"Keep yourselves from idols"

These are my notes from Rob's sermon this morning. We went to the 9:30 am service because of my class reunion and then worked the cafe for 11:30 service.
Worship was amazing with 800 people singing Cannons and Marvelous Light and Jesus Paid It All.

We are at the end of 1 John and will be starting a new series on Idolatry next week. These verses sum up 1 John and lead into the next series.

1 John 5:13-21

1st John was written:

1 So we may have joy

2 So we don't continue in sin

3 To warn about leaders who are leading astray with heresy about who Jesus was. There were splits in the church.

4 So we know we have eternal life
It gives us confidence through our life experiences because of God's testimony of Christ.


5 Finally it gives us boldness in prayer
We need to see Jesus for who he is
Jeremiah 29:11-13
Matthew 7: 7-11
Proverbs 15:29

a Bold prayer helps us pray for each other

b It keeps us from the sin that leads to death
What is that sin?
Rob honestly states he doesn't know but what he does know is that in the Old Testament there were capital sins that led to stoning and death
In the New Testament it's blasphemy of the Holy Spirit.
John didn't need to define that sin because his audience knew what that sin was.
We need to remember that holiness is a baseline standard for followers of Christ

c Bold prayer provides us with discernment in a world full of demonic options. He is our true north.

If you are in Christ you have a saviour, but you also have an enemy who wants to blind you.

Is the last verse random? or Is it a summary of what he has told us in the last 5 chapters...idols will bring you down.

The service ended with the youth group getting up and doing a visual dance to "Everything" by Lifehouse. If you have never seen it done, it is very moving and I'm putting a You Tube version by another church on here