I AM: Light of the World

In John 8:12, Jesus claims to be “light” and says that those who follow him will not walk in darkness, but will experience life. While this promise may sound appealing, accepting Jesus as “light” requires us to confront our own darkness first.

In the Bible, darkness can refer to our wickedness, ignorance, or tendency to hide our sins. In our wickedness, we love what God hates and hate what God loves. In our ignorance, we remain detached and reactive. And in our hiding, the devil tempts us to keep our sins hidden.

However, the good news is that the gospel offers a way out of the darkness. We can overcome our wickedness, ignorance, and hiding by stepping into healing.

You can take interactive notes here. At the end of the message, you can email the notes to yourself.

 I wanna put us in the context of John chapter eight. So as you’re flipping there, we also will have the scriptures on the screen. I want you to do this exercise with me. Imagine yourself living as an Israelite in the first century, in the context of John chapter eight. So if this, if you were in this moment, you have just spent the last seven days participating in what’s called the.

Of Tabernacles. Side note, there’s actually seven major festivals or feast in in the Hebrew calendar, and you can see all those in lived against 23. Now, each feast serves a different purpose, and so usually all of them are like happy and good, but they really focus on something different. So for example, the Passover, which we alluded to last week.

In John chapter six is really the season of freedom. So for you and me, it’s almost like Independence Day, but now the Feast of Tabernacles is a season of joy. One could argue you would hear people yelling in the streets during the last seven days. It’s the most wonderful time of the year. Now, if you have been doing this, you’re exhausted, but in a good way because you actually left your home and you have been living in a makeshift shelter for those seven days.

Why do you do that? You do it to remember the wilderness. You go and makeshift homes because what did the Israelites do in the wilderness for 40 years? They never set up shop because God kept moving. And they were commanded to move along with him. And so they’re doing this to remember their ancestors and remember the faithfulness of God in that time.

Another highlight of this feast is the pouring of water. They do it on this altar, and it’s the celebration of God’s provision. Remembering when Moses struck the rock, what happened? Water came forth and God provided. And so the last seven days, if you were in this time, you have been saying things to your family like even in the wilderness.

God provides for us and every night is the climax of the night of the last seven days. You’ve enjoyed it because you have watched the priests go into the middle of Jerusalem and they took these candles and they lit these four enormous candle LARAs. And it is actually said it was at the center of Jerusalem so that no matter where you were in the city, everything was dark except those candle.

What was it celebrating? You were celebrating God’s guidance in the wilderness. God guided his people cloud by day and pillar of fire by night. And so now again, imagine yourself in this context, right in John chapter eight. You have now experienced the last night and the last night ends in sadness cuz the priests, they go up to those candles that they have been celebrating and they blow them out.

and you just sit there in darkness. It’s like that sadness that you feel when you take down the Christmas tree, right? It’s over. You have to move on and shout out to some of you who still have your Christmas tree up. You are a fun person to be around. I’m looking at you minor hands, . The our together group, I think.

Do they get, do they finally get rid of the Christmas tree? No. Okay. Praise the Lord. All right, so Now the season of joy is over. The music, the festival, the Christmas music. Is done, and now the lights are taken down, and now you’re supposed to go back to reality. Now imagine you’re in this setting, you’re exhausted, but you’re exhilarated.

But now you’re also sad because it’s over. And in this midst of sadness and frustration. because God’s pillar of fire should still be there, but the sins of the nation of Israel have now, Ezekiel says, the glory of the Lord has departed. There is now no longer a light in Israel, but they’re waiting for a new one, but everything’s dark.

You have this 33 year old carpenter turned Rabbi. Wait until the lights go out and he says In a loud voice, I know you just turned the lights off, but I am here to tell you that I in the light, you’ve been waiting. In fact, the light your ancestor saw in the wilderness doesn’t hold a candle to the light that I am bringing.

And the question we have to ask ourselves in this context as we’re about to read in John eight, do we believe the words of Jesus? Are we gonna believe that promise that he is speaking is also for you and for me, and to be honest, we are gathering today because we don’t just believe that promise is just for Israel.

We believe that light is for everyone who puts their trust in Jesus as Messiah and Lord, and like the Israelites in John eight, you and I, we may be feeling like we’re receiving this news at the darkest and worst time of our lives. And the question is, even in the midst of darkness, will we receive? Light.

Let’s pray. Father, we just ask you for your guidance as we look at John chapter eight this morning. God, thank you for such a wonderful week that we’ve had, and I just filled with gratitude just for where our church is at and where it’s going. God, may we just submit ourselves to John chapter eight. God, speak to us.

God, if there’s those of us who have just distractions, maybe lay them at your feet. Maybe anger, frustration. God, may you just meet us here in this. In Jesus name, I pray. Everybody says Amen. Amen. Amen. So we’re in a collection of teachings entitled I Am. And so in Exodus, which we looked at, A few months ago we looked at Moses in the burning bush and God appears and he says, who am I?

And God says, I am who I am now in the gospel of John, he’s taking that theme of God telling Moses I am. And now Jesus is saying, I am. I am God. The God that you encountered way back then and now he’s filling in the blanks. So last week we learned he is the bread of. This week we will learn. He is the light of the world.

And what does that even mean? Why is that significant? That’s what we’re gonna look at today. We’re actually just studying one verse of scripture today. And I think it, there’s more than enough here for us to dive into. So let’s read again. Verse 12 of John chapter eight. Jesus spoke to them again. I am the light of the world.

Anyone who follows. We’ll never walk in the darkness, but we’ll have the light of life. We’re actually gonna split this up into four sections. So the first is that first phrase, I am the light of the world. What does that mean? And what does that mean for you and for me? Now, if you’ve been a part of our church for any length of time, something that.

It’s just we do a lot is we talk about practicing the way of Jesus. That’s why literally we had Sabbath and Jordan talking about actually working out Sabbath. So we are obsessed with that because we believe Jesus has given us a way to live. And so we think that there’s so much joy when we do that.

And so every week we try to call you to action. The desire here is not so that you earn God’s love instead of so that you churn to God’s love and those practices help you churn to the love that was already yours. But what’s helpful in this passage to remember, sometimes you don’t need a practice.

Sometimes when you come to church, you just need to hear a pronouncement. Jesus is the light. Sometimes that’s enough. There’s nothing you need to do. Nothing you need to fabricate. You just need to acknowledge. And I find that really liberating because our hope is not predicated on our practices. It is certainly not predicated on our performance.

And so hear me on your best day. Jesus is the light of the world. And on your worst day, Jesus is the light of the world. Why is that good news? Our hope is rooted in him and that light is always on, not if you are on or off. Now, why did Jesus use the imagery of light? There’s many reason. It’s a huge Hebrew theme, right?

What is the first thing God speaks in Genesis one? He says, let there be light, light. So there’s something there for us to see. But I also want us to dive into, science tells us a lot about light. What I love about Jesus is he’s speaking about light to a group of people who have a certain concept of what light is, which is to the Hebrews.

But what’s also great is I believe Jesus is saying this, knowing ye thousands of years later, you and I will even know more about light and this story will get even more and more fascinating. So I wanna show you four ways because of science, how. Is incredible to, for you and for me, knowing that Jesus is a light number one.

Light has a dual nature. Come on. Isn’t that so good? What does that mean, Trey? Now here’s the thing. This is science, nerdy stuff, okay? It has a dual nature, meaning light is both a wave and it is a particle. Why is that cool? Here’s what’s beautiful about. The light actually points to the nature of Jesus.

How? What is Jesus? Jesus is fully God, and he is fully man. He is God, and he is man. Light is a wave, and it is a particle. Now, if you take that all the way to the end, that metaphor falls apart, of course. But is the wave God and is the particle? No you’re, you went too far deep.

Okay. But it is helpful for us to remember. Jesus is God, and Jesus is man. Because if Jesus isn’t God, he does not have the power to save us and to resurrect himself. And also, if Jesus isn’t man, he doesn’t have the ability to represent us, which then he wouldn’t have the ability to save us because he doesn’t die on our behalf.

Dual nature. Jesus being light shows you and me. He is God and he is man. The second thing, light is the source of. In the Arian culture that Jesus finds himself in, this would’ve been obvious, right? If you need, if you’re gonna grow any plant, you do need water. But just as important is you need sunlight.

Light is what gives you growth. It is what brings about life. So he is saying, I am that light. Just how you rely on the sun to grow your crops. You must rely on me to grow your own soul. The third thing is light is the source of. We all know this, right? When you turn off the lights, you don’t know what’s going on.

When you turn it on, you now know reality. When I was in what grade would it be, darling? When I was in freshman year in high school, I convinced myself that I was gonna go blind. Now, I am a hypochondriac, so this shouldn’t shock you. I just had learned a story and I thought, oh my gosh, I matched that story.

I didn’t, but I freaked. And so what I was doing to prepare myself for my new reality is at night I would turn all the lights off and walk around with my eyes closed. I had a lot of stubbed toes freshman year in high school. That was a very hard experiment, but I really thought that. So what does light do?

Light shows you reality. When I was walking around with my eyes closed, I didn’t know what if I was running into something and if I ran into it, I didn’t know what it was, at least initially, right? So light, this is why we talk about bringing something to light. It brings about truth, and we believe truth is reality.

And the ultimate reality is the person at work of Jesus. Number four, light is the source of. This is something we don’t struggle with in Arizona, but have you ever heard of sad, seasonal effective disorder? I have this thought that I would love to live in a place that’s always cloudy because I’ve never lived there, right?

So it’s just beautiful. I think it’s cloudy today. Isn’t not, yeah, it’s beautiful day now if you live there forever. We have a lot of friends in Alaska and he says depression and even suicide is a huge issue because over half the year you don’t even see the sun. , right? Light is the source of joy. There is a podcast I’ve been listening to lately.

Don’t judge me. I don’t know if this man’s terrible or not, so just hear me out , but his name is Dr. Huberman. Anybody heard of this guy before? Great. So anyways, Dr. Huberman, he actually talks about how there’s so many different like solutions. People are looking forward to battle depression and he’s getting popular right now, cuz his argument is all you need.

Of course there’s a lot of other stuff. But he says central to a life of happiness and growth and development is to have the. Access to the circadian rhythm where you are exposing yourself to the sun when it rises and you are exposing yourself to the sun when it sets and it helps set your whole body and it this light, literally, if you are exposed to light, not artificial light, it’s not like you can just take a flashlight and put it in your eyes.

That’s totally not the same thing. When you expose yourself to the sunlight, joy begins to flood your. . Now that is true of Jesus, right? And when you expose yourself to him more and more, you have a life of joy. So as followers of Christ, right away, as we learn, he is the light of the world. We unashamedly declare.

Jesus is the one that brings us ultimate life. He’s the ultimate truth, and he gives us ultimate joy. But like light, it must be received, it must be looked upon, and we must not run away from it. Let’s look at the next part of the verse. That next line, it says, anyone who follows, Me, so now we have this declarative.

This is who he is. But now this light is something you must follow. This is actually picking up on the Exodus story again, the his context. They would’ve totally understood it because why the last seven days they have been repeating this story of the exodus. And so let me remind you of what Exodus was all about.

The Israelites, what they would do is they wouldn’t just wander in the wilderness and now we call it that phrase, but it was actually God who is leading them in that wandering. And what would happen at night would be a pillar of fire. And so sometimes God would call them to go and call them to stay, and they never knew what tomorrow would be Sabbath.

They always stopped, but the next day they didn’t know where they were going to next cuz God was. And here’s what we see just in Exodus 15. We actually talked about this a couple months ago, but here’s what, ah, as I’m thinking about it, think about how Jesus is light. We follow this light. The Israelites followed the light of God.

Where did God take his people? Just in Exodus 15. At some point, God led them to an oasis of water. In Exo 15, it was a season of joy and replenishment. They love this water. In my modern day translation, it was San Diego. Okay? They brought ’em to San Diego and it was. Okay. Amen. But then God says, time to go to Yuma.

Oh, you know what? I’m okay. God says, okay, now that you’ve been to the Oasis, I’m actually gonna take you to water. But that water is bitter. And so this is a season of heartache, but after you get through it, you learn. It’s a season of character form. So in God’s infinite wisdom, when we follow Jesus, when we follow God, it is God who brings us to the oasis of water.

But then he doesn’t leave us there. He also takes us to water that is bitter. My wife and I recently got out of a pretty disorienting season of life. I th I think like even just a few weeks ago, me and my wife are Like this all makes sense now. Praise the Lord. Where we’ve been, why we went through it.

But I first interpreted this pain that I think it seemed as if I invited myself in. I thought God was calling us a certain direction. We said it, we did it, and then it it seemed to backfire. And so for the last few months, I’ve just convinced myself, I don’t know how to hear God’s voice.

I must have completely got it wrong. Oh, there’s grace. Let’s keep moving on. But I’m actually leaning into this passage. Even this week I was remind. That’s a truncated vision of life with Christ. If you think when Christ leads you somewhere, it’s always gonna be good. The same God who led the people of God to the Oasis is the same God who led them to the bitter place.

And so the reality is God’s goal in your life is not to climb this ladder of success, at least the way you and I define it here in the West. It’s actually, it’s to. To look like Jesus, to love, like he loves to live like He lives to lead like he leads. And what I have found, I want God to take me to the better places, but in his infinite wisdom, God takes me to the bitter places.

See, we want a better place, but God wants a better person. That’s good. That’s good, right? So we think, God, why would you take me to this hard place? Because he’s making you a holy person and it’s. . So anyone who follows me. So we have to see this, write this down light, the pillar of fire. Jesus is a moving light.

When you and I follow Jesus. It’s active. It’s ever moving. So that means if we’re listening and following this light where he brought you yesterday is not necessarily where he’s gonna bring you today. And I think some of us are out of alignment because we’re holding on to yesterday’s. We were saying we was very clear.

God called me here. Yes. But that was yester year. We have a new season. , and this is hard for us to understand. This is why I love this word. Follow. It is an active present, always happening. It’s not, yes, I followed and believed in Jesus when I was five. It is a daily, where is the light? Let me run to it.

But for example, I’m pretty confident God called us to start our church in a movie theater, but that doesn’t take away the fact that we are in here today. I believe God called us out of that place and into this. In the name of Jesus, God’s gonna call from here to our own place. Amen. Amen. Amen.

That’s how I know how to get an amen. All right, the whole setup team. Amen. . All right. Praise God for you. So Jesus is the light and he’s a moving light. Let that encourage you. That keeps us in a posture of humility, surrender. But I love where he takes the metaphor. Next, let’s look at the last, the next part of the line.

So I’m the light of the. Anyone who follows me, what will happen will quote, never walk in the darkness. What does that mean? Let’s look at that phrase, walk. Walk is to do something without thinking about it. Now I do. I have friends. We all know people who cannot walk. , right? So hear me. I understand that there are people where there is exceptions to this rule, but in the Hebrew, Greek context, when, I hope you hear me out, when some, most of us when we walk, it’s not really a thought.

Like we can walk and think of other things, and this is me when I drive, I don’t even know where I’m going. I’m thinking about everything else, but where I’m actually going, I know me and Dave, we are both like, why are we both in Chandler right now? We’re just talking and, oh, cool, let’s go eat somewhere, right?

So when you walk, you’re supposed to think of this idea where you do it natural. , right? It’s something you don’t even think about. What he’s saying here is when you’ll never walk in the darkness, it doesn’t mean that you’ll never have a dark life ever again, and you’ll never sin what he’s saying. Darkness will never be natural to you ever again.

When you step into darkness, you’ll be convicted of it. When you walk in the way of the world, you cannot claim ignorance. It’s the way of. Now walk in the darkness. Two things, at least it’s suggested in the biblical text. Whenever you see the word darkness, number one is wickedness. Number two is ignorance.

So what is wickedness? Wickedness, I think the simplest definition I can think of, you are wicked if you love the things that God hates and you hate the things that God loves. Now, why would God hate? You? Want God to hate You want God to hate? . You want God to hate murder, right? God and His righteousness because he loves, he therefore must hate.

But when you’re a wicked, everything is in the inverse. Instead of loving your neighbor, you kill your neighbor. Instead of speaking the truth, you manipulate with lies. Instead of giving to others, you take from others. And by the grace of Jesus, he’s saying, when you follow me, your wicked heart can be regenerated made new, and now God begins to form within you to love the things that God loves, and you begin to hate the things that God hates.

That’s why through the power of the cross, You and I can never walk in the darkness, but there’s another side to darkness and that’s ignorance. Ignorance is like stubbing your toe in the dark. It’s spiritual blindness. And so some of us, as I talk to people who are not followers of the way, they know they’re hurt, but they have no idea what hurt them.

You ever felt that in your own life? I know I’m in emotional. , but I don’t know how I got here. I don’t know how to fix it because I don’t know who the perpetrator is. Something is happening within me and it hurts, and I don’t know if it’s gonna come again and hit me one more time. Now, as Christians, we are not devoid of that.

We will experience pain. There will be things in our life where it doesn’t make sense and you are getting hurt, but an ultimate sense of the word, by the grace of Jesus, you and I, when we surrender to Jesus and he becomes our. There are a lot of things in life we are set free from and being ignorant of, right?

We still stub our toe, but we know why we stubbed it. like we, we have this understanding of sin where it comes from. There’s sin done by me. There’s sin done to me. There’s sin done around me, so I’m not really confused about that. There is suffering and the word of God says that you will suffer. So it’s not confusing when you suffer cuz God has given you the wisdom to know that there’s suffering.

And most importantly, we’re set free from total ignorance. Because when we come to Jesus, we now have purpose. We now know our life is for His glory. And so life will get hard, but you won’t walk completely in the. Because he has given us not all that we want to know, but by the grace of Jesus, he has given you and me what we need to know.

So this is why he says that you’ll never walk in the darkness. It doesn’t mean you’ll never sin again. If that’s the case, I’m out , right? I don’t qualify, and of course I qualify. I’m just kidding. I don’t know where I was going with that, right? You’ll never walk in the darkness. Now, does this mean we’re never confused?

Of course. Now write. Write this down. Life with Christ is like driving with head. I had a mentor tell me this all the time. In college, we’re trying to figure out what was next in life. Trying to figure out our career path if we’re gonna go to seminary or work concrete, which I never thought was in the cards, but it’s what I did, right?

And so he said, look, life can get so hard and confusing and you don’t know what’s next, but just do this. Life is like headlights without a gps, by the way. You’re dark, you’re in the mountains. You don’t know where this path is leading you, but you know what the next 10 yards is. Hold onto to. I don’t know what’s to the left or right.

Sometimes I don’t know what’s behind me, but I can see the next few steps and I’m gonna take it. And this is what life with Christ is. A lot of us. We want to see the whole roadmap before we even begin. And that’s just not what life, that’s not what the light of God does. He gives you just enough to take another step just to encourage those who are Sabbath.

I think this is a really helpful practice on Sabbath when we light the candle. I think one way to remember why we’re lighting a candle is, okay, God, life for me is dark right now, but I’m going to acknowledge what I can see today. It may be dim on this day. I could only candles, right? They don’t really brighten a lot of the room.

It’s a perfect metaphor. Turn off all the lights. Light up the candle and begin to say to one another or to yourself, okay, God, there’s a lot I don’t get. A lot of life feels dark. I hate the suffering, but today I’m declaring what I do know. I know that you’re good. I can see that in my life. I know that you’ve given me these people to love.

Thank you for that. Just start going down the list. Thank you, God, for the things I do know, rather than just being upset for the things you don. No, we praise God for what we can see and we actually learn to let go of what we cannot see. I had to bring Sabbath in. Okay, cuz we’re trying to keep doing this now.

This passage gets even better. Let’s look at this last line, but we’ll have the light of life. If you were here last week, what is that word? Life. It’s actually Zoe, he’s using that same phrase again. So by bios is. Ultimate like this life, right? Like until you die, Zoe is life eternal. It’s a quality of life.

It’s having meaning in this life, exhilaration and joy, right? So he’s saying when you have this light, you have joy. I like how the NLT puts it. Honestly. The CSB translation, which we’re using this morning, is that light of life. What does that mean? I like how the N L T puts it. It says quote, because you will have the light that leads to life.

What does that. Darkness never leads to life, but the light always does. This was interesting here. Darkness can refer to ignorance and wickedness, but also can refer to you and me hiding. Imagine the imagery of Jesus as being the sun and you and I seeing the sun, and in our ignorance and our fear, we run to the cave, right?

We don’t want to be exposed for who we are. Genesis three, what do Adam and Eve. They hide from God after they’ve sinned. You and I are natural inclination. Some of us this morning are hiding and here’s the warning I want us to give. Sin does its greatest damage in the dark. The devil doesn’t want anything more than for you to hide, and Jesus says he is the light cuz it’s an invitation that you don’t need to hide.

I think one of the most troubling me and Pastor Caleb talk a lot about church culture and kind of the things that we deal with and the ways that we think of church, and I think one of the darkest parts of our culture specifically is this idea. Even those who have never been to church, they assume come into church, means you need to act like you have it all together and you can’t tell other people what you.

and it’s literally like the opposite of the gospel. Like literally because you’re here today, you are admitting you’re a sinner, right? Welcome to church, right? Like you have admitted you don’t, you haven’t done enough to earn self. Like you just know you have fallen short. And yet we act like we’re good.

It makes no sense. Why sin does its greatest damage in the dark. We assume if we tell God what is really happening, he will disown us. But let me in. Let he let you in on a secret. God sees what you’re doing so it’s better to just tell him. This is actually one of the hardest. I was telling God this morning, looking at this passage, I’m saying, God, this is the har of all the I am statements.

This one is hardest for me cuz I have always struggl. With a public image. I’m a fourth generation pastor. I’ve always been, not always, but I’ve been a pastor’s kid for most of my life. I remember specifically when I was 15, I went to a youth camp and I opened up about some of the struggles I was having, and instead of being welcomed in and loved, I was ashamed.

They were like, aren’t you the pastor’s kid? Like, why would you do that? Wow, Trey, I didn’t I thought better. and that just destroyed my world. I thought, how can I be honest with people if they’re not going to take me for who I am? Like I really wanted to step into freedom and instead it felt like a moment of shame.

And so to this day, I struggle who can I trust? Who can I share my life with? But here’s what I’ve found, cuz I’ve seen enough examples of people and I know in my own life, the longer I keep something in the dark, the longer it will. . It’s like a monster who grows every day. It’s not exposed that rhyme.

I don’t even mean to, it’s a monster that grows every, anyways, I forgot it. We’ll look it at the tape later. Now, sin does. Its damage in the dark, and that’s why it’s good news when Jesus comes onto the scene and says, I am the light. Expose yourself. . Let’s look at John eight, two actually. So I lied. We’re doing more than one first today, John eight, chap.

John chapter eight, verse two. This is right before he says this light of the world. Look at this story. It says at Don, he went to the temple again and all the people were coming to him. He sat down and began to teach them. That’s how they did it. Back in the day, you would be standing. I would be sitting.

I think we need to bring back biblical times. All right. Okay. Verse three, then the scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman caught in adult. Making her stand in the center. What are they trying to do? They’re trying to shame her. Teach her. They said to him, this woman was caught in the act of committing adultery.

By the way, adultery happened a lot during this festival cuz no one lived in their homes. They were in shelters like tents. Think country Thunder, right? They’re partying and drinking a little too much and stuff like this happens. Okay? Verse five, in the law of Moses in the law, Moses’s command commanded us to stone such women.

So what do you say? They asked this to trap him in order that they may have evidence to accuse him. So Jesus stooped down and started riding on the ground with his finger. When they persisted in questioning him, he stood up. Instead of him, the one without sin among you, should be the first to throw a stone at her.

Then he stooped down again and continued riding on the ground. When they heard this, they left one by. Starting with the older men only. He was left with a woman in the center. We don’t know what he wrote down. Many assume he was writing down all of the secrets, the darkness of those men that they were convinced they were successfully hiding.

So then verse 10, when Jesus stood up, he said to her Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you? No one Lord? She answered, neither do I condemn you. Said Jesus, go from now on and do not sin. Who received healing in this story? The self-righteous, experienced Pharisees or the adulterous woman who is the one experiencing the everlasting Feast of Tabernacles?

The Pharisees are the woman. It was the woman. What’s the lesson here? Jesus and forgives those who least deserve it yet truly.

This is the good news. This is why Jesus said he’s the light, right? He heals, embraces, loves, forgives, not those who also have a light, not those who are just as holy as him. No, those who know, they don’t deserve it, but they desire it. They know they’re in the darkness. But they desire the light. And if we wait to deserve this light, you and I remain in the dark.

But if we desire the light, recognize we cannot earn it on our own accord, you and I are set free. Set free from the heart of wickedness, set free from ignorance, and actually even set free from hiding. I really believe the Holy Spirit is leading us today to respond. In fact let’s pray to God.

Now, God, I just ask you to bring freedom to this room.

God, may I confess anytime I have perpetrated a culture where it’s better to hide than to heal

God. I just asked you in this moment, holy Spirit. I want us to respond to your light

and so Jesus meet us in our darkness.

Maybe the darkness is sins of our past that we can never make up for, and so we’re trapped by guilt because of what we’ve done.

Maybe the darkness is living a double life. Presenting ourselves in one way, but when we are alone, we are a completely different person. God set that person free from the lie that they have to get right before they step into the light.

God rewire our brains. We’re stepping into the light is not a bad thing, but it’s the best thing. God, change our community and help us. This will not be a moment of shame, but it’s a moment of freedom and love and forgiveness and joy.

God, we ask you to forgive us for our hiding and to forgive us for our wickedness, and we ask you to supernaturally in this moment, allow us to step into the.

Lord, would you do that? And I know with our own human rationality, we can excuse ourselves from this moment. We can think that this invitation is not for us. Father, may we open our hearts to your love by stepping into the light. In Jesus’ name I pray. Amen. This time I really just want to give God the space for us to respond.

So I invite you now to stand and I want you to think through this one thought today, will you step further into hiding or into healing? Cuz the rowdy is you can never do both at the same time. The more you hide, the further you are from your healing, the more you step into the light and get into. There’s no reason to.