Today you’ve noticed that we’ve been talking a lot about light. It’s because that is the theme for the summer program this year but also because the concept of light is so important to the church. Jesus used it as a metaphor to describe to people who He was and it still works today. Let’s look at our key verse for the day, it’s John 8:12, “When Jesus spoke again to the people, he said, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”
Light, it is such an interesting concept because it means so many things. In science it can’t be classified because it is a wave and a particle. In our language it is more than that and it is more then just the simple definitions provided by Webster. The dictionary defines light as “something that makes vision possible”, or to be more technical, “electromagnetic radiation of any wavelength that travels in a vacuum with a speed of about 186,281 miles per second; specifically: such radiation that is visible to the human eye.” Those are technical definitions of light, but the concept of light is so much more than that.
Let’s start by looking at that this morning what is light. For answers we’re going to look at what it means to us in our culture and what it meant in the Bible. When Jesus said, “I am the light of the world.” What did He mean? We’re going to look at a few of the concepts that He would have been referring to. First light represents truth. Think about it, when we think that there is confusion or a mistruth being told, we say that we are going to bring the truth to light.
Truth is one of the central theme’s of scripture. In John 8:31-32, Jesus says, “If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth and the truth will set you free.” Setting you free is what the truth does. In a world with so many questions, and competing answers the only one that counts is the one that is true. People want to know about God, they want to know about meaning and purpose. So many people are willing to share their answer that matters is the one that is the truth anything else just leaves people looking for what the answers are all over again. We all need the truth. But there is on inconvenient thing about the truth and it has nothing to do with Al Gore, truth that doesn’t exclude is just an opinion. Either God is God or He isn’t. There is no room in the area of truth of God and Allah, God and Buddha, God and anything else. Either Jesus is the Messiah and the one who can save us or He isn’t. But when Jesus stepped out of the grave it proved every word that He said and in John 14:6, “I am the way and the truth and the life.”
Jesus is the light and life is truth. Light also represents knowledge. 1 Kings 4:29 says, “God gave Solomon wisdom and very great insight, and a breadth of understanding as measureless as the sand on the seashore.” That verse talks about wisdom directly from God. But knowledge is valued throughout the scriptures. Acts 7:22 tells us the Moses was “instructed in all the wisdom of the Egyptians.” Daniel, Shadrach, Meshack, and Abendnego we in the court of Nebuchadnezzar so that they could learn the knowledge of the Babylonians. Paul was educated at the feet of Gamaliel, who was one of the most respected teachers of His day. This list can go on for a while, but here is the point. Many of the leading men of God in the Bible were also men of great learning. The God of the Bible values knowledge and wisdom.
It’s funny because there are people today who say that the church of God has not followed suit in this. They say that the church is close minded or they point to isolated incidents in the past. But they are the ones who are acting willfully ignorant of the past of not just the church but the people of God. Think about it, today in the church we spend a lot of time trying to get people to study their Bible. But if you go back multiple centuries you know what part of that is taken for granted? The reading part. That’s right centuries ago when reading was something for only a few it was the church that helped to keep it alive, it was the church who trained people in reading and writing. In fact the term clergy is related to the term clerk which referred to someone who could read.
Western though itself has its basis in Christianity. We live with the thought that time runs in a straight line. Gene Veith writes that, “Physicists speculate on about the beginning of the universe, biologists argue about how species change and develop, sociologists chart the progress of societies, and futurists of all kinds worry about the end of the human race. The assumption is that time has a beginning and an end. This linear view of time and human history comes from the bible, which teaches that times has a beginning…the ancient pagan civilizations, on the other hand, assumed that time is a series of cycles…because of their cyclical view of time, concepts such as progress, change, development-which presuppose a linear view of time-are very difficult for pagan cultures to comprehend.”
Even more basic than that the university system that we take for granted was founded by the church. The oldest universities of Europe were founded to train ministers. Schools like Oxford and the Sorbonne. The earliest universities in America were founded for the same reasons. Harvard and Princeton were founded as church related colleges. From the very beginning God has been the light and the light is knowledge. It is not just knowledge of Him that we need, but through His church He has been the source of our educational system.
Jesus is the light and the light is truth, the light is knowledge and the light represents hope. Listen to John 1:1-4, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light that shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it.” Jesus is the light and the light is life. That is the hope we need, that in Jesus is life, not just for after we die but right now. When we ask Jesus to be our Lord, to be our savior, we are asking Him to be a part of our life, right now. When we do that God becomes a part of our life right then, it doesn’t mean that our life is going to be perfect from that point on, but it does mean that our life will be better then it would have been without Him. He is our hope that our tomorrows will be better than today and we can believe in His ability to do it, because even death couldn’t stop Him.
But when we look at that final verse that says that, “The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it.” Some of your Bibles will say comprehend it, which is a better translation. Because what we’re really talking about is a conflict of ideas. Light verses darkness, and the darkness wants to drown out the light, but it can’t. No matter how hard it tries darkness can not overcome light. Let’s look at some things that darkness represents.
First of all, darkness represents evil. Look at what Ephesians 6:12 says, “For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.” Sometimes in this world we feel like evil has a face, and sometimes it does. We all saw it a few weeks ago, one man who had caused so much evil died, some people celebrated, but here was the issue evil still exists, darkness still exists, because our enemy still exists. There is darkness in the world, but the good news is that the darkness can not overcome the light.
The second thing that darkness represents is depression. Look at the lament of Job in 30:26, “Yet when I hoped for God, evil came; when I looked for light, then came darkness.” Job was going through a really bad time in life, he had lost his family, his wealth, ultimately his health and when he looked for light, when he wanted hope, he found evil and how did he describe it as darkness. There is darkness in the world, and at times in all of our lives. Sometimes we talk about being in a dark place. We feel like Job. We just want a little hope, a little peace. Sometimes when we look for it and think we see it, we’re afraid that it’s a train, but we need to remember that Jesus is the light of the world and the darkness can not overcome the light. We may feel like it, we may feel like we’re trapped in darkness and that there is no way out. But Jesus is always there. There is no darkness that Jesus can not shine through.
Darkness represents evil, it represents depression, but ultimately darkness is an illusion. It’s interesting, light is something, we can’t define it as light or particle, but it is real it exists, darkness doesn’t. Do you know what the definition of darkness is? The definition of darkness is the absence of light. It may feel real. To our perception it may be real, but it’s just and illusion. The minute light is introduced to the darkness room, darkness is instantly banished. Where there is light there is not darkness. In the end darkness can not overcome the light because light is real and darkness is just being away from the light. Ultimately darkness an illusion because one day we will all have to stand before Jesus, the one who said He is the light of the world and proved what He said by stepping out of the grave.
Here is the good news, Jesus is the light of our world. What does it mean that Jesus told us He is the light, the claim comes back to John 1:5, “The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it.” Jesus is the light of our world, not because we chose Him but because He chose us. That’s what so many people don’t understand. Yes God gives us the choice to follow Him, but that doesn’t affect whether or not He is God. He is no matter what. That is something that some people have a hard time understanding.
I saw a bumper sticker this week, I’m sure the person thought they were expressing their open mind, but it was really their lack of understanding. It said, “God is to big to fit into any one religion.” In part it was right. Religion’s are man’s attempt to define and understand God. We can’t do that on our own. But that is not who the God the Bible is. Our God, the true God is the light because He knew that we couldn’t understand Him on our own, He knew that we couldn’t find the truth of Him on our own, He knew that we couldn’t find real hope on our own. So He didn’t give us a religion, He gave us Himself. Jesus stepped into History to be the light of the world, so we could know the truth, we could understand who He is, and in that we could find hope in Him.
Because of that the greatest mission in life is to reflect His light into our world and our families. The Christian life is about leaning who He is and then sharing it with others. That is our mission here at Madison. We’ve boiled it down to three words. We want to help you to Know who God is, Grow in the knowledge of Him, and then Go serve Him. If you’ve never accepted Him will you take that first step right now? Will you today say that you want the light of the world in your life, that you want Jesus to be a part of your life today.
If you’ve already done that we’ve made it our mission to help you do that as a family. We’ve designed our 252 program to partner with you to help you share the light of God’s love with your family.
