Northside Church - Sydney
HIStory Week 2: Jesus: The One
You're listening to another great message from Northside Community Church. Well you may have remembered the scenes, it was about this time of year ago, and there was a title and utter chaos on the surface of this little small South American mining town as they'd realized that because of an explosion down there in the shaft, a 33 men were trapped, became one of the worst disasters in the Chilean mine scene down there. These guys were stuck some 2,500 feet underground, that is 700 meters if you're generation-y, and they were stuck down there underground and then after this 69 days through all these efforts of the international community and people all throughout the nation and money thrown at this sort of stuff, they got a pinhole camera down into the darkness and for the first time in 69 days light had broken into the darkness. And from there they were able to drill down through the layers of the stub strata all the way down that 700 meters and pulled them out one by one and as the last guy came out after winching him up, the paramedics, the rescue people, Chilean TV, international TV were all around there as they, someone came and made a makeshift sign that they held up sort of with cardboard and that sort of thing that said "Mission Completer" which you didn't know when you were Spanish did you but that means "Mission Complete" and the last one of these guys trapped in the darkness came back up to the surface and into the light. Now what is, what the heck has this got to do with the passage tonight? Look, we're going to read from a passage in John and what he's going to say here is that what is true of these guys physically is true for the world spiritually. That we're trapped, we're in the darkness and that we need someone, the one, to come and rescue us from that. And the question is I'm going to ask you tonight like how would, how would you feel? How would you feel if you were trapped underneath there for 69 days and light broke through into the dark? You see, as we're coming up to Christmas right, if you haven't figured that out, Mike, you said this morning, 36 days till Christmas, we're not far off and so in this series, his story, we are asking the most important question that anyone can ask, who is Jesus Christ? And the way that you answer that question will determine how you live for the rest, not only the rest of your life, but the rest of eternity. If we want to answer that question, that's why we're reading through John's gospel because John was Jesus' BFF, that means best friend for anyone who's not generation, why? John knew all about Jesus. He was the one who reclined with him at the table at the last supper. He was his BFF and he would have understood and so therefore to look at John's story and ask who Jesus is, he says in him was life and that life was light. Last week we heard that Jesus was the reason, this week we hear that Jesus is the light, and that's the language that he uses and hopefully at night we're going to see three teachings and even a kid could grasp, hopefully, that the world is like a mineshaft, it's dark. We also see that light has broken into that darkness and then in the most unexpected of ways. If you've got your Bible with you, you can turn to John chapter one, we're going to read a bit of the verse from last week because it was only three verses, so you can hang with me this week and then we're going to go into verses four and five, the key ones for this week. 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 that life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness but the darkness has not understood it. You see what we first learned a night from this passage is that the world is like a mineshaft, it's dark. Here's some of you saying, Sam, have you been to Maya lately? Have you been to David Jones? Have you seen the decorations and the baubles and the pretty little lights and the reindeer? It's Christmas time. Stop being such a downer about the whole process. So come on cheer up a little bit and yet, you know, this is what I find really funny. Isn't it funny the way that the world reacts to Christmas in a whole different way compared to the way that they react to Easter? I mean, we love the good stuff, the carols and the sweet songs and the love and the joy and the peace, the sweet stuff. But the irony is that the message of Christmas is something that's really quite confronting, right? This passage says to us today that the world understands its problems, it analyzes them to death but it can't find a solution to them and as a result, that's why the world is dark. I mean, John's logic is pretty simple, right? Jesus is the line because the world is dark and in the air we go, well, that's an affront to what we think, what about the love and the joy and the peace and the baubles. But John says that Jesus, the light shines and the darkness but the darkness has not understood it. You see, here's the thing, people are constantly looking for answers, right? But they're looking in all the wrong sorts of places. People often, and isn't it funny the way it happens, they're often looking for information when they should be looking for revelation, something outside the things that we can construct in books and iPads and all sorts of digital devices. People are constantly looking for answers in all the wrong places and it's where I got the thought of the title for tonight's message. A classic example is this new TV show on channel seven called The One. Has anyone seen that advertised? If you haven't, let me fill you in, basically it's a reality TV show where they're looking for Australia's best psychic and so they get a television audience and they have a whole series of different challenges. It's sort of like survivor meets psychics, if you know what I mean. So they put them through all sorts of different challenges that they've got to do, find people on train and here is this captive audience looking at all these psychics that are competing to shed the most light on people's lives, The One. And I'm thinking why have we got a reality TV show called Jesus The One? I mean, I guess it's just not going to get the ratings because the world is a dark place and people are looking for answers in all the wrong places including channel seven. The world's a dark place and what hope is there, that's what the message of Christmas is saying to us. Now some of you are thinking Sam, you've been on a downer, you're on your religious bent, that's what the Bible says, your bashness about the head with it all, that's just a Christian perspective on it all. But it's not. Look at Bertrand Russell, he was one of the great philosophers and mathematicians and historians and he wrote this manifesto, this essay for those of you that are at Macquarie Uni, he wrote this essay that said why I am not a Christian, he wrote an essay called why I'm not a Christian, he in fact delivered it to the secular society as a keynote. And in his conclusion, have a listen to what he says, he says we want to stand upon our own feet and look fair and square at the world, it's good facts and it's bad facts, it's beauties and it's ugliness. See the world as it is and be not afraid of it, conquer the world by intelligence and not merely by being slavishly subdued by the terror that comes from it. We ought to stand up and look at the world frankly in the face, we ought to make the best we can of the world and if it's not as good as we wish, after all it will still be better than what these others have made of it in all these ages. It needs a fearless outlook and a free intelligence, it needs a hope for the future, not looking back all the time towards the past that is dead which we trust will be far surpassed by the future that our intelligence can create. He says in all the beauties and in all the ugliness, an atheist is saying here that the world is dark and you know the funny thing for a guy who doesn't believe in God is at the end of his conclusion, this entire paper he says we still need a hope. We still need something to look for in the future. The message of Christmas is you can't save yourself, there's no way out, you are trapped in the mineshaft, enveloped in the spiritual darkness and you know it and look let me put it to you tonight, you can feel it. It's why the songwriter James Taylor, guitar player, he said there's a feeling like the clenching of a fist and there's a hunger in the centre of the chest and there's a passage through the darkness and the mist and where the body sleeps the heart will never rest, shed a little light oh Lord so that we can see, shed a little light. You can feel it and that the world is dark, that we want God to shed some light and the good news is that God won't leave the world to itself. He won't leave the world to be dark because what we learn the second point from this passage tonight is that although the world is dark, light has broken into the darkness. Verse four it says, "In him was life and that life was the light of humanity." The message of Christmas is that although the world is dark, God has broken into the darkness. See, as Lewis puts it like this, he says one of my favourite quotes of his, he says, "If the whole universe has no meaning, we should never have found out that it has no meaning just as if there was no light in the universe and therefore no creatures with eyes, we should have never known that it was dark, for dark would be without meaning." See, what are you saying there? Whether you believe in a God or not, the mere fact that we're talking about him tonight, the mere fact that this building has come together tonight, the mere fact that we have this word here, the mere fact that there's a difference between good and bad, the mere fact that there's a difference between dark and light is part of the proof of his existence. This is the mind-length, it means if that is the case, one of the greatest sources of hope in your life can be that God has revealed himself to the world, that he hasn't been hiding up there in the cosmos somewhere, playing some cruel joke on it, that he has revealed himself in the person of Jesus Christ. Think of the Chilean miners, they're down there, the lamps have faded out in those final hours, one or two days after, they were down there for 69 days. But hope of another life is there for them as they sit in the, I can't handle darkness for a couple of hours, let alone a month, two months, but can you imagine the hope that is born when, for that first time, unexpectedly the sound of a drill bit come through that wall and for the first time, totally unexpected light breaks in. It was revealed to them that there was someone or something outside of their circumstances. You see, the miners knew there was hope of new life when the light broke in. And see how the connection that John makes with this in him was life and that life was the light of men, Jesus was coming through the side wall. And here's the other thing, light is discovered, it's not developed, right? You can't sit there and construct this light unless, of course, you're Thomas Edison, he was a bit of a genius, he was the one that invented the light bulb, by the way, guys, if you haven't looked that up and check it out on Wikipedia. But light is discovered, it's not developed. What it's saying to us is you can't develop this light, you can't conjure that up in and of yourself, it means that God is beyond us, it's God intervening, it's God interrupting our situation, bring the light from the outside and yes, it's dark, but God has broken in. And here's the thing, you see, if light is broken into the darkness, then that means for the Christian, their hope is not in their circumstances, because I mean, like, if the hope's in the house and the house goes, then what hope is left? If the hope is in the health and the health is really hurting at the moment, then what hope is their left? If the hope is in the career and the career goes, what hope is there then? But Christians say, no, no, no, no, we have discovered a light from outside of us, outside of the system of our circumstances, and even if it's just a pinprick, we will hold on to that, we'll wait for that. And for the mind as light brought hope, but the ironic thing is it didn't bring the rescue. It's just a sense of the hope there and see, what I love about our God, verse 4 says he was the light of all mankind, of all humanity, but in verse 9 of this passage it says the true light that gives life to every person was coming into the world. What it's saying to us is that not only is the world dark, and that light is broken into the darkness, but it means that God brings light in the most unexpected of ways. It wasn't just a pinprick people. Well, John is saying, guys, you can hear God with a giant mineral crunching machine boring his way down between the gap that has kept us from him forever, and he's about to break in. And I don't know about you, but have you ever had one of those Christmas presents where you've been waiting for it for ages? And when you get it, you look at it and you say, is that it? For some of you, and if you're in high school or you're a bit younger here tonight, you probably won't understand this, but bear with me. For me, it was when we went from tape to CD. And CD was the most revolutionary thing that had ever happened in the music world at the time, and it was just going to blow our minds, and I remember we went and Dad bought the first CD, Whitney Houston, and didn't we almost have it all? And I had this CD in my hand, and I said, is this it? You see, God brings light in the most unexpected ways, and the world looks at Jesus Christ and they say, is this it? Because what we first learned tonight is that God bought light in the form of a baby child in a manger crying, wriggling, pooping, peeing. You see, in baby Jesus, light enters the world in the most unexpected ways, and look at the way that it happened. It flies in the face of the way that the world would do it. God in a manger, people look at the birth of Jesus and say, is this seriously what it? Is this it? Like imagine if this was your life goal, right? Imagine if you said, hey, in 2000 years, I want three quarters of the world to at least know who I am, and in that time I want at least one quarter of the world to follow me and dedicate their lives to me. If that was your life goal, how would you go about it? You'd hire consultants, of course. We'd seek some advice, we'd get ourselves on Twitter, we'd set up multiple Facebook pages, we would get all sorts of social media happening, do a YouTube clip, we would get all of that happening there, but I'll tell you one of the things that you wouldn't come up with. You'd look, go get born in a stable, amongst the dung and the manure, and do that out in the hicktown, out in the middle of nowhere, and no one's around, and the only people that come to your first birthday are shippets and all that sort of stuff. No, they would say, no, don't go about it like that, you need a marketing plan, you need a strategy, you need to get your name out there, they wouldn't say no, don't grow up as a kid, and when you become an adult, sort of exclude yourself from all the intelligentsia and the political elite, and the great powerhouses of society, and then when you're in the height of your career at age 33, go and get yourself crucified on the top of a hill. That's like that, it's career suicide, and yet that's exactly what happened, it was an absolute disgrace, and yet we see in the message that God breaks into the dark by sending his son into the world, and if he hadn't have done that, then there was no light for the world God, God brings light in the most unexpected of ways, right? Not only that, he brings it through a baby, but then we also see that God brings light through the followers of that small child, now look, I'm not saying Christians are people that follow a metaphorical cute little baby in the sky, he did grow up, and he did do amazing things, and John says in many times that he performed many miracles, and people were amazed at what he did, and people placed their trust into him, and he became one of the great teachers that the world has ever seen, but John says he'd done all this stuff, but Matthew gives us a slightly different perspective, you see, Jesus all throughout, John's gospel actually says himself, I am the light of the world, and yet Matthew shows us an incredible story of the way that this guy, Jesus, grabs his ragtag band of followers, they're called disciples, and he gets them up on a hill, and he sits them all out in front of him amongst the sheep, and all the funny droppings everywhere, and the dust and the dirt, not the world's best place to preach a sermon, but he gets them up there, and he tells them one of the most extraordinary things, after they've been hearing about he's the light of the world, and he's the one breaking into the darkness, he looks at them, his ragtag band of followers, and he says no, you, you are the light of the world. God brings light in the most unexpected ways. God's not going to leave the world to itself to dark, and the God of the universe provides light, and to our surprise it turns out to be his son, but to our amazement it turns out to be ordinary, broken people like you and I. You are the light of the world. God brings light in the most unexpected of ways, and so Jesus is the one true light. Jesus is the one that shed and light on stuff. Jesus is the one that should be doing reality TV challenges on Channel 7. The world is like a mineshaft, it's dark, yet light has broken into the darkness, and it's done it in the most unexpected of ways. As we finish up tonight, let me just throw a couple of application points at you guys. First of all, the question, what does it mean to be a Christian? Remains to be a Christian is that light has broken in to your life, to be a Christian is to come to the realization that darkness is not how life is meant to be. As much as we think we know where we're going before we've met God and he's broken in, we're bumping into walls and all sorts of furniture as we wander around the place, and it hurts. You know what it means? It means, first of all, if you don't know God personally, if you haven't come to the understanding, if you see the message of Christmas and say, you know, I believe in all the sweet stuff, but the whole notion that God broke in to the world and sent his son to die for us. If you know that and you don't understand that, then there's no really any basis for you to talk about Christmas the way that everyone else does. Chirpy, cheery, fun, love and joy and peace, because any smart person, any smart person, even Bertrand Russell, even he knows that in a world without God breaking in there is no hope, there's no light and it's dark. Don't you see, if you're not a follower of Jesus tonight, unless Christmas is true, unless it is true, then there's no light at all, and we're still bumping into furniture around the place for the rest of our life. Christianity, to be a Christian is to have a new light break into your life tonight. Now, look, can I ask you, is that true of your life tonight? If you're sitting here here in this sort of stuff, is that true of your life? You don't have to have it all intellectually stitched up, although it will hold up intellectually, but you just got to come to the realization that light can dawn on your life. And I love this quote from C.S. Lewis again, he says, I believe in Christianity as I believe that the son, S.U.N., has risen. Not only because I see it, but because by it, I see everything else. Can we say, by all that Jesus has done, we Christians have a whole new view on life, a whole new perspective on life, to be a Christian is to realize that darkness is not all there is. Finally, to those that are the followers of this baby, this Jesus, you are the light of the world. And I want to get a little personal with you tonight, because I feel we're friends. We've done a bit of life together. And a couple of years back, I went to a Robbie Williams concert. I talk about confessing stuff to each other. And my brother and I went with my brother. So he's in on this as well here. My brother and I went to Robbie Williams at the Sydney football stadium. And we were the only two blokes in the entire Sydney football stadium. And Robbie and all of his genius did this amazing thing in between one of the songs. He got everyone to pull out their pocket cameras because although venues say no flash photography in a venue, I think Robbie was smart enough to realize everyone carries their camera into the venue. And so he gets everyone to get out their camera and he said at the count of three, I want you to all charge up your flashes in your camera and then I want you to set it off. And so we all did that and they're the place, they turn all the lights down, the place in tidal darkness and he counts the one, two, three, and then bang. And for a split second, the Sydney football stadium was lit up brighter than the noonday sun. Often these tiny little flashlights. When some of you hear that you're the light of the world tonight, you see yourself like a little camera flash. You say, what good am I going to do in the world? And yet Robbie Williams can prove it, but Jesus knew it that if we combine as a community, as a church, if we combine as Christians around the world, there are going to be moments if we take his leading that we are going to light this place up brighter than the noonday sun. Your job is just to constantly be recharged, like the old school flashes in the eighties and go recharged yourself. And see, here's the thing that the mere presence of the kids of light, that's what we are, is to serve as a flashlight in the room. And sometimes you're going to be welcome and sometimes you're going to be not welcome. But either way, you're to illuminate the world around you simply by your mere presence. You illuminate the dishonest practice in business. You're to illuminate the loose talk around the school playground, you're to illuminate the university campuses. You're to illuminate the racial prejudices that are happening. You were to illuminate the greed that is in our society at the moment. You were to illuminate by your mere presence, you little flashlight you, in your world around you. And do it in a way that you know that thousands of millions of other Christians around the world are doing the same thing at the same time. What we see is that light illuminates. We also see that light guides Amy Grant, the great singer, said that thy word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path. I think it's even in the Bible too. Yeah, biblical. But light guides, we've been placed into the, you have been placed into the sectors in your life, whether it's school, whether it's in business, whether it's in university, you have been placed into people's lives to guide them into the light. Can I ask you tonight, who have you gotten your life that you are guiding, that you are illuminating as the little glow sticks of Jesus floating around the place? Lastly, we see that light only illuminates it guides, but it also pushes back the darkness. You had to push back the darkness in your world. Light pushes back the darkness. Light is powerful. And that is one of the most crucial roles in your world is to push back the lies that keep people in bondage and the illusions that cause despair and hopelessness and to push back these spells of deception that are over people's lives by announcing that light has broken in. You're to illuminate, you're to guide, you're to push back. You're the light of the world and that is a hugely audacious, bodacious claim to make as the ninja turtles would say. But the smallest camera light, your little flashlights, you can light up an entire stadium. Guys, let us not complain about the darkness. Let's just keep charging as camera flashes. Let's stop complaining about it. Look, guys, the gospel in a nutshell is this. God is saying that at one point or another in our lives, we are like the Chilean miners. You were trapped. God had to break into the darkness. You're in a mine shaft, more than two and a half thousand feet underground. You were enveloped in a spiritual darkness. And not only did a pinprick of life burst through, but God himself in the person of Jesus Christ. And the funny thing is in the ultimate rescue, the greatest rescue that this universe has ever seen, unfortunately, this was not a rescue that was without its casualties. And so at the cross, we don't see celebratory scenes of rescue on the surface like we did that time over there in Chile a year ago, but we see one man, the last man, go down that tube and descend into the very depths of the darkness. And after the very last person spiritually, he's lifted up out of this hole and the darkness is done. Matthew's gospel puts it so well. It says like in the final hours of his death, a darkness descended over the land. And he cried out, it is finished. You see, Jesus descended into that darkness that we had been living in. And instead of a little makeshift cardboard sign in front of TV cameras around the world, with the same outstretched arms, he said, "Mission completed. Mission completed." Jesus provides us with just one choice tonight. And it's not my call. It's Jesus's call. In John chapter 12, 46, he says, "I have come into this world as a light, so that no one who believes in me should stay in darkness." The choice that you've got tonight is are you going to accept the light or are you going to remain in the darkness? It's one person said, "If Christianity is false, it's of no importance. But if it's true, it's of infinite importance. The only thing it cannot be is moderately important." Guys, I'm talking to three types of people tonight. I'm talking to the person that could be in a mineshaft tonight. You don't even know that you're in the darkness. The lamps have gone out and you don't even know you're there. I'm talking to the people, the those that have seen the light, they've seen the pinprick come through the side wall. They've heard the voice of the rescuer coming from above and still they refuse to get into the capsule. And then, of course, I'm talking to the flashlights. They're like every good rescued miner from the darkness should be going and organizing TV appointments and Oprah sit down, newspaper articles, they should be spreading the word. Joyously running around back on the surface with a new lease on life saying, "I have been rescued and I want to tell you about my rescuer." You're the light of the world. Guys, is the world a dark place? Is Jesus the one? Ask Channel 7. Is Jesus the one? Look how you answer those questions tonight. The choices that you are going to make to either walk in the light or the darkness is not going to just affect you now for the rest of your life. It's going to affect you forever. I'll leave it with you. Let's pray. Father, I would just thank you tonight that we are here talking about you. Father, I pray that light might dawn in people's lives tonight. Father, I pray that if there are people here, there have been none the wiser. Not from a bad place, but just none the wiser. Have ended up here and heard this message that Father, you have broken into this world with a message of light and love and life. Father God, I pray that they might meditate on that. They might think on that. They might consider reaching out to the great rescuers of Jesus Christ. Father, for those of us that are struggling at the moment with our circumstances. Father, we don't take that lightly. Father, there are people tonight that I know Father God that unless it was you breaking in and being from the outside, Father would have very little to go on tonight. Father, I just pray through your Holy Spirit that you might strengthen them, that you might give them great courage, that you might continue to grow in them an eternal hope that allows them to remain the course and stay true in spite of the hardships that they face tonight. Father, for the flashlights, for each and every one of us that are proud to declare that we are followers of your Son, the life and the light, Lord, we just help us illuminate as we walk out into our world this week. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. [BLANK_AUDIO]