This Week’s Scripture Passage:

This is how we know that we know him: if we keep his commandments.  The one who claims, “I know him,” while not keeping his commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in this person.  But the love of God is truly perfected in whoever keeps his word. This is how we know we are in him.  The one who claims to remain in him ought to live in the same way as he lived.

Dear friends, I’m not writing a new commandment to you, but an old commandment that you had from the beginning. The old commandment is the message you heard.  On the other hand, I am writing a new commandment to you, which is true in him and in you, because the darkness is passing away and the true light already shines.  The one who claims to be in the light while hating a brother or sister is in the darkness even now.  The person loving a brother and sister stays in the light, and there is nothing in the light that causes a person to stumble.  But the person who hates a brother or sister is in the darkness and lives in the darkness, and doesn’t know where to go because the darkness blinds the eyes.

1 John 2:3-11 (Common English Bible)

Listen to the Spotify playlist: Sunday 4/29 at the Gathering Church.

View the .pdf of Songs & Announcements.

Gathering Church Sermon Podcast

1 John 1:5-2:2

Mark Acuff

Click to play Gathering Church Podcast.

I wonder if there’s going to be a video, Secret Service Gone Wild.

It’s big news this week about how the Secret Service advance team for the President, along with some military folks, spent their advance time with prostitutes in Cartagena, Columbia.

A church home page should probably be above mentioning something so sordid, but it leads to a confession.

My own.

I wasn’t shocked.

I don’t think that I’m particularly negative or cynical. What concerns me is that I’ve grown accustomed to a dark world, where apparently “good people” do some really bad things.

At the Gathering Church this Sunday we are on the front end of a new study in 1 John. This letter uses the simplest language to draw contrast between the things that help people experience God and the things that destroy us.

Light – Darkness

Truth – Lies

Love – Hate

Of God – Of The Devil

I have to admit, I’ve never been much of a fan of 1 John, except for a few select verses that we all love. (Gee, my second confession in this post.) Its style is repetitive, like a NASCAR race, round and round. But as I study it, the power of this letter comes out.

For instance, it challenges us to understand what authentic experience with God really looks like. John explains why there are Christians who aren’t really Christians at all.

What is life with God really like? This series, Included: Participating in the Life of God, will help us know the reality of God.

This week – Light: The Way of Honesty, 1 John 1:5-2:2.

This Week’s Scripture Passage:

This is the message that we have heard from him and announce to you:

 

“God is light and there is no darkness in him at all.”

 

If we claim, “We have fellowship with him,” and live in the darkness, we are lying and do not act truthfully.  But if we live in the light in the same way as he is in the light, we have fellowship with each other, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, cleanses us from every sin.

 

If we claim, “We don’t

have any sin,” we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.  But if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from everything we’ve done wrong.

 

If we claim, “We have never sinned,” we make him a liar and his word is not in us.

 

My little children, I’m writing these things to you so that you don’t sin. But if you do sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous one.  He is God’s way of dealing with our sins, not only ours but the sins of the whole world.

1 John 1:5-2:2 (Common English Bible)

Listen to the Spotify playlist: Sunday 4/22 at the Gathering Church.

View the .pdf of Songs & Announcements.

I am excited to tell you about an event that World Relief is organizing that is happening on Friday, April 27th at 7 pm at Church of the Good Shepherd in Durham. The event is called “Welcoming the Stranger: A Biblical perspective on loving all of our immigrant neighbors”.

The cost of the event is FREE.

As you know, immigration is discussed often in our society. It will be a more frequent topic for discussion as we navigate our way through this election year. World Relief is an amazing organization showing love in relational ways to refugees and immigrants as well as standing against human trafficking.

Here is a video of the speaker for the event, Matt Soerens:

I am really looking forward to hearing Matt speak! I hope you’ll plan to attend.

-Amy Crump

It was the most amazing feeling.

I don’t think that any of us ever forgets it.

The first time we ride a bike without training wheels.

Maybe it was the combination of mild terror and desperate pedaling.

For me it was the transformation.

No one running behind me, holding onto the seat. No rattling training wheels slowing me down.

To this day when I ride a bike the first minutes are like magic again and I can’t believe I’m getting to do it.

The new ease and freedom of something previously unknown becoming absolutely familiar. It’s great.

This Sunday I begin a new message series at the Gathering Church: Included: Participating in God’s Life. 1 John is going to be the guide.

As I prepare I have realized that in many ways I’m still using training wheels when it comes to God. That realization comes from a hint that there is a bike-riding potential with God that is greater than we imagine.

John, in this letter, makes it clear that Christ coming to this world was so that people might be included in God’s life, that people might experience the life and joy that God has, that God enjoys with His Son, that the first followers experienced and now want to share.

It’s easy to reduce the Christian life to believing the right things and behaving the right way, having the right social views. Those things are training wheels. They don’t represent bike-riding at all. No wonder the Christian life sometimes looks so irrelevant or unattractive. It’s way too narrow and controlling.

Not enough bike-riders having a blast experiencing God’s life.

This Sunday begins with 1 John 1:1-4.

This Week’s Scripture Passage:

We announce to you what existed from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we have seen and our hands handled, about the word of life.

The life was revealed, and we have seen, and we testify and announce to you the eternal life that was with the Father and was revealed to us.

What we have seen and heard, we also announce it to you so that you can have fellowship with us. Our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ.

We are writing these things so that our joy can be complete.

 

1 John 1:1-4 (Common English Bible)

Listen to the Spotify playlist: Sunday 4/15 at the Gathering Church.

View the .pdf of Songs & Announcements.

When the gospel is presented with strength rather than vulnerability, it becomes poison.

-Mark Acuff on Easter Sunday at the Gathering Church

Several people have asked about the Brene Brown talk that Mark mentioned on Easter.  Here is a link to play that TED talk: