Psalms 103:8-11
by Pastor Don Gettys
I want to
speak with you about Jesus this morning.
You might have guessed my sermon would be about Jesus. And that's what it is. Jesus,
the light of the world. The light of our life.
One dark,
cold, stormy night in Wales there was a gentleman who was walking home
from
work. It was dark and so he had a
lantern. He normally walked that path. It was cold and so he put the lantern
underneath his overcoat to keep him warm.
He thought, I know the way. I've
walked this path many times. The moon
was not out. It was extremely
dark. He was kind of cautious. He
thought, I think I'm on the path. Then a gust of
wind blew his coat open and
the light beamed out and he realized, just a few more steps and he would
have
been down in the quarry, over the edge of the precipice to the rocks
below. Kind of scary. From
then on he took the light out from
underneath his coat. Better to be safe
than it is to be warm, and that's where it was. He
decided he needed the light.
Our Scripture
today that I'm going to base this entire sermon on is in John 8:12. A wonderful verse. Words of
Jesus. 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.
Is Jesus the light of your life?
What lights you up? Is it money? Is it sex?
Is it some worldly thing that lights you up? What
lights your candle?
Hopefully, it's Jesus. He's the
light of life.
In fact, the
very first gift that God gave this world was what? Light. In Genesis it says
let there be light. Even God himself,
even the creator, couldn't do much without light. In
the darkness you can't do much. I suppose the
darkness is a good time for crime. A good time
for robberies and those types of
things.
Had there
been no light, I would like to suggest to you, creation could not have
continued because if you create all that grass and all those apple trees
and
all those fish and grizzly bears, how could they exist without light? Impossible.
Imagine a surgeon going through a delicate operation and all of a
sudden
the lights go out. Then what? Some
of you who work in hospitals, you can't
exist without light. Spiritually, what
can we do in darkness? We are totally
dependent on the light, and that light is what? Jesus
Christ.
There are a
certain number of men in a certain Indian tribe who have this ritual. They rise every morning early, before the
sun comes up, and perform an ancient ceremony that they believe causes
the sun
to come up. In fact, every time they do
it, the sun does come up. So that's
proof. They feel like if they would
neglect that, the world would be plunged into darkness.
A lot of
Christians are like that. We think, without
my efforts, without my work, salvation wouldn't happen. Hey,
it is Jesus who is the light of the
world. It is Jesus who is our
Savior. All I have to do is just enjoy
it and accept it and serve him. Jesus
is the light. Salvation is simple.
It's pretty easy.
Jesus made
this famous statement when he was in the Temple. In
fact, he was inside of the temple treasury. It
was called the court of women. This was a very
busy place every day of the
week, but especially on Sabbath. They
brought their money by. They deposited
into 13 treasure chests. They were like
big golden piggy banks and when the worshipers came in, the first two
were for
church expense. Number three and four
were for buying pigeons. Number five
was for buying wood to keep the fires going on the altar.
Number six was for incense. Some were for
the upkeep of the golden
vessels. Others for trespass offerings
and thank offerings and so forth.
Jesus says
that he was the light of the world. On
a dark evening on the first day of the feast of Tabernacles during a
ceremony
called the illumination of the Temple, they had four great candelabras
in that
place. They were lit and the blaze put
out a tremendous light and at that moment Jesus said, I am the light of
the
world. And he is. My light
will not flicker. My light will not go out like
these. My light is an eternal light. Proverbs 4:16 says the path of the righteous
is like the first gleam of the dawn shining ever brighter until the full
light
of day.
Today I think
the greatest need of the world is light.
True light. A rose won't blossom
unless it sees the sunshine, and you will never flower, you will never
produce
fruit in your life unless Jesus, the light of life, is the light of your
life. I want Jesus to illuminate my path. Never make a decision in the darkness.
You'll experience regrettable
consequences.
Back in the
old days, before electricity, a miserly old farmer was taking his hired
man to
task for carrying a lighted lantern when he would go calling on his
girlfriend. He said, when I went a-courtin', I
never
carried one of them things. I always
went in the dark. The hired man said,
yes, and look what you got. Don't make
decisions in the dark. Expose yourself
to the light of the world. Have you
looked so long on his face that you are reflecting some of that light? I hope so.
We used to
live in North Carolina and I heard this story of the North Carolinian. This man lived in a cabin beside the creek
and he found a beautiful rock in the creek.
Wow, that is so unique. It was
heavy and he brought it in. He used it
as a door stop in his cabin for years and years. One
day a geologist came into the cabin and said, that rock.
Where did you get that? He said, out of
the Creek. The geologist said, May I hold it? Yes.
He said, this is a gold nugget.
In fact, it turned out to be the largest gold nuggets ever found
east of
the Rocky Mountains. A huge thing, and
this man had failed to recognize the treasure.
So many of us fail to recognize the treasure. The
treasure is Jesus, the greatest thing in the world. It
could be that some of us are using Jesus
as a door stop. We have the light of
the world. What are we doing with
Jesus. He doesn't want to be a unique
door stop. He wants to be a unique
Saviour. There's no salvation without
Jesus.
It seems to
me when I go shopping at Barnes & Noble or Books A Million , it
seems to me
that we are becoming a world of more and more darkness. I
go to some of those places and I look at
some of the magazines and I think, ohhhhh.
Some of the books. There is
intense interest in darkness and witchcraft and paganism.
There's nothing new about the new age. It's
just old darkness. That's all it is. Jesus is the light of the world.
Point number
two. You must advance because the light
is moving. John 8:12, our Scripture
reading. He says, I am the light of the
world and whoever follows me will never walk in darkness.
You've got to follow because that light is
advancing. It's moving, and if you stay
stationary in your Christian life, you will lose the light. You've got to keep advancing. The
followers must keep up.
We were
camping over in the Smoky Mountain national Park and we had a campfire
and the
campfire experience was beautiful but it ended and it was time to go
back to
our tents. One person had a lantern and
none of the rest of us had brought flashlights and so they said, come
on. There were about seven of us in that group
and we walked from the campfire a long way back to our tents. It was a dark night. As we went
down a steep trail, we had to
keep up with the person who had the lantern.
The light was advancing and I guess if that would've been
daytime, we
would've looked like an awful chummy bunch because we were all huddled
together
following the light of that lantern. I
love the light. Proverbs 4:17. The
way of the wicked is like deep darkness
and they do not know what makes them stumble.
You need light. It's impossible
to be in the dark and to be near Jesus, because if you're near Jesus
you're going
to be in the light.
An allegory
illustrates this truth. Once upon a
time there was a cave that lived under the ground, where most caves
live, and
it had spent its entire lifetime in the darkness. One
day the cave heard a voice coming from the opening and the
voice said, come up into the light, and the cave said, I don't know what
you
mean. There isn't anything but
darkness. Finally the cave did venture
forth and after he ventured forth he was surprised to see light
everywhere. To his knowledge there was
no light. Looking up at the sun he was
astounded and he said, come with me to see the darkness, and the sun
said, what
is darkness? The cave said, well, come
and see. I'll show you. So
the sun entered the cave and said, now
show me your darkness. But there was
none. Light is stronger than
darkness. In fact, darkness is just the
absence of light.
You know you
need to stay near Jesus. When you are
near the light you can't be in darkness.
John 3:19. The light has come
into the world but men loved darkness rather than light because their
deeds
were evil. As Christians you must go
where the light goes or be left in darkness.
And the light will only benefit you if you stay close to Jesus. Follow him in salvation. Follow
him in baptism. Have you followed Jesus in those
ways? Follow him in service. Follow
him all the way til he leads you
home.
Number
three. The closer you walk with Jesus
the greater light you will have. That
makes sense, doesn't it? Stay close to
Jesus.
I think we
live
in one of the darkest periods in the history of the world.
Violent crime. Drug abuse.
You turn on
the news and you hear about all these moral allegations of coaches who
have not
been able to control themselves. You
see all kinds of horrible things. Perversion. Broken
homes. Political corruption. Terrorism.
Starvation. Moral cancer is
eating away at the foundations of life.
What this world needs is the warmth of light. To
be a warmer place and not such a cold frigid place. Light
gives warmth. They tell me that one small
candle, properly
reflected, can raise the temperature of a well built igloo from below
freezing
to almost 45°F. Jesus can warm your
heart. If He comes in your whole life
will become warmer.
Jesus doesn't
force himself upon us. Lighthouses
don't have to have sounding bells to cause you to look at their light. They just emit their light, and Jesus
beckons you to come. The dark world
would be a better place if we were all reflectors, better reflectors of
the
light of Jesus Christ.
There was a
small boy at an elementary school in a presentation. His
mother was in the front row and the youngster was up on the
platform and she was on the front row to prompt him. She
gestured, she formed the words with her mouth so that he would
know, but finally his memory went blank and he couldn't remember
anything. Finally she leaned forward and
whispered the
next phrase that he was supposed to say.
I am the light of the world. And
it all came back to him. He beamed with
great feeling and said in a loud clear voice, my mother is the light of
the
world. Don't ever think you are the
light of the world. You are a reflector
of the light of the world.
Point number
four. You personally can have the light
of life. You personally can have this
light that I am speaking of, because light is essential.
In John 1:4 it says, in him was life and
that life was the light of men. The
light of what? The light of men. Men
and women, boys and girls. The light of people. Jesus is the light that lights up
people. His life lights us up. You
may say, well my husband is lit up by
this or my wife is lit up by that. I
hope you're lit up by Jesus.
I have tried
from this pulpit for 25 years to uplift Jesus to you, and what better
theme
than Jesus Christ. Jesus.
Without light
you can't do much. All vegetation would
wilt and die without light. If the sun
quit this world would soon freeze up and we would enter an Ice Age and we would
all be dead. Even coal and oil that we
heat our houses with and drive our cars with would not have existed
without
light in the first place, because it all came as the result of growth
caused by
light. Light drives most of our engines
because we bottle that light up in coal or oil for hundreds of years,
maybe
thousands of years. It's just latent
light, latent energy again brought forth and made to work and produce
steam and
produce power for us. But Jesus is the
source of all light.
Recently, my
wife and I put solar panels on our roof and every time there is light we
receive power. We receive power from
light. If you're Christian life is limp
and weak, you just simply need to expose yourself to the light. To Jesus.
Do you do this every day? Do you
read the Bible every day? I read it
this morning. I read it every
morning. Expose yourself to Jesus.
Let him power your life. When Jesus came
to this old dark world there
was no light. When he left, there was
no darkness.
There was a
businessman who was 45 years old. He
was driving his car up in Canada. It was
a beautiful sunshiny day. Everything
was going fine, and then he noticed some drops of rain in one corner of
his
windshield. He thought, that's odd.
Then the drops quickly came across the whole
windshield, and then the drops all began turning dark. Finally
it was so dark he pulled over, and
within seconds everything was just total darkness. He
had gone completely blind, for the rest of his life. That
happens in one form or another with
30,000 people every year. You never
know when it might happen. Blindness
settled upon him.
God only
knows how many of us go spiritually blind every year. I
would say it would be more than 30,000. In
second Corinthians 4:4 I read this
statement. The god of this age has
blinded the minds of unbelievers so that they cannot see the light of
the gospel
of the glory of Christ. You know, Jesus
is the light of the world. Expose
yourself to Jesus.
My wife and I
came back from Cohutta Springs this week.
We were driving back and we were noticing the various Christmas
lights
along Apison Pike, different places here in Collegedale.
Beautiful Christmas lights. People have
them on their eaves. They have them as icicles on
their gutters. They have them on trees, on
bushes, on
poles, fences, everywhere. It's
beautiful. I love the lights of
Christmas. It's time for celebrating
the light, and Jesus is the true light that you want to celebrate.
Every month
we have to pay our electric bill but Jesus is the free light that you
will have
in this old dark world. You can't earn
it. All you have to do is accept
it. I urge you to accept Jesus today as
your personal guiding light and stay close to the light.
Lights are made for dark places and this old
world, the Lord only knows, needs more light.
John 8:12, our text, says, whoever follows me will never walk in
darkness. Why not? Because
we will have the light of life. You can't be in
the dark if you live under a
streetlight all the time. Jesus said I
am the light of this dark world. Look
unto me, your days will be bright. Bright.
I want to
urge my beautiful flock to look to Jesus.
Please, look to him, and I'm saying this in the continuous tense. Look at him and KEEP looking at Jesus.
Every day, every moment; and if you do, you
will find in him your star, your beacon of hope, your guidance, as we
all
continue to follow the light. May God
bless us as we keep following Jesus.
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