Light In The Darkness Part 1 Series

Introduction

It is no secret that this world is getting eviler by the day. You turn on the news and you might hear about someone driving his or her car at high speed through a crowd of people killing or injuring those who were hit by the car. Or you might hear about someone pulling a gun and shooting another person just because they had an argument.

How evil this world has gotten in our lifetime might surprise us, but it does not surprise God. Jesus says this in: John 3:19 (NKJV)

19 And this is the condemnation, that the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.

What can be said about our world today from God’s Word is that it loves darkness. What can also be said from God’s Word that it loves evil. The Bible has with pinpoint accuracy describes the world we are living in.

But here is the Good News. Jesus has an answer to the darkness and to the evil so that we, who are his children, don’t have to be part of it. And that is what we want to look at today.

We are going to read one verse this morning from John 8:12.

Scripture

John 8:12 (NKJV)

“I Am the Light of the World”

12 Then Jesus spoke to them again, saying, “I am the light of the world. He who follows Me shall not walk in darkness but have the light of life.”

So today I want to know how the Light of Christ, keeps me from walking in darkness in a world that is dark and evil.

Point #1

God keeps me walking in His light by shinning His light on my unconfessed sin so that I am faced with having to dealt with that sin.

Numbers 32:23 (NKJV)

23 ...take note, you have sinned against the Lord; and be sure your sin will find you out.

Luke 8:17 (NKJV)

17 For nothing is secret that will not be revealed, nor anything hidden that will not be known and come to light.

Let me show two examples: one from the Old Testament and one from the New Testament where God’s light was shined on unconfessed sins.

First, an Old Testament example of an unconfessed sin being brought to the light. King David had Uriah the Hittite killed with the sword and then King David took Uriah’ wife, Bathsheba, to become his wife.

King David thought that he has gotten away with his little scheme that would result in having Bathsheba as his wife. With David’s clever plan he thought his actions had been swept under the rug and nobody knew.

But God was not going to allow that unconfessed sin to remain hidden. No telling how many times God tried to get David to see his own sin to no avail. But after a period of time, God sent Nathan the prophet to confront David’s sin and to shine a light on that sin.

When that sin was brought to the light, David did the right thing. He acknowledged he messed up and in 2 Samuel 12:13 David says to Nathan, “I have sinned against the Lord”

At that point God put away the sin but David still had to deal with the consequences.

You need to understand when you confess your sin, God is going to forgive you that is His promise, but you still may have to deal with the consequences. God forgave David, but the consequences remained. In David’s case it was a loss of a child, Bathsheba child, from David.

And then in the New Testament Book of Acts Chapter 5, Ananias and Sapphira came to Peter declaring that they sold a parcel of land, and they are giving all the moneys to the Lord’s work. And God used Peter to shine a light on their sin. Their sin was not that they did not give all the proceeds, their sin is that they told God they gave it all and didn’t. They held some back and Peter told them in verse 4, they lied to God.

I believe that it is God’s desire that He shed His light on that unconfessed sin in our life. But if we don’t heed that light, don’t be surprised if God uses some other way to shed light on that sin. In the Old Testament case it was Nathan the prophet, and in the New Testament it was Peter.

But it does not have to be a person, it could be a book you are reading that exposes your sin. It could be a show that you are watching that exposes your sin. God has unlimited ways to expose your sin to light.

And understand when God exposes sin, it is not to beat you down, it is for one purpose only. To move you closer to holiness because our God is holy.