Today, we are concluding our dark side revealed series. We talked about:
• DS of religion & how Satan still deceives people into believing something that is not true
• DS of sexuality and about God’s standards & how God’s desire is for us to be holy
• DS of human pride and how pride can lead us to believe and act in ways that are unjust
• Today, I want to talk about how the light of Christ can overcome the darkness
I accepted Jesus when I was 14 years old. Until then, God had little influence in my life. When I started going to church I had to learn to live a new life. I was so excited about my relationship with God that I began teaching friends at school what it meant to receive Jesus. During my high school years, I began to struggle with my faith. I started hanging around the “wrong crowd”, got into a couple of fights, lying to my parents about my whereabouts, using drugs; from there things went downhill.
Things got worse after high school. I began to drift away from God more and more. I felt it in my soul. I was going to church, but I was going through a desert, a spiritual drought. I felt helpless.
I learned: We can make decisions that can totally and eternally separate us from God’s presence. [PAUSE]
If there were anything God would allow me to erase in my life, this would be it. Seriously, have you ever made mistakes in your life that you just wish you could turn your clock back in time?
• You got involved with someone and the relationship turn out to be a disaster
• You said things to your spouse/mom/dad/friend that you wish you could take back
• You forgot to prepare for a presentation at work/school and your regretted later
• You made decisions you knew were wrong but you made them anyway, and now
God must have known we would struggle with this… because Jesus addressed this very issue when he was talking to Nicodemus. Turn with me to John 3:19, 21 “And this is the judgment, that the light has come into the world, and people loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil …but whoever lives by the truth comes into the light” [EXPLAIN IT DO DEATH!]
• The judgment: the reason why the world is so messed up, why there is evil, pain in this world, and why things aren’t getting any better…not a verdict [out of hate] from God but a consequence of sin
• The light has come: God in flesh and bones revealed himself in Jesus: to show us his plan of salvation, his love, his forgiveness, what a changed and free life looks like. He came to remove from the darkness and give us light, BUT people loved the darkness more
• People loved it…people preferred it, they had the option before them, and were conscious of the choice they were making, but they chose darkness over the light
• Because their deeds were evil- not because we were created for evil- (God created us for a good purpose) but …as a human race we make mistakes
• Whoever lives by the truth- but we don’t have to be like everybody else. We can choose to live differently. We can choose to walk away from the darkness and into the light.
o God sent his Son, so that we could experience his love, so that today we could have the option to walk away from the mistakes and the bad decisions, and the bad relationships that have held us hostage
o Sin and darkness can steal our future. They can steal our hopes and dream, they can steal our families and even our faith
o Jesus says John 10:10 “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that you may have life, and have it abundantly.”
We can make decisions that can totally and eternally separate us from God’s presence, but when we are in Christ [accept God’s will for us], NOTHING IN THIS WORLD HAS THE POWER TO SEPARATE US FROM HIS LOVE. HIS LOVE CAN CHANGE IT ALL. Romans 8:37 “No, Paul says, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.”
• Can you imagine a journey service where dozens & dozens of people would come because they’ve heard that
• Can you imagine what would happen in our church if people in this community would see us passionate our faith/totally in love with God?
• Can you imagine what would happen in this community if each person here would decide that in the next three months we would help at least one person give their life to Christ?
• Can you imagine if ALL of our youth would be so excited about sharing God’s love with their friends that their first priority would be to love unconditionally?
• Can you imagine a church where “love one another” was the theme rather than just the name for a Sunday school class
• And can you imagine if each one of us here, would decide once and for all that it was about time to start praying hard and make a revival happen? Not just prayer team.
• Not only our lights would shine for Christ, and God would be glorified, but we would finally start changing our world.
Challenge: ¹everywhere you go, think, “I am the light of this place,” ²in the next 3 month, share your faith with someone else, ³when we have our week of prayer in January, let us fill this place.
