Vulnerability (1 John 1:5-2:2)

SERMON NOTES

Sermon Series: Distinctives

Sermon Title: Vulnerability

Sermon Text: 1 John 1:5-2:2

God is Light (v5)

• The light is good (Genesis 1:1-4) and safe (Psalm 27:1)

• The light represents God’s presence (Exodus 3, Exodus 13) and holiness (Psalm 104:1-2)

First Claim (v6-7)

Three warnings of the danger of darkness

1. Sin separates you from God and each other

2. Sin leads you out of the light and into the darkness

3. Shame keeps you hiding in the darkness

Second Claim (v8-9)

We deceive ourselves into thinking the darkness is safe and good by:

• Hiding our sin

• Ignoring our sin

• Excusing our sin

• Justifying our sin

• Redefining our sin

• Tolerating our sin

• Embracing our sin

Third Claim (1:10-2:2)

How we can create a culture of vulnerability together

1. Initiate vulnerability

2. Invite vulnerability

3. Be caring, not curious

4. Be quick to listen, slow to speak, slower to suggest

5. Show up so you can follow-up

6. Receive what is shared in confidentiality

My prayer for us as a church

1. Help us see the ways we have hidden our sin from God, others, and ourselves

2. Help us bring our sin out of the darkness and in to the light

3. Help us create a culture of vulnerability

4. Help us take a step of courage this week by sharing with someone

SERMON FOOTNOTES

• “Sin demands to have a man by himself. It withdraws him from the community. The more isolated a person is, the more destructive will be the power of sin over him, and the more deeply he becomes involved in it, the more disastrous is his isolation. Sin wants to remain unknown. It shuns the light. In the darkness of the unexpressed it poisons the whole being of a person.” - Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together (1954, p112)

• “We recognize early and often that shame tends to be self-reinforcing. When we experience shame, we tend to turn away from others because the prospect of being seen or known by another carries the anticipation of shame being intensified or reactivated. However, the very act of turning away, while temporarily protecting and relieving us from our feeling (and the gaze of the ‘other’), ironically simultaneously reinforces the very shame we are attempting to avoid. Notably, we do not necessarily realize this to be happening - we’re just trying to survive the moment. But indeed this dance between hiding and feeling shame itself becomes a tightening of the noose. We feel shame, and then feel shame for feeling shame. It begets itself.” - Curt Thompson, The Soul of Shame: Retelling the Stories We Believe About Ourselves (2015, p31)