Gateway Church's Podcast
The Light of the World
Last weekend we talked about the high electric bills We thought this was a much better way to use our money Jesus also known as the light of the world And John chapter 8 verse 12 it says I am the light of the world If you follow me you won't be stumbling through the darkness because you will have the light that leads to life It's kind of awkward sitting in the dark, isn't it? We really weren't created to live our lives in the dark This is why Jesus was saying if you're living in darkness it's like stumbling through life taking small steps instead of running Fearful of falling in a place a trap that the enemy set for you because you can't see the next step. I Don't know about you, but I remember living in the darkness. I Remember living in absolute darkness. I Remember walking through life looking for answers looking at people wondering if they had the light that I was looking for Wondering if there was a light at all or if it was just religion And I remember one night Driving home And a pickup truck on the back roads of Louisiana And I remember the Holy Spirit coming to me and saying Brady I am the light of the world And I want to shine my light in your heart And I got home that night and I knelt beside my bed And I said Lord I'm so tired of walking in the dark Looking for the light Lord if you're there would you come right now and shine your light into my heart and he came You see there's only one Light that is powerful enough to penetrate the human heart and his name is Jesus He is the light of the world. I Want you to turn in your Bible now that you can see? To Matthew chapter 5 because I want you to hear I want you to catch this morning All of us as believers have to realize how important it is that we have the light of God in our lives I'm only going to talk about two different types of light this morning, but I want you to really catch this in your heart We're headed into an evangelistic series next weekend and a desire desire It is God's desire more importantly that we point thousands of people toward the light of the world Do you agree? I want you to really pray this week pray Lord Lord Show us how to point others to the light of the world and in Matthew chapter 5 when Jesus is talking Sometimes we read Scripture and we miss out on the practical things that God's saying We try to spiritualize everything that we read in the Bible when in a lot of times Jesus was just being practical He just tells us in practical ways what to do to show people to Jesus and he does this in Matthew chapter 5 Light by the way is always a witness. That's the first thing I want you to hear this morning light is always a witness and in Matthew chapter 5 verse 14 It says you are the light of the world a city like a city on a mountain glowing in the night for all to see Don't hide your light under a basket Instead put it on a stand and let it shine for all in the same way Let your good deeds shine out for all to see so that everyone will praise your heavenly father Now Jesus is saying to us this morning There are things that you should be doing in your life Doing it deeds deeds are things that you do do you agree with that? He is saying there should there should be things that you are doing in your life that point people to the light that You already have in your own heart because no one wants to live in darkness Jesus said in John chapter 8 we read that at the beginning of the sermon John chapter 8 He says I am the light of the world and Matthew chapter 5 He looks at all of us and says now you are the light of the world You know why he said that because the responsibility to witness has now shifted Jesus is not coming to the earth to personally witness to your children Jesus is not coming back to the earth in bodily form to personally witness to the people at work for you Jesus is not coming back and bodily form and witnessing to your neighbors Jesus did not die so that we could join the witness protection program He doesn't need it. He undercover believers Jesus needs us to be a witness and he says there are practical things that I want you to do that point people to the Life that you have in your heart. He says to let your good deeds shine out for everyone to see and I believe that Sometimes we think that witnessing is knocking on someone's door a stranger Handing a track to them having to explain and a deep theological truth having to answer all the questions about Christianity and so because of that because we don't want to knock on someone's door We don't want to get into an argument So we just back away all together from witnessing and assume that someone else will share the light with those in darkness You see I believe that there are three very practical ways that we can be witnesses that we can actually share the light The first one is is that our light our attitude should reflect the light if there were ever a group of people on the earth That should have the best attitude available. It should be believers, right? I mean we should have the best possible attitude because let's just take the first three fruits of the spirit love Joy and peace if those three things really are fruits if they are really growing in your life If they really are fruits of your life Love joy and peace not to mention all the others the good ones love joy and peace Let's just take the top three work on those today Our attitudes no matter what's happening around us if we're filled with love and filled with joy and filled with peace our Attitude should reflect the light of people around us when everyone else has a bad attitude They should look at us and say what is different about you? Our attitudes not our words not our deep theology just our attitudes the way we respond to life The second way that I believe that God practically helps is our words should reflect the light For example, if you have one of those little fish emblems on the back of your car Don't yell at someone while at a red light If you have an I love Jesus button on your shirt Don't get into an argument at Costco If you have a wwjd bracelet Don't get into a verbal fight. That's not what Jesus would do Our words should reflect the light what we say should carry tremendous weight with people Let me ask you a question. Are your words weighty? Do you have the weight of God on the words that you speak? Because they should be reflecting the light of the creator of the universe Here's the third thing is our our action should reflect the light Now I'm married to the most honest woman on the earth Pam's here today. We've been married 17 years and 17 years of marriage I've not even suspected that she's ever even stretched the truth with me much less ever lied Last Saturday night. We had some guests at our house Pam had to run by target super target that super mega Target and pick up some things so she's walking down the produce aisle and she said Brady I found some money at Target It was like a $20 bill wrapped around the stack a wad of money was laying on the on the produce floor all floor I said well, where is it? Husbands how many of you would have asked the first question. Where is it? How much was it? She said well Brady, I didn't pick it up. It's not mine Pam it was laying there on the floor. It could have been that God was leaving some manna from heaven for you she Said Brady I it's not my money. I said well, what did you do? She said I went to the produce manager the guy working there and I said hey There's some a lot of money laying over there. You might want to pick that up and find out who it belongs to I said why no it belongs to now Couldn't you have maybe given it to him and said listen, you know put this in an envelope if nobody comes back to claim it in seven days I'll be back How many of you're gonna go to the super target produce aisle today? Here's what Pam said Brady the Lord has so blessed us Somebody else need that money more than us What do you say after that? Yes, Pam, you're right The issue is this it's not that you have to do exactly what Pam did But our actions the way we behave the things that we do Should reflect the light and you don't have to reflect much light today Do you know that just the glimmer of light was shine really bright right now because we're living in a really dark world You don't have to glow just have a flicker every once in a while a little spark would help just a little bit of light Because light is always a witness Second thing I want you to hear this morning is light always wins Light always wins now in John chapter one verse one three five these five verses and John chapter one you literally can write Thousands of pages of theological insight from these five scriptures. Let's read it together in the beginning the word Already existed so it answers the question about how old is Jesus? He was with God and he was God so it answers the question How can you have three in one the Trinity can be three three separate distinct identities, but be one God? He was in the beginning with God. He created everything there is Nothing exists that he didn't make life itself was in him and this life gives light to everyone and The light shines through the darkness and the darkness can never extinguish it The what he's saying is that light always wins Do you know that there are two opposing forces right now that are competing for your mind and your thoughts your emotions for your life? There's the forces of darkness and there's the forces of light both of those things are competing for your family for you and for your home How do you know the difference? How do you know what's dark and what's light if those two things are competing? We need to know what they look like and what they are I'm trying to make this very simple to you this morning darkness is Anything that's not submitted to the lordship of Jesus Christ and does not obey the word of God Anything that does not submit to the lordship of Jesus Christ or is submitted to the word of God Which by the way, those things have to both happen at one time and they will if they can't do that it's darkness Now listen God himself gave the devil and all his demonic forces permission temporary permission by the way To inhabit any area of darkness that they can find but they cannot come into the light They don't want to come into the light So they have permission according to scripture to inhabit any place of darkness And they do and those areas of darkness by the way can be in the hearts of believers How many of you have sinned since you were born again? Good half of us the other half. It didn't raise your hand. You've just sinned So all of us did you realize that once you were born again? In fact, sometimes we thought we were doing pretty good until we were born again Then we realized I'm messed up. I Realized I have things I need to work on in my life the Holy Spirit Will not let you stay the same after you're born again. This is what we call Sanctification that's a big word a big religious term, but we need to know what that means This term means simply this Jesus will not let you stay the way you are he is going to continually shine his light into every dark part of your heart Until there are no more dark places so that you can look more and more like Jesus the older that you get That's sanctification. That's the process of the Holy Spirit coming to you Convicting you changing you so that you can look like Jesus more and more and more and more as you get Older That's what that means now the enemy by the way when he's in an area of darkness when he is given permission to inhabit an area of darkness He torments people that have darkness in their heart and listen. I want you to really catch this today Satan is a master tormentor in Fact he's the one that created torment He is the one that is the best at it God in his nature cannot torment you God is love. God is peace. God is grace God is not the one who torments people It's Satan and his enemies that torment people and they can only torment people that have areas of darkness in their life If you know that there's a broken relationship in your life and you are doing nothing about it You know that you have unforgiveness You know that you have an issue with anger you know that you have an addiction that needs to be brought under control then you know that that's an area of darkness and The enemy will come to that place of darkness in your life because he has permission to abide there he has your permission to be there and He'll stay there and torment you and torment you and torment you until You get tired of being tormented and you say enough of this I need the light I Want the light to shine on that darkness? Here's what happens. I want to show it to you in Scripture. Let me show you the first step of shining the light It's found in Psalms 119 105 Here's what this scripture says your word is a lamp to my feet and a light for my path Darkness is defeated when it is exposed to the light of Scripture. Here's another scriptures not in your bulletin But I want you to write it down Hebrews 4 12 For the word of God is full of living power. It is sharper than the sharpest knife Cutting deep into our innermost thoughts and desires In other words when we read scripture when we open the Bible and read scripture. This is not just ink and paper This is a living breathing Organism it is God speaking to us. It's alive and when you read this scripture any part of it It has the ability to go to the very deep place of our thoughts and the Bible says one translation says It's able to separate Your motives in other words. It's able to separate what's good and separate what's bad By reading the word the power of the Holy Spirit that by the way moved men to write this word is still alive and active today When you read it it has the ability to come into your heart in fact every place that I've ever discovered darkness I found because I read the word. I read the word I discovered that I had an area of darkness Now it also says in Proverbs 2027 that the Lord's searchlight penetrates the human spirit exposing every hidden motive Now I want you not to see this because you think God's mad at you because God's trying to find something wrong with you Listen, it is God's grace that he shines light on you It is because of God's mercy that he shines light into the dark places of your heart. Do you know why? If you have a place of darkness, that's where the enemy will torment you and And you wouldn't want anyone to torment your children Would you give someone permission to torment your children if someone said I want to torment your child for the next three weeks? You would never give anyone permission to torment your children That's why God in his mercy in his grace does not want the enemy to torment you and I He does not want you to give the enemy permission to come into ruin your heart and ruin your life to ruin your emotions So he sent his word and in his word He gave that the word ability the ability to shine the spotlight into every dark part of our hearts So guess what the enemy would want you to do if you have areas of darkness Above all costs keep them away from the word Keep them away from the word because if they ever hear the word or read the word if they're ever Exposed to the word of God the word of God's gonna shine a spotlight on this dark place that we have inhabited And when it shines the spotlight on this dark place, we can no longer abide here We can't stay here. So at all costs keep them away from the spoken or written word of God It's critical that we expose ourselves to the Holy Spirit into the word of God on a regular basis Many of us are better at taking care of our cars and our yards than we are taking care of our soul of maintaining a healthy yard or a healthy car then we are maintaining healthy emotions and healthy thoughts and So I remember when the Lord really begin to show me that I had dark corners and Literally, this is what he said to me Brady. There are dark corners of your life There are places in your life. There's a lot of light You've allowed a lot of light to come into your heart, but there's some dark corners Brady In fact, you took me to Luke chapter 11 verse 36 He says if you are filled with light With no dark corners Then your whole life will be radiant as though a flood light is shining on you Let me ask you a question if a flood light is shining on me and there are no dark corners Here's the good news The enemy cannot inhabit any part of my life and He cannot torment me And I'm telling you I have lived the life of torment before I have been tormented in my thinking My emotions have been tormented. I have awakened in the middle of the night being tormented about my future about my past Torment and blessing are as far apart on the spectrum as you can get And you can choose today to either stay in darkness and continue to give the enemy permission to torment you or you can choose today to step into the light and the torment stops immediately and So I remember more than teach me how to pray Lord. I've read your word I see the dark corners Lord show me how to pray show me how to give myself soul care Tell me how to take care of my soul. What's the regular maintenance that you want me to have the way I regularly Change the oil in my car every 3,000 miles Lord I want to regularly maintain the condition of my heart and so the Lord showed me how to pray and it's found throughout Scripture I wrote it down and it's in your sermon notes this morning And I want you to read this. This is the way I pray in my quiet time I don't get this out and read it, but this is generally how I pray every morning. I Believe your word is truth Therefore I asked the Holy Spirit to shine his light into every dark area of my soul I will not hide and I will not withdraw from your holy presence Expose and remove all the darkness in my life I give the Holy Spirit permission to establish the kingdom of Jesus Christ in every part of my life I do not want any dark corners. I want to be filled with light Lord, I'm not running from you Lord. I'm not hiding from you Lord. I'm here in front of you right now Lord as I read your word. I realize there are dark places in my heart. Lord. I give you permission right now If you're just giving permission all you have to do is agree with him You don't have to do any any special work sparring. You don't have to impress God You simply have to give him permission and then he comes and the torment stops That sounds simple, but it is that simple Jesus listen He has already defeated the enemy at the cross the enemy is already defeated and the only permission the enemy has to torment us is The permission that we have now given back to him because at the cross all of the authority and all of the permission to torment people was taken away and The only authority that they have to torment us again after the cross is the permission that we give them and the authority that we give them I Hope you're catching this this morning. I'm telling you could absolutely change your life if you'll begin to walk in the light Stumbling through life in the darkness is no fun, but walking with the light is real joy and real peace. I Really appreciate the last four weeks. He led me to share my heart about Jesus. I hope that you're thinking about Jesus more often Like four weeks as I said in the beginning that four weeks 350 names and descriptions of Jesus There's no way that I can cover that in four weeks, but I heard a sermon Recently it's a tape of a sermon from a man named SM lockbridge. He was a pastor for 40 years at Calbury Baptist Church in San Diego and he preached one of the greatest Messages I've ever heard on the names of Jesus And I'm going to show you about a three-minute clip of this message And it's the best three-minute message on the names and descriptions of Jesus that I've ever heard in my life And I heard it for the first time just a few weeks ago. SM lockbridge has been dead now for for almost six years But his message still has the life of God on it. And I hope you enjoyed this morning. Let's watch it on the video The Bible said my king is the king of the Jews He's a king of Israel. He's the king of righteousness He's a king of the ages. He's the king of heavens. He's the king of glory He's the king of key and he's the Lord of Lord that my king. I want to do you know it He's a great phenomenon that has ever crossed the horizon of this world He's gone strong. He's a center Savior. He's a center piece of Civilizations, he's unparalleled. He's coordinated. He is the lost its idea in literature. He's the highest personality in Philosophy, he's the fundamental doctrine of proof theology He's the only one qualified to be at all sufficient Savior I wonder if you know him today. He feels the sick. He cleans the lepers He forgives sinners. He just targets debtors. He delivers the captive He defend the people. He blesses the young. He serves the unfortunate. Do you regard the age? He's a no way of deliverance. He's a bad way of peace. He's a road way of righteousness He's the highway of holiness. He's the gateway of glory. Do you know him? Well, his life is matchless. His goodness is limitless. His mercy is everlasting. His love never changes. His word is enough. His grace is sufficient His reign is righteous and a yoke is easy and his burden is lighter. I wish I could describe him for you Yes, he's indescribable. He's incomprehensible. He's invincible. He's irresistible You can't get him out of your mind. You can't get him out of your hand. You can't outlive him. And you can't live without him Well, the Pharisees couldn't stand him, but they found out they couldn't stop him Father couldn't find him, vaulting him, hella couldn't kill him. Yes, couldn't handle him and the brave couldn't hold him Yes, couldn't handle him, he couldn't kill him, he couldn't kill him. He's the way. He's faithful and true. He is the Prince of Peace. He's the light of the world. I'm so grateful I'm knowing. So grateful he lives in my life. We just close your eyes for a moment this morning. In fact, I want the altar ministry team to come forward right now and I need every one of you to come today. Because I know in a crowd this size that there are many of you today who you realize maybe for the first time today that there are a lot of dark corners that you want the light of the Holy Spirit to shine on you. And Jesus is here today, His Spirit. He's alive and well and He's here today to shine the light of His Holy Spirit into every dark corner of our lives. This is a prayer that I pray all the time. I ask the Lord, Lord, shine your light into my heart. I don't want to be deceived. I want to know the truth. I don't want to walk in darkness any longer. How many of you are here today and you know in your heart that the Holy Spirit is making you aware of a dark place in your heart and you need the light of the Holy Spirit to shine on you. Would you lift your hand and just be a grieve with God? Just agree with the Holy Spirit and just keep your hands up and just begin to pray that prayer that I just told you how to pray. Lord, I give you permission. If all you can say is Lord, I give you permission. That will be enough for you to pray today. If you can get those words out of your mouth, Lord, I give you permission. Jesus, I give you permission to shine the light of your Holy Spirit into every dark corner of my life. Lord, with our hands lifted, we are aware today that in darkness there is torment, but in light there is life and joy and peace. And Lord today, with our hands lifted up, we choose today to walk in light and not in darkness. We choose today to live in the light of your truth. We choose today to allow your Holy Spirit to shine like a spotlight, like a floodlight into every part of our lives. We receive your light today. We receive your mercy today. We receive your grace today. Thank you, Lord, that you are alive and well and that you live in the hearts of men and women. And Lord today, we are the light of the world on your behalf. In Jesus' name we pray. In Jesus' name.