The Message We Declare Series

By the time he entered college, Pitt had scuttled his fundamentalist beliefs. "When I got untethered from the comfort of religion, it wasn't a loss of faith for me, it was a discovery of self," he says. "I had faith that I'm capable enough to handle any situation. There's peace in understanding that I have only one life, here and now, and I'm responsible."

I think Brad Pitt has a serious problem. Somehow or other, he has gotten off track in regard to Christ and Christianity. I would say that the Hollywood crowd has something to do with it. Someone or something has convinced him that what God says in His Word doesn't count!

I'm not suggesting that Brad Pitt isn't a decent person but he certainly has a clouded idea of what it means to be a Christian. I think he has bought into that theology that as long as you're a good and decent person and give something to society then that's all that counts as far as God is concerned. BUT WE KNOW THERE IS MORE TO IT THAN THIS.

6If we claim to have fellowship with him yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live by the truth.

ILL.- Brad Pitt says that when America allows all gay couples to get married then he and Angelina will get married. Something or someone has dimmed Pitts' vision of what is right and wrong. And doing good deeds (as in the housing project in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina is good) but it's not a tradeoff for being godly in Christ Jesus!

I'm not suggesting that there isn't darkness in our lives, because there will always be SOME darkness in our lives. Why? Because we live in a world of sin and because we all have a sin nature as long as we live in the flesh.

Does this mean we will always be tempted to sin? Probably. But it doesn't mean that we have to give in.

6If we claim to have fellowship with him yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live by the truth.

THE WORD OF GOD STANDS TRUE. Claiming to know God doesn’t mean a person does.

III. THE MESSAGE IS: CONFESSION AND WALKING IN THE LIGHT GO HAND-IN-HAND

7But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin. 9If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.

ILL.- A lady named Amy Carpenter said: Stuck in rush-hour traffic, I couldn't help but stare when a burly biker wearing a black leather jacket and chaps pulled up next to me on a shocking pink Harley-Davidson. My first thoughts were, "Is that really a pink Harley? I wonder if he's..."

Just then the traffic cleared and he pulled in front of me. On the back of his helmet were stenciled the words "Yes, it is. No, I'm not."

ILL.- A man named Chris said: I got stuck in a traffic jam while commuting into Los Angeles one day. The woman in the SUV in front of me took full advantage of the slowdown.

She whipped out her eyebrow pencil, lip gloss and a mirror, applying the finishing touches on her face in the ten minutes it took us to creep through the Cahuenga Pass. Finally, the traffic broke up and as she zoomed away, I caught a glimpse of her vehicle's license plate: NTRL BTY. (natural beauty)