and ability to confess our sins to one another.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: It's not something we're bad at, we're just not as as good as we could be at it.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Uh, and so this sermon really, in some ways, came from that data.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: I looked at the data, I thought, well, we're gonna talk about confession and how important it is, how formative it is in community with one another.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: And so, with that, if you have a Bible or a device, go ahead and get first John chapter one in front of you.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: You can look at the worship guide as well.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: And I want to look at uh an important word here that shows up four times in our text, and that word is koinonia.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Now, I'm not one of those people that you know talks about how you think it means this, but the Greek says this because I'm a happy Protestant, and and I believe that the word of God belongs to the people of God, and that you don't need some priest or pastor to tell you what it really says because you're just a lay person.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Uh-uh, not gonna happen.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: The reason I'm willing to use the Greek word koinanea today is because I think the word community becomes white noise.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: We hear it so frequently, and it means everything and nothing.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: And so I want to use the word koinanea.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: It's the word that's used in our text.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Look with me at verse, it shows up four times, and and interestingly, what we call communion and community, the Greek text says has one word for, which is koinanea.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: So communion with God is koinanea with God.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: You see it in verse three, it says this uh so that you two may have fellowship with us, that's community, and indeed our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: That's communion.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Same word, fellowship, koinanea.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Now it shows up again if you look with me at verses six and seven.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: It says in verse six, if we say we have fellowship with him, koinonia with God.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Or look at verse seven, it says uh that we have fellowship, koinania with one another.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: You see how in the imagination of the Bible, communion and community are inextricably linked, so much so that it's the same Greek word, koinonia, it just depends on who's it's with.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Is it with God?
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: That's called communion.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: If it's with one another, that's called community.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: This is super important.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: It's super important because we live in a world that is starved for koinonia.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Now, some people have said 2025 is the year, was the year of AI.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: It's when it went from this kind of peripheral thing to you can't ignore it.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Everybody has some sort of interaction with AI at some point in their life now.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: And in there's kind of two different stances.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Some people believe AI is just Google 2.0.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: It's cool, it's helpful, it's really can do more than what Google could.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Other people believe this is a disruptive force that's like 10x the industrial revolution.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: That many of us might not have jobs in 10 years.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Like it, I mean, that's the language people talk about with AI.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: But one of the things that's more relevant for us right here, right now, is that the number one use of AI right now is companionship.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Companionship.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Or I would use the word koinania.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: You see, 72% of teens use have an AI companion, and 31% say they prefer their AI companion to real human beings.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Their friends, their parents, their family.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: You see, this is a huge societal crisis.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Or maybe it's just revealing a crisis that's been there all along.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Now you could take this one of two ways.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: You can go, oh man, things are going from bad to worse.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Or you could say, the church was made for this moment.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: The church was made for this moment.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Carrie Newhoff says it like this as the world becomes more artificial, the church becomes more human.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: But that means that we have to double down on what has been our value proposition for two millennia now, koinonia.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: We need to double down on it.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Like this actually has to be true and to characterize and describe who we are as a people.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: One author put it like this this is a longer quote, but I think it's worth hearing.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Talking about how the early church changed the Roman Empire, he says this.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: The early church was able to defy the decadent values of Roman civilization precisely because it experienced the reality of Christian fellowship in a mighty way.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: The reason why the early church could defy Rome is because of its koinonia.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: He goes on and says this.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Christian fellowship meant, I love these phrases, unconditional availability and unlimited liability for our brothers and sisters.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Emotionally, financially, and spiritually.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: When one member suffered, they all suffered.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: When one rejoiced, they all rejoiced.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: When a person or church experienced economic trouble, the other shared without reservation.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: And when a brother or sister fell into sin, the others gently restored the straying person.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: The brothers and sisters were available to each other, liable for each other, and accountable to one another.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: That's Quinanea.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Now, the author goes on and says, the network of tiny house churches that were scattered throughout the Roman Empire experienced, listen to this, their oneness in Christ.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Union with Christ, their oneness in Christ so vividly that they were able to defy and eventually conquer a powerful pagan civilization.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: The overwhelming majority of churches today, however, do not provide the context in which brothers and sisters can encourage, admonish, and disciple each other.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: We desperately need new settings and structures for watching over one another in love.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Do you hear the call at the end there?
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: For contexts and settings and structures.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: For us here, we call those congregations, communities, and circles.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: That's the context, the settings, the structures that we're we're trying to build here.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: But listen a house is to a home, what a small group is to koinania.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Let me make that plain.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Since today is about confession, let me just confess on behalf of all pastors everywhere.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Small groups in many, maybe most churches, a lot of them are just not great, including New City.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: This could be real.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Why?
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Or maybe a better question is well, then why do we still do them?
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Because they can be great.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Because they can be life-changing and transformative.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: It's there, it's possible.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: But listen, the thing that makes the difference is not the structure of the small group, but the people in the small group.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Their willingness to show up in such a way where they know and love and are known and loved.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: And you think if I'm I'm just kind of talking strategy here, it's it's actually in our text.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Community, koinonia is contingent.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: It's contingent upon something.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Look at verse 3 here.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: It says this that which we have seen and heard, we proclaim also to you, so that you too, this is important, may have fellowship.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: May have koinonia.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: You underline that word, may.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: That's a contingent word.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: It's not a promise, it's not an indicative, it's not you will, it's you may, it's possible.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: So, what is it contingent upon?
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Two things knowing and loving.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Knowing and loving.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: And so I want to look at verses five through ten to talk about what it means to know one another and to be known in community.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: And the reason why this is so important is because many of you are familiar, I'm sure, with the Pareto principle.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Just simply says that 80% of the results come from about 20% of the work.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: And this is kind of true across the board.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Like 20% of your clothes you wear 80% of the time.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: The Pareto principle of the Christian life of spiritual transformation is community where you are known and where you know others, with an openness that's unhindered, with a transparent trust, with a vulnerability, with a willingness to disclose things to others that they could hurt you with.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: That's what vulnerability really is.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Vulneraire means wound.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Can you do you tell people things in community such that if they wanted to, they could wound you with them?
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: That's the Pareto principle of transformation into Christ-likeness.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: It's the 20% that does 80% of the results.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: So if you have it, you will be transformed into Christ-likeness.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: If you lack it, you won't.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: You won't have it.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: So what gets in the way?
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: What gets in the way of us being transparent in trust in our communities, being known in community?
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Well, the Bible here, 1 John chapter 1, has a simple phrase which is walking in the darkness.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Walking in the darkness.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: That's what gets in the way.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Now, let me be clear on the front end.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Walking in darkness is not about sinning less.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: It's about hiding more.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: When you are walking in darkness, it's not a it's not because you're sinning, it's because you're hiding.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: That's a huge difference and very important to just address at the outset.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Yesterday, my little boy went, uh, he was playing flashlight tag in the dark with a bunch of his friends, and and I was driving him home afterwards, and he said, Daddy, we were playing flashlight tag, and it was really cool because when people were trying to find me, I would just turn my flashlight off, and they couldn't.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: It's like, yeah, dude.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: That's called walking in darkness.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: That's hiding.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: And he does it in a game with other children, and we do it in this game of life with one another.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: We turn the light out so we can hide, so we can't be seen.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Now look at this.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: If you look closely at the text here, it's it's actually pretty brilliant.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Verses six, eight, and ten, those even verses, all begin with this phrase: if we say, if we say, if we say.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: This is key.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Look with me at verse six.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: If we say we have fellowship with him, that is God, while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: If we say one thing, but we do another, this is darkness.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: This is hiding.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: This is image management.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: This is pretending.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: This is holding secrets, but putting on a mask.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: That's what's talked about here in verse six.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: You see, and and the reason why this is so important is because this verse one, verse six, really, I think is about our relating to one another.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: We're saying one thing, we're doing something else.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: And and that gap there creates, it has a byproduct, and that byproduct is loneliness.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: The Swiss psychiatrist Paul Turnier says it like this: nothing makes us so lonely as our secrets.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Nothing makes us so lonely as our secrets.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Now, to be honest, loneliness is something that I have grappled with for as long as I can remember.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: And I had a pivotal moment, a turning point when I had brothers around me that knew me well enough to love me enough to speak to something.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: And what they spoke to was, hey, Ben, it's really hard to know you because you're impressive.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Now you might think that that's like, oh, I have to, you know, that's it was it was wounding, but the kind of wounding that is the wounds of a friend are better than the kisses of an enemy.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: I felt wounded by that comment.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: And I believe the Holy Spirit led me to ask and answer this question on a daily basis.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Today, will I be impressive or will I be known?
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: And just the habit, the practice of intentionally voting for the kind to become the kind of person that discloses the secrets of my heart in relationship, even if it means I'm no longer that impressive.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: But because I long to be known, I don't want to be lonely anymore, that simple vote in that direction makes it to where loneliness, it's still a canary in the coal mine for me, but it's not a dominant experience of my everyday life.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: You say, if we say one thing and we do another, one of the primary results of that is loneliness.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: But look at verse 8.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Verse 8 says this if we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: This is important.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: So the first one we're deceiving others, saying one thing doing another.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Now we're deceiving ourselves.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: But look at the words that says, if we say we have no sin, present tense, right here, right now.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: This is why what I'm saying is walking in the darkness is not about sinning, it's about hiding.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: All of us sin.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Jesus assumes that since he taught us to pray every day, forgive us our debts.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: It's assumed that you will sin on the daily if you're walking with Jesus.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: I'm telling you that right now.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: But what is deadly is saying, I have no sin in my life.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: In fact, it's it's it's the key of self-deception.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: You begin to believe your own your own press.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Psychotherapists say that lying is the foundation of psychopathology.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: It's lying, it's a it's a deception at the core of your being.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: That's what John the Apostle is speaking to here.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: What does this mean?
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: It means you live around with just this sense of like, I'm good, I'm alright.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: I don't really need much, I don't really need people, I don't really need anything from anyone else.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: And you begin to believe your own press.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: I was walking with one of our elders last year, and uh many of you have taken strength finders before, I'm sure.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: And and in my top five is woo, which is to win, it's winning others over, all right?
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: And I'm walking with one of our elders, and he said, You know what, Ben?
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Um I think you are best at winning yourself over.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: And what was he saying?
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: He was loving me in that moment, and he was telling me, hey, you're really good at coming up with an idea and then convincing of yourself, convincing yourself that it's true.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Oof, if that's true, and it is, man, do I need to be careful.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Because it's so subtle, so easy to deceive ourselves, to just in the in the subtlest way lie to ourselves.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Who lies to you more than you?
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: I mean, seriously.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Some of you are like, the devil, the father of lies.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Okay, fine.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: I will concede, I will concede the devil lies to you more than anybody else.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Silver medal is still not great.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Like you deceive yourself so frequently, you lie to you so often, and and and you think that this isn't that big of a deal.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: It's not that big of a deal.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Nobody's hurt by it.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: I'm just covering up something that's like really just it's only me for me to know.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: And there's these warning signs that you're ignoring in your life.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: We're coming up on the 40th anniversary of the space shuttle challenger exploding 73 seconds after takeoff over Cape Canaveral, about 50 miles east of here.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: On January 28th, 1986, uh, it was a Tragedy.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: It was a tragedy.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: And immediately afterwards, there was an investigation to find out what went wrong.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: And they found out what went wrong was there's these things called O-rings that are meant to seal the boosters properly.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: But they, because of the cold temperature in Central Florida, they didn't seal properly.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Now listen, an O-ring is 7.1 millimeters thick.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: That's pretty thin.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: And it was enough to destroy, to explode this entire rocket and take seven astronauts' lives with it.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: And they found out that there was actually discussion and debate among the engineers because they knew when temperatures got to a certain coldness, the O-rings failed.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: They knew it.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: But they discussed and debated whether or not it would be enough to compromise the mission.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Listen, some of you have subtle signs right now in your life that are gonna destroy you if you don't do something about it.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Your spouse is talking to you about it, your friends have mentioned it.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: It's like, hey, are you are you okay?
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Are you sure?
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Your conscience is talking to you about it.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: That little voice, the Holy Spirit, even now has brought to mind things that you probably should confess to God and to other people, and you're coming up with excuses why it doesn't really matter.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Listen, it will destroy you in a moment.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Small things, subtle things you don't think are that big of a deal, will ruin your life if you don't come into the light with them.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Do not deceive yourself.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: We don't just deceive ourselves, but we lie about God.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Look at verse 10.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Verse 10 says it like this.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: If we say we have not sinned, remember it said, have no sin, that's present tense.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Have not sinned, that's past tense.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: If we say we have never sinned, we make God a liar and his word is not in us.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: What's going on here?
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Why is it why is it that we accuse God of lying if we say we've never sinned before?
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Because God calls you a sinner.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: That's why.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: He's already evaluated your life, he's already come back with his appraisal, and his appraisal on your life is sinner in thought, in word, in deed, in things that you have done and things that you have left undone.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: You are a sinner.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: And we look at God and we say, Nobody's perfect.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: I'm only human.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: I mean, I'm not as good as some people, but I'm not as bad as others.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: And God says, You're trying to make me a liar right now.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: You stand condemned under my law, worthy of condemnation because of your life, by nature and by choice.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: And to deny that is to call God a liar.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: You see, the gospel comes with a scalpel's cut before a healing balm.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: It confronts us before it comforts us.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Our condemnation is the black velvet upon which the brilliant brightness of the diamond of the gospel can shine.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: But if you deny the fact that you are a sinner standing in just condemnation under the wrath of God, if you deny that you make God to be a liar.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Christians have been praying this for a thousand years now.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: This is what it says Almighty God, to you all hearts are opened, all desires known, and from you no secrets are hid.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Cleanse the thoughts of our hearts by the inspiration of your Holy Spirit, that we may perfectly love you and worthily magnify your holy name through Christ our Lord.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Amen.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: This is a collect for purity.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Why?
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Because it acknowledges off the bat God is the one from whom no secrets are hid.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Why make them out to be a liar?
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: There's something about secrets, which is that secrets are always on their way to going public.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Secrets are always in the process of coming to light.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: A couple years ago, uh there was a large church that was imploding because the founder was caught in some significant sexual sin that he had hid for decades and gotten away with it.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: And the number, the list of people who knew this church, were trusted by it, was psychologically informed, uh loves the church pastorally, that list was really short, and I was on it.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: And so I got flown out there to be a consultant and a teacher, and I spent hours and hours and hours and hours and hours with some of the people closest to this man.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: They were all baffled.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Except for one person, his sister.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: And she looked at me and she said something that in the moment gave me chills.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: And when I think about it now, it is disruptive to me emotionally.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: She said to me, Ben, God will not be mocked.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: She said, I've seen this happen before.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Men, women who hide things for decades, it usually comes out in their 60s or 70s.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Of course, she was quoting Galatians chapter 6, which said which says, Do not be deceived.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: God will not be mocked.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: That which you sow, you will also reap.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: If you sow in darkness, you will reap destruction.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: It will come out.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: All secrets are in the process of becoming disclosed.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Why don't you beat them to the punch?
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Why don't you get there first?
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Why don't you be the one that goes on record against you before what you sow, you eventually reap.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: And so with that, let's turn to something a little bit more happy.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: What the Apostle Paul, what the Apostle John calls walking in the light, or verse six calls practicing the truth.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: If walking in darkness is living the lie, then walking in the light is practicing the truth.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Look with me at verses seven, five, seven, and nine.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: It says this this is the message we have heard from him and proclaimed to you that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Verse 7.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: But if we walk in the light as he is in the light, we have fellowship, koinania with one another.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: And the blood of Jesus, his son, cleanses us from all sin.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Verse 9.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: One of the things that happens when I prep for sermons is I meditate on this text and I pray through it and I ask the Lord to speak to me through it first.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: And one of the phrases that I lingered over that I believe the Holy Spirit was just illuminating to me was this phrase, as He is in the light in verse seven.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: As He is in the light.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: You see, this is the primary motivation to come out of darkness.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: I want to be where He is.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: I want to be with Him.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: One of the evidences that you belong to Jesus, that you've been made alive to His beauty and goodness, is that you don't want to stray too far from Him.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: You know that sin unconfessed is a hindrance to your communion with Him.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: And you don't want that because you love, enjoy, delight in your nearness to Him.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: This is the heart cry of a Christian.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: I want to be where He is as He is in the light.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: I want to come out of darkness.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: I want to be where He is.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: It's the joy of your life.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: And when you're there, you look around and you notice everybody else that's walking in the light.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Oh, there's other people here.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: It's a party.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Being in the light is so much better than being in the darkness.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: And so this motivation, this light living lifestyle enables us to have koinonia with God and koinanea with one another.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: One of the reasons you don't feel loved, one of the reasons it's hard for you to feel loved by God and by other people is that it's impossible to love a mask.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: It's impossible to love a mask.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: You put on a persona.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: People love the persona.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: You even bring that persona to God.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: God, He won't love the persona because He'll only love the real you.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: And so He'll do things in your life to try to get you to take the mask off.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Remember our call to worship, Psalm 32?
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: David says, When I kept silent, my bones wasted away.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: My strength was dried up like the heat of summer.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: For day and night, your hand was heavy upon me.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: I pray that God's hand is heavy upon you if you're living in the darkness.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: It's the severe mercy of God to you.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: He's willing to sap your strength so much that you go, it is unbearable to live in the darkness anymore.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: I have to come out.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: God is so humble, he takes any motivation for you to return to him.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Well, just think about it.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: I said a moment ago, the highest motivation is I want to be with you, God, but fleeing hell is a legitimate motivation that God receives you from.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: What a humble God He is.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: And so listen, you who are in the darkness with a mask on, maybe the fact that you don't feel loved or known or cared about, maybe that's a motivation enough to take the mask off.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Verse 7 and verse 9 teach us that the gospel alone can create the kind of safety we need in order to walk in the light.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: It's only if we have great confidence that the blood of Jesus, his son, will cleanse us from all sin.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Or verse 9, if we confess our sins, he's faithful and just to forgive us of our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: This alone creates the safety that we need.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: The word confess, if you if you look at it, it's it's the words homo and legato, which just means to say the same thing about you that God already says about you.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: That's all a confession is.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Confession is not saying I'm sorry.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: You've watched enough detective shows.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: You know that they're asking for a confession.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: They want you to tell the truth about what you did or didn't do.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: They don't want you to say I'm sorry.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: That's all confession is, just telling the truth to God and to one another.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: This is the state of my soul.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: This is what's really going on, this is what's actually happening.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: This is confession.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: This is why Dallas Willard said any successful plan for spiritual formation will be significantly similar to the 12-step program.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: This is step four.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: If you're not familiar with the 12 steps, saved countless lives and led many people out of addiction.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Step four says this: we made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Step five, we admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: The devil is in the details, but the spirit is in the specifics.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: What stops you from taking a searching and fearless moral inventory is that you don't believe that if you do it and if you confess it, that he will cleanse you from, the word is all of our sins, all of our unrighteousness.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Cleanse.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: It's the word catharsis.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Oh, to be free from the burden of guilt and the shroud of shame through the glorious experience of confession and cleansing from all unrighteousness.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: The great reformer Martin Luther, I believe, had diagnosable obsessive-compulsive disorder, subtype religious scrupulosity.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: That's what I believe.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: I'm a diagnostician, so I know these things, okay?
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: That's what I would diagnose him as.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: And in his religious scrupulosity, before he became a Protestant, he would confess his sins all the time to his confessor, a priest.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: He'd confess things like breaking wind while taking the mass and things like that.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: It was like, it was too much.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: It was too much.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: And his priest kind of got fed up with it after a little while.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: And the priest said, Listen, Martin, just love God and get over yourself.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: And Luther said, Love God, I hate him.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Ooh.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: All of his confession beneath the surface was an attempt to justify himself before God.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Because Luther knew what hopefully we all know that if God is just, you must be condemned.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: So why does verse 9 say, if we confess our sins, God is faithful and just?
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: I thought the justice of God was bad news for sinners.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Because the justice of God is bad news for sinners outside of Christ.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Anyone who belongs to Jesus, God has already dealt with your condemnation on Christ and his cross.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Which means the verdict over your life is no longer sinner condemned.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: It is there is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: So the justice of God is gloriously good news for us now.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: We have the freedom to be honest.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: We have the freedom to walk in the light.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: So tell him your misery and plead his unshockable mercy.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: He's not surprised.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Let 2026 be the year of no secrets.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: What do you have to lose?
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Let me tell you, you have to lose.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Socially, you have to lose your image.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: If you start telling the truth about who you are, stop pretending you will lose your image.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: I promise you that.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Psychologically, you have to lose a sense of independence.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: You can't, there's no no-man as an island if you're confessing your sins to one another.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: It's not possible.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Third, spiritually, you tend to lose your iniquity.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Jesus himself said in John 3, the reason people don't come into the light from the darkness is they love their sin.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Some of you won't come into the light, even as a result of this sermon.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: I have no doubt about it, because you will resist the Holy Spirit through the Word of God, and you love your sin more than anything else.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: You do tend to lose your iniquity if you start confessing your sins.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: But what do you have to gain?
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: What do you have to gain socially?
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: You have to gain intimacy.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: You'll finally experience what it means to be known by somebody.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Psychologically, you tend to be healed.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Remember, our assurance of pardon was James 5, 16.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: If we confess our sins to one another and pray for one another, we will be healed.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Some of you cannot be healed in the area of your life because you won't confess it.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: And there's healing on offer to you.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Spiritually, you stand to gain freedom.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Listen, the devil has this boot on the neck of everyone in darkness this morning.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Come out.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: It's for freedom Christ has set you free.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Confess your sins to God and to one another and get out from under his oppressive boot on your neck.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Freedom you stand to gain.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Okay, so if this is true, the kind of community that would be safe enough for us to confess these things is not one that's only a place where we're known, but one where we're meaningfully loved.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: And this is where I want to end.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: We're a community where we are loved.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: You remember earlier I quoted that that long quote about what koinonia looks like in these two phrases, unconditional availability and unlimited liability.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: That is what koinonia is.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Are you willing to be unconditionally available to one another?
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: And are you willing to be unlimitedly liable to one another?
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: You remember Cain?
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Am I my brother's keeper?
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Yes, you are.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: If you're not who is?
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Listen, the the reality of a loving community is that we recognize that to be united to Jesus, we don't have the luxury of flying so low.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: If we're in union with God through Christ, we're in union with one another through Christ too.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: So if one person in the body that is New City is injured or hurt or struggling, we all are.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: That's the nature of it.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: But we're Americans, we love expressive individualism, so that steps on our toes a little bit.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Be biblical, not American, in our commitment to community.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: And if I were to boil it all down, what does it mean to love in this way?
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: It's that one word, commitment.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: It's commitment.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Now, look at verses one and two with me.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: It says this, that which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we looked upon and have touched with our hands concerning the word of life.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: He's talking about Jesus here.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: He's saying, Me, John the Apostle.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: I walked with him, I talked with him, I got to see and touch and feel him.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: And some of us go, that would be nice, wouldn't it?
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: To see Jesus, to touch him, to hear him, to feel him.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Listen, the resurrected and ascended Jesus sits at on the throne of the universe in heaven with a human body, and that is the source of the good news.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: But he has a body on earth too.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: It's you.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: I can remember being in a circle, and uh one of the guys in my circle confessed a sin that he was clearly ashamed of.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: And so I looked at him after he confessed his sin and I said, Do you believe in the Pauline doctrine of the body of Christ that is ours through the mystical union of Christ by the Holy Spirit by faith alone?
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: And through tears, I said, I think so.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: And I hugged him and I said, I love you.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: God loves you.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Jesus died for you.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: The sin is forgiven.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: And in that moment, the arms of Jesus were around my brother.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: This is commitment to one another in the body of Christ.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: This is how we create the kind of safety that enables us to be fully known.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Now, some of you are like, that is weird.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: I'm just not gonna do it.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Listen, I get it.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: I had at lunch with somebody else in another circle of mine, and he was like, hey, dude, he's one of those guys that finds Christian community corny, and so most of his friends aren't believers, and because they're kind of just edgier, I guess.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: And he's like, Listen, none of my friends would do this circle thing.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: It's really uncomfortable.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: And I said, Hey, listen, I think you're probably right, and your friends are dying for it.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: I said, Listen, I have in my private practice as a counselor, I have a lot of men who are successful entrepreneurs, military guys, really successful.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: I mean, just impressive externally in all kinds of ways, and they come to see me for counseling because they're paying for friendship.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Because, listen, our cultural commitment to counseling is just this deep aching desire for confessional community coming out in a secular age.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: And and I recognize that.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: And so people are willing to pay for this, they're dying for it, they're starved for it, there's a hunger for it.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Um, and as we close, if you don't think this is relevant beyond your kind of spiritual life, Kurt Thompson makes the point in his book, The Soul of Shame, fantastic book.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: You should read it.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: He says shame is a primary means to prevent us from using the gifts that we've been given.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: You are vocationally hindered by walking in darkness.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: God has given you gifts.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: He intends for you to use it in our city, those gifts in our city to bring goodness and truth and beauty and light.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: And yet, when you You're shrouded in shame because you don't confess your sins to God or to one another, you are you're trapped.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Some of us, though, we're not walking in the light because we're running.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: I'm not going to make too much out of this, but Corey Tenboom says if the devil can't make you bad, he will make you busy.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Some of us, the primary need for commitment in community is that we need to slow down.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Use the all of life guide.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Create a to do to don't list for 2026.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: But you know what ought not be on that list?
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Koinania.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: It's a non-negotiable.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: In fact, it should be prioritized and scheduled, or it won't happen.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: And just because your in-laws are in town doesn't mean you don't show up to whatever you've already committed yourself to.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: It's the kind of thing that ruins, erodes Christian community over time.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: So hopefully I've convinced you of something.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: I don't know.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: But if you're still thinking, well, is it worth it?
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Look with me at verses three and four.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: It says this, and this is where we'll close.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: That's which we have seen and heard, we proclaim also to you, so that you too may have fellowship with us.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: And indeed, our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son, Jesus Christ.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: And we are writing these things.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Here's the phrase, so that, purpose cause, so that our joy may be complete.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Listen, I know everybody in this room wants joy.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: And what John is saying here is if you sow koinonia, you will reap joy.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Why is that?
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Pleasure is sourced in your senses.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: You smell a good aroma, you hear nice music, you taste something that's pleasurable, right?
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: That's your senses.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Happiness is sourced in your happenstance, your circumstances.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: But joy is sourced in securely attached relationships with God and one another.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: If you want joy, you need to pursue koinania like it's worth more precious than gold to you.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Because if you sow if you sow koin and nea, you will reap joy that is full and flowing over.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Let's pray.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Spirit of God, be at work among us and in our midst.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: I long that people for people to come out of darkness and into light where you are.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: God, we praise you that you are light, and in you is no darkness, none whatsoever.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Let the beauty and the brilliance of your light captivate us, ensnare us, and lead us back to you.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Would you put out of taste our iniquities?
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Would you put out of taste our commitment to our own image and our independence?
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: We wish to see Jesus.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: We pray this in his name.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Amen.