Walk in the Light
John 3
New Living Translation
3 There was a man named Nicodemus, a Jewish religious leader who was a Pharisee. 2 After dark one evening, he came to speak with Jesus. “Rabbi,” he said, “we all know that God has sent you to teach us. Your miraculous signs are evidence that God is with you.”
3 Jesus replied, “I tell you the truth, unless you are born again, you cannot see the Kingdom of God.”
4 “What do you mean?” exclaimed Nicodemus. “How can an old man go back into his mother’s womb and be born again?”
5 Jesus replied, “I assure you, no one can enter the Kingdom of God without being born of water and the Spirit. 6 Humans can reproduce only human life, but the Holy Spirit gives birth to spiritual life. 7 So don’t be surprised when I say, ‘You must be born again.’ 8 The wind blows wherever it wants. Just as you can hear the wind but can’t tell where it comes from or where it is going, so you can’t explain how people are born of the Spirit.”
9 “How are these things possible?” Nicodemus asked.
10 Jesus replied, “You are a respected Jewish teacher, and yet you don’t understand these things? 11 I assure you, we tell you what we know and have seen, and yet you won’t believe our testimony. 12 But if you don’t believe me when I tell you about earthly things, how can you possibly believe if I tell you about heavenly things? 13 No one has ever gone to heaven and returned. But the Son of Man has come down from heaven. 14 And as Moses lifted up the bronze snake on a pole in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, 15 so that everyone who believes in him will have eternal life. 16 “For this is how God loved the world: He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life. 17 God sent his Son into the world not to judge the world, but to save the world through him.
18 “There is no judgment against anyone who believes in him. But anyone who does not believe in him has already been judged for not believing in God’s one and only Son. 19 And the judgment is based on this fact: God’s light came into the world, but people loved the darkness more than the light, for their actions were evil. 20 All who do evil hate the light and refuse to go near it for fear their sins will be exposed. 21 But those who do what is right come to the light so others can see that they are doing what God wants.
In order to walk in the Light…
1. We Must Be Born Again
1 Peter 1:22-23
22 You were cleansed from your sins when you obeyed the truth, so now you must show sincere love to each other as brothers and sisters. Love each other deeply with all your heart. 23 For you have been born again, but not to a life that will quickly end. Your new life will last forever because it comes from the eternal, living word of God.
2 Corinthians 5:17
14 Either way, Christ’s love controls us. Since we believe that Christ died for all, we also believe that we have all died to our old life. 15 He died for everyone so that those who receive his new life will no longer live for themselves. Instead, they will live for Christ, who died and was raised for them.
16 So we have stopped evaluating others from a human point of view. At one time we thought of Christ merely from a human point of view. How differently we know him now! 17 This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun!
2. We must Live in the Light
1 John 1:5-7
Living in the Light
5 This is the message we heard from Jesus and now declare to you: God is light, and there is no darkness in him at all. 6 So we are lying if we say we have fellowship with God but go on living in spiritual darkness; we are not practicing the truth. 7 But if we are living in the light, as God is in the light, then we have fellowship with each other, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, cleanses us from all sin.
- The light shines in the darkness; it literally replaces the darkness
-- APP: There are not different shades of spiritual darkness; but light casts it out
-- In a dark room, you can shine one light and change the visibility immediately
- The Light is good! Look at the very beginning
- Genesis 1:3-4
3 Then God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. 4 And God saw that the light was good. Then he separated the light from the darkness.
3. God’s light calls us to fellowship
If we’re walking in the light, It will lead us to fellowship with other believers.
There are some obstacles to this fellowship.
- EGO: Edging God Out
o As the source of our security, worth, and wisdom
o As the authority over what we do, our life
When we start operating this was it usually shows up in one of two ways
- Pride
o Proverbs 16:18 18 Pride goes before destruction,
and haughtiness before a fall.
o Proverbs 21:4 4 Haughty eyes, a proud heart,
and evil actions are all sin
o Romans 12:16 16 Live in harmony with each other. Don’t be too proud to enjoy the company of ordinary people. And don’t think you know it all!
? This is when we begin promoting ourselves
? Taking credit instead of pointing to God
? Boasting/showing off
o Here’s something I’ve noticed though… the closer we grow to God, the less credit you take for things. We can’t even take credit for being on Gods side. He reached down and pulled us up out of the darkness!
o This Pride, It causes us to hold on to things we shouldn’t. When we hold on to things because of this pride, It makes it difficult to receive or handle the things that God has for us, good things, because we’re loaded down with things that we shouldn’t even be carrying. So overloaded that we miss blessing that God is sending our way.
The other side of EGO ( or way we Edging God out) is
- Fear
This is when we begin protecting our Self
o Intimidating others
o Hiding things
o Discouraging honest feedback
o Withholding information from loved ones/brothers and sisters
Some common examples of this is Fear:
-Of being hurt
-Old Wounds
-Being Rejected
-Being Known
-Being Judged
-Being Vulnerable
Where there is a fear of these things, there is a lack of trust. If we trust Gods word, (by the way it says that as Iron sharpens Iron so does one man sharpen another, and that we should confess our sins to one another, ), and we trust our brothers and sisters in Christ we shouldn’t be afraid of this. Where fear of these things exist, It consumes our ability to truly love others.
How do we bridge this gap?
-Love
1 John 4:18-19
18 Such love has no fear, because perfect love expels all fear. If we are afraid, it is for fear of punishment, and this shows that we have not fully experienced his perfect love. 19 We love each other[b] because he loved us first.
-Kindness
-Openness
-Taking interest in others
-Ministry
If you want to begin building fellowship, just jump into ministry with someone you don’t know or someone you want to get to know better. Within ministry, authenticity reality will occur. Look at the relationship between Saul and Barnabas in Acts. There was a realness that come out of that.
How does ministry build fellowship? It reveals our real identity. It will reveal authenticity. It also demonstrates to believers the genuineness of a believer’s faith. In fact, Paul tells Timothy before appointed Deacons that they must first be examined or tested. Why? To be sure they are reliable. This promotes fellowship as well, because what it says is I’m not afraid to get in here and get my hands dirty. I’m not here to impress anyone. I’m here to honor my Lord.
4. We Must be Honest with Ourselves
We have to be aware of where we’re at, our condition.
1 John 1:8-10
8 If we claim we have no sin, we are only fooling ourselves and not living in the truth. 9 But if we confess our sins to him, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all wickedness. 10 If we claim we have not sinned, we are calling God a liar and showing that his word has no place in our hearts.
-We’re not fooling God
-We’re not fooling those around us
-We’re not even Really fooling ourselves
2 Corinthians 13:3,5-6
3 I will give you all the proof you want that Christ speaks through me. Christ is not weak when he deals with you; he is powerful among you.
5 Examine yourselves to see if your faith is genuine. Test yourselves. Surely you know that Jesus Christ is among you; if not, you have failed the test of genuine faith. 6 As you test yourselves, I hope you will recognize that we have not failed the test of apostolic authority.
5. We have to Follow the Light to avoid the darkness
John 8
New Living Translation
A Woman Caught in Adultery
8 Jesus returned to the Mount of Olives, 2 but early the next morning he was back again at the Temple. A crowd soon gathered, and he sat down and taught them. 3 As he was speaking, the teachers of religious law and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in the act of adultery. They put her in front of the crowd.
4 “Teacher,” they said to Jesus, “this woman was caught in the act of adultery. 5 The law of Moses says to stone her. What do you say?”
6 They were trying to trap him into saying something they could use against him, but Jesus stooped down and wrote in the dust with his finger. 7 They kept demanding an answer, so he stood up again and said, “All right, but let the one who has never sinned throw the first stone!” 8 Then he stooped down again and wrote in the dust.
9 When the accusers heard this, they slipped away one by one, beginning with the oldest, until only Jesus was left in the middle of the crowd with the woman. 10 Then Jesus stood up again and said to the woman, “Where are your accusers? Didn’t even one of them condemn you?”
11 “No, Lord,” she said.
And Jesus said, “Neither do I. Go and sin no more.”
Jesus, the Light of the World
12 Jesus spoke to the people once more and said, “I am the light of the world. If you follow me, you won’t have to walk in darkness, because you will have the light that leads to life.”
-having the light that leads to life is rooted in relationship with the Lord
- Apart from Jesus, we live in darkness. We have limited capacity to understand who we are or what we see in the world.
- When I admit that I’m not enough, that is when I’m free to be who Christ is calling me to be
-We should live our lives in a way that others know the reason “Why” when they see us walking in the light.
