Continuing in our series through the Gospel of John, Troy explains that although Jesus knows every single one of our thoughts, words, and actions, He died on the cross for us anyway. He took the punishment that we deserved and put it on Himself. And it’s critical that we understand the love and grace that God has shown us, despite our brokenness, because we need to show love and grace to other people, despite their brokenness.

In our final "standalone" message of the summer, Troy describes how we “come back” each Sunday, just so we can “leave again” by going out into the world, shining our light in the darkness, and sharing the good news of Jesus. Our world needs us; our city needs us; and our neighborhood in the Shadle area needs us.

Left to ourselves, we tend to put ourselves first and do as little as possible for others. But as Troy explains, we all know, deep down, that there’s a problem with that way of living, and we want to be better than that. What if we thought about others more than ourselves? What if we showed grace and kindness to the people who disagreed with us? What if we did as much as possible for them? What if we said, essentially, “No, Please, You Go First.”

In today's standalone message, Troy invites us to remember where it all began, not only in our physical lives, but also in our journeys of faith. We can refresh ourselves and find the strength to go on when we recall how Jesus paid our penalty for us, how all of our sins have been forgiven, and how that leads us to forgive other people.

To conclude our message series through 1 John, Troy reminds us of the fact that John wrote down what he did so that we who believe in Jesus can know we have eternal life. We have been born again and just as there is evidence of a physical birth, there is also evidence of a spiritual birth.