Forgiveness Leads Us From Darkness To Light

TOP TEN SIGNS YOU MAY NOT BE READING YOUR BIBLE ENOUGH:

10) The Preacher announces the sermon is from Genesis and you have to check the table of contents.

9) You think Abraham, Isaac & Jacob may have had a few hit songs during the 60's.

8) You open to the Gospel of Luke and a WWII Savings Bond falls out.

7) Your favorite Old Testament Patriarch is Hercules.

6) A small family of woodchucks has taken up residence in the Psalms of your Bible.

5) You become frustrated because Charlton Heston isn't listed in either the Concordance or the Table of Contents.

4) Catching the kids reading the Song of Solomon, you demand: "Who gave you this stuff?"

3) You think the Minor Prophets worked in the quarries.

2) You keep falling for it every time when Pastor tells you to turn to First Condominiums.

1) The kids keep asking too many questions about your usual bedtime story: "Jonah, the Shepherd Boy, and His Ark of Many Colors."

Forgiveness leads us from Darkness to light John 9:5-7, 35-39

We find in John 8 that Jesus had proclaimed that He was the “Light of the world.” He also said that He was around before Abraham was born. He said He was equal with God the Father. They picked up stones and were going to kill Him. It says that He walked through the crowd and they were not able to kill Him as they wanted to. The next life story we have is that Jesus came in contact with a man who was born blind. The disciples ask if this man had sinned or was it his parents fault. Jesus says that this man had not sinned to cause his blindness or his parents but that this fact was to bring forth the glory of God. I want you to know that this man was a sinner and needed forgiveness. As I have talked with some people this week I found that they were blind to the truth that Jesus can set them free. I simply told them that I was blind to the fact that I was a sinner but at the age of 17 my life was changed because Jesus forgave me of my sins and I was a child of God. This live testimony did not change the people I was talking with just as like this man telling the religious leaders of that day change, when this man told them he had been changed. We live in a sin darkened world. When Jesus or the Holy Spirit speaks we need to obey and not put off what we need to do. Many are like I was before I met Jesus. I had no clue that I could be forgiven and lived a sinful life with out hope. I pray that God will speak to you today and you will walk in His way. Jesus said this about our lives: 3:19-21 Now this is the basis for judging: that the light has come into the world and people loved the darkness rather than the light, because their deeds were evil. For everyone who does evil deeds hates the light and does not come to the light, so that their deeds will not be exposed. But the one who practices the truth comes to the light, so that it may be plainly evident that his deeds have been done in God. What is God speaking to us about today that will help us live as He wants?

1. We first see blindness of the heart.

The blindness we see here in 1-5 was to blame some one as a sin. Let me ask “Have you ever placed the blame on someone else for some thing that was sin? Let me share an example from my days in High School in which I was blamed for some thing I didn’t do. It was finals week of my JR year. We were told on the Friday before this week there was to be no water balloons during the next week. We took our finals in two hour periods for each class. On the first day after the first test I had taken some guys came by in a car and asked if I would like a ride to lunch? I got in the car only to find that they had water balloons in the back seat. A policeman spotted us and I guess we looked guilty and started following us. We went around the corner and threw out the water balloons to destroy the evidence. Not a good idea. We were stopped and all our names were taken down. When we came back to school we were told to go to the gym because the principal wanted to talk with us. He told us we were suspended from school and could not take the other tests we were supposed to take the rest of the week. I was not a real good student and without the tests which counted heavily on our final grade I was in trouble. I did not know about the water balloons but I was guilty for being in that car. I later was given a chance to retake the tests as they found out I was a victim. In this story the disciples wanted to find where to place the blame. There was a belief back then that a back could sin while he was still in the womb of his mother. Jesus corrected their thinking in saying do not place the blame on anyone for this was to bring glory to God. This was to show the Divine power of God and the wickedness of man’s heart. Does your life bring glory to God? You see it not so much a mystery of that we are in sin or that we are blind to our sinfulness but it is what we do with the fact that Jesus came to set us free.