Latest / Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive / December 10, 2017 | Let There Be Light - Christmas Night Light

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December 10, 2017 | Let There Be Light - Christmas Night Light · Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive

0:00
SPEAKER_00: Merry Christmas! How are you doing this beautiful, fine Sunday morning?
0:08
SPEAKER_00: Glad to hear it.
0:10
SPEAKER_00: We're in a series about light.
0:12
SPEAKER_00: This whole uh month is about light for us.
0:15
SPEAKER_00: The light show's coming up, as you heard a little while ago.
0:19
SPEAKER_00: And uh so I was thinking this is probably the only time all year since the focus is on light that I can get away with, you know, doing the light bulb joke.
0:30
SPEAKER_00: So, which is how many like you know, real estate salesmen does it take to change a light bulb, right?
0:37
SPEAKER_00: Which you know the answer to ten, but we'll accept eight.
0:40
SPEAKER_00: So uh uh car or car sale, how many car salesmen does it take to change the light bulb?
0:47
SPEAKER_00: And and uh uh the answer is I'm I'm gonna work at I work this out on my computer, on my calculator, and I'm sure you'll be pleasantly surprised.
0:56
SPEAKER_00: So uh male chauvinists.
0:58
SPEAKER_00: Now, I wrote I wrote some of these.
1:00
SPEAKER_00: This one, I listen, ladies, I did not write this one.
1:04
SPEAKER_00: I'm passing it along.
1:05
SPEAKER_00: Male shummy, male chauvinists take change the light bulb.
1:08
SPEAKER_00: None, let the little woman cook in the dark.
1:13
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
1:14
SPEAKER_00: So I heard a lot of male laughter, no female laughter.
1:18
SPEAKER_00: Conservative, how many conservatives does it take to change the light bulb?
1:21
SPEAKER_00: The answer, of course, is ten.
1:24
SPEAKER_00: One to actually change the bulb, and nine to tell us how the old bulbs were a lot better.
1:30
SPEAKER_00: So how many liberals does it take to change the light bulb?
1:33
SPEAKER_00: Answer 20, 20, 10 to get paid at least$15 per hour minimum wage, and the other ten government regulators to make sure it's screwed in safely, safely.
1:46
SPEAKER_00: So, but we shouldn't spare, we shouldn't spare the church.
1:50
SPEAKER_00: How many Baptists does it take to change the light bulb?
1:54
SPEAKER_00: And the answer is is is actually that it only takes one, but of course, first it has to be dunked in water.
2:02
SPEAKER_00: So an Amish.
2:04
SPEAKER_00: How many Amish take change a light bulb?
2:07
SPEAKER_00: What what's a light bulb?
2:09
SPEAKER_00: So how many uh Methodists does it take to change the light bulb?
2:15
SPEAKER_00: Two.
2:16
SPEAKER_00: One to screw it in and the other to make sure that no one's offended by the change.
2:24
SPEAKER_00: How many Calvinists take change of the light bulb?
2:27
SPEAKER_00: The answer is none.
2:29
SPEAKER_00: God has predestined when the lights will go on and off.
2:33
SPEAKER_00: TV preachers, how many TV preachers take change the light bulb?
2:37
SPEAKER_00: Just one, but for the message of change to continue, send your check in today.
2:43
SPEAKER_00: Charismatics, how many charismatics?
2:46
SPEAKER_00: Get ready.
2:47
SPEAKER_00: Three.
2:48
SPEAKER_00: One to change the light bulb, and two to bind the spirit of darkness.
2:54
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
2:55
SPEAKER_00: Mormons.
2:57
SPEAKER_00: Well, of course there are two.
2:58
SPEAKER_00: You've seen them.
2:59
SPEAKER_00: One to bicycle to the store to buy the new light bulb, the other to bicycle to your home to change it.
3:03
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
3:04
SPEAKER_00: And finally, just one more.
3:05
SPEAKER_00: Jehovah's Witnesses, how many Jehovah's Witnesses did it take to change the light bulb?
3:10
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't matter because you won't let me inside your house to change it anyway.
3:17
SPEAKER_00: So we're talking about light this Christmas, and in fact, this week, light is a big deal with Jewish friends, Jewish neighbors, Jewish folks around the world, because Hanukkah, Hanukkah, say it with me with a little rough, congested breathing, Hanukkah.
3:32
SPEAKER_00: Hanukkah begins on Tuesday this week.
3:34
SPEAKER_00: It's an eight-day celebration.
3:35
SPEAKER_00: It's called the Festival of Lights, called the Festival of Lights, because it dates back to about 150 years before Jesus when the Syrians, Antiochus, Epiphanes, and so forth were in control of Palestine, control of what the Romans were calling Palestine and Israel, and were forcing the Jews to uh, they were burning the Torah, trying to make the Jews turn them into Greeks, turn them into secular atheists, so forth.
4:02
SPEAKER_00: And a family called Maccabees family fought against them, Judas Maccabees, you know, got the victory, took the temple back over after they had slaughtered a pig on the altar, and and so they lit uh the menorah, lit the candle, but they only had enough oil for just one day.
4:18
SPEAKER_00: And in what I I too believe was a divine miracle, that oil lasted for no less than seven days.
4:24
SPEAKER_00: So you have that menorah, the eight-branch menorah.
4:27
SPEAKER_00: And so that starts, it's an eight-day celebration, starts Tuesday, goes Wednesday, Thursday, and so forth for eight days.
4:32
SPEAKER_00: That's Hanukkah.
4:34
SPEAKER_00: And it's the festival of lights.
4:35
SPEAKER_00: It's called the Feast of Dedication, by the way, in the Gospel of John.
4:38
SPEAKER_00: It's the only modern feast that's mentioned in the Bible, in the New Testament.
4:42
SPEAKER_00: And so uh we're in the Gospel of John today, and the Feast of Dedication is a feast that that's mentioned in John uh chapter 9.
4:51
SPEAKER_00: So um, so anyway, we're all we're talking about light, and we're gonna go to uh our message this morning, which is Christmas night light.
5:00
SPEAKER_00: Last uh week it was Christmas dawn.
5:03
SPEAKER_00: It was from it was from Isaiah 49, Christmas dawn, the point being the light overcomes the sun, overcomes the dark when it dawns, and the the light defeats the dark.
5:14
SPEAKER_00: This morning, uh some of the most famous, wonderful verses, words ever written in history, some of the most famous verses of the Bible, John 1, John 3, Christmas night light.
5:24
SPEAKER_00: The light illuminates, it welcomes the world.
5:26
SPEAKER_00: Next week, Tim Collins will retell the wonderful story of Jesus giving uh sight to the blind man so he can see the sun.
5:34
SPEAKER_00: Christmas sunlight, the light reveals it, opens up your eyes.
5:38
SPEAKER_00: And then on New Year's Eve, those five services which will be right here in this building, Matthew chapter 2, the Christmas Star.
5:47
SPEAKER_00: Are you familiar with that?
5:48
SPEAKER_00: So let's go.
5:49
SPEAKER_00: If you have a Bible, open it to the first chapter of John.
5:52
SPEAKER_00: You may want to underline the word light in here, as I've done, or highlight it, because that's our key word.
5:59
SPEAKER_00: And as you know, this chapter is just this, it starts off in the beginning, like Genesis 1 does.
6:05
SPEAKER_00: In the beginning was the word, the word was with God, the word was God, same as in the beginning with God, all things were made by him, and so forth.
6:11
SPEAKER_00: And then it says, in him, that is, in Jesus, in the Creator was life, and the life was the light of men and women.
6:25
SPEAKER_00: And the light shines in the darkness.
6:28
SPEAKER_00: Notice the moves from past tense it was, but to present tense.
6:31
SPEAKER_00: The light shone in the darkness when he came to earth, and it's still shining in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.
6:39
SPEAKER_00: That's King James, that's New American Standard.
6:41
SPEAKER_00: If you have a modern version, NIV, uh Christian Standard Bible, ESV, whatever, it'll say, overcome.
6:48
SPEAKER_00: And those are two different ideas, but it's the same Greek word.
6:51
SPEAKER_00: John, I need to tell you this.
6:52
SPEAKER_00: This is a little seminary moment.
6:54
SPEAKER_00: It's uh John loves words with double meanings.
6:58
SPEAKER_00: And he uses them when they mean both things, and he means both things at the same time.
7:02
SPEAKER_00: For instance, uh in John 3, Jesus said to Nicodemus, you must be born, the Greek word is another, which means two things.
7:09
SPEAKER_00: It means from above.
7:11
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
7:12
SPEAKER_00: Must be born from above.
7:13
SPEAKER_00: That's how you're safe.
7:14
SPEAKER_00: But it also means you must be born again, which we usually think of there.
7:18
SPEAKER_00: You must be born again.
7:20
SPEAKER_00: So it means both things at the same time.
7:22
SPEAKER_00: Well, this word both means when Jesus came into the darkness, the the light could not comprehend or understand his message, right?
7:30
SPEAKER_00: That's King James, that's the old.
7:32
SPEAKER_00: But also, and the modern translations go, we think it probably more means overcome.
7:37
SPEAKER_00: They tried to defeat him and the light, and they couldn't overcome him.
7:43
SPEAKER_00: And that should remind you to some extent of the whole Genesis 1 light thing, right?
7:50
SPEAKER_00: Remember how creation started?
7:52
SPEAKER_00: Everything was totally dark, and then God said, What did he say?
7:55
SPEAKER_00: Let there be light, first day of creation.
7:58
SPEAKER_00: And you are meant to think back to Genesis.
8:02
SPEAKER_00: All of this happened in Genesis, it was all physical, it was all like, you know, physics and astronomy and all that, okay?
8:09
SPEAKER_00: But in John, God says, okay, we took care of the physical thing, but now we need to take care of the spiritual moral thing.
8:16
SPEAKER_00: The world lies in darkness, we need to bring spiritual moral light to the world.
8:22
SPEAKER_00: So he continues in John chapter 1.
8:24
SPEAKER_00: There was a man sent from God whose name was John.
8:29
SPEAKER_00: Does anybody know who what John's last name was?
8:33
SPEAKER_00: Baptist.
8:33
SPEAKER_00: What was his middle name?
8:35
SPEAKER_00: The, John the Baptist.
8:36
SPEAKER_00: So anyway, so this John the Baptist, and he was the forerunner of Jesus, and he was sent, and he came as a witness, and he happened to be related to Jesus, his cousin, so that all may, he came as a witness, testify about the light, so that all may believe through him.
8:53
SPEAKER_00: He was not the light.
8:54
SPEAKER_00: John wasn't, though some people thought initially that he was, but he came to testify about the light, the true light that gives light to everyone was coming in the world.
9:03
SPEAKER_00: A lot of stuff here about light, okay?
9:05
SPEAKER_00: And then you say, well, how did he know he was the light?
9:08
SPEAKER_00: Maybe God whispered it to him in his gut, or maybe John was so sensitive to the realities of light and darkness that the world was dark, that he sensed.
9:18
SPEAKER_00: It was sort of like uh what's that famous story in the trial where the defense attorney says to the woman on the stand, says, You say you saw my client.
9:28
SPEAKER_00: You accuse him of having committed the crime, but you say you saw him, but it was dark.
9:33
SPEAKER_00: Just how far can you see in the dark?
9:36
SPEAKER_00: And she says, Well, I can see the moon.
9:39
SPEAKER_00: I think that's 25,000 miles.
9:41
SPEAKER_00: So, which is a good answer.
9:43
SPEAKER_00: And so I take it that maybe what happened to John is being so spiritually sensitive, he could tell the whole world's lying in darkness, and then he saw the light coming.
9:52
SPEAKER_00: He saw the Lord Jesus coming, and so he recognized him and he pointed at him and basically said, the true light that gives light to everyone is coming into the world.
10:02
SPEAKER_00: And then it but then it continues and says the world had sort of a mixed-bag reaction to him.
10:07
SPEAKER_00: He was in the world, and the world was made by him, and yet the world didn't recognize him.
10:13
SPEAKER_00: Which ties in with the comprehend reading, doesn't it, in verse 4?
10:17
SPEAKER_00: Uh that uh light, darkness can comprehend the light.
10:21
SPEAKER_00: So the world didn't comprehend or recognize him.
10:24
SPEAKER_00: He came to his own people, and his own didn't even receive him.
10:29
SPEAKER_00: Wow.
10:30
SPEAKER_00: So, and we know that some of them didn't receive him in that they just sort of went another way and ignored him, like people do today primarily.
10:38
SPEAKER_00: They just ignore him.
10:39
SPEAKER_00: But others, you know, went right at him and they rejected him and they attacked him.
10:43
SPEAKER_00: And some of that happens if you ever if you ever go on Facebook, you can see, you know, some people just ignore messages they don't like, and others go, you know, I'm gonna I'm gonna put napalm on this page.
10:54
SPEAKER_00: And and and that's what happened to Jesus, that it was uh it was mixed, but they didn't receive him.
11:01
SPEAKER_00: But, but, but, and the story ends this way, but the cool thing is that some did receive him, and to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God.
11:11
SPEAKER_00: What a privilege.
11:12
SPEAKER_00: But let's go back to the whole rejecting him thing.
11:15
SPEAKER_00: Why would that happen?
11:16
SPEAKER_00: Well, we jump over to chapter 3, and Jesus uh speaking right after John 3.16, he says, Listen, I need to tell you this is the judgment, or as some versions say this is the verdict.
11:27
SPEAKER_00: The light me has come into the world, but people loved darkness rather than the light because their deeds were evil.
11:37
SPEAKER_00: For everyone who does evil hates the light and avoids it, so that his deeds may not be exposed.
11:43
SPEAKER_00: That's true, isn't it?
11:45
SPEAKER_00: People hide, you know, in the dark.
11:47
SPEAKER_00: Guy came up after last service, he said, you know, he says, I'm he's in his fifties or something.
11:52
SPEAKER_00: He says, I remember something my my mom said when I was really little and she didn't know what to say.
11:56
SPEAKER_00: We were driving downtown in our little Kansas town we grew up in, and there was a bar and a tavern, and the door was open, it was all dark in there, but it was daylight outside, and asked my mommy, I said, Why is it so dark in there if it's daylight?
12:09
SPEAKER_00: And she said she couldn't answer for it.
12:11
SPEAKER_00: And then she said, Well, there are people in there doing stuff they're ashamed of, so they don't want to see each other or recognize each other.
12:16
SPEAKER_00: And maybe that's not true, but I mean, but but but it does fit in with the fact that criminals act in the dark, right?
12:23
SPEAKER_00: And and and and we like to act, and some of us did some stuff we're sort of ashamed of this year, maybe even this week.
12:29
SPEAKER_00: So, so we try we'd rather it be kept secret.
12:33
SPEAKER_00: And we're not like Stalin, you know, or Lennon, but it is interesting.
12:37
SPEAKER_00: Stalin and Lennon never went to their trials, Stalin never went to the trials of any of the thousands of people he summarily had show trials and executions for.
12:46
SPEAKER_00: But uh, he did, by the way, cut a little, he cut a little, uh he cut a little hole in the wall and would go go watch some of those trials, but he didn't want it seen.
12:57
SPEAKER_00: He wanted to keep it secret.
12:58
SPEAKER_00: And for instance, take Hitler.
13:00
SPEAKER_00: Hitler never went to Treblinka or Auschwitz or any other place.
13:03
SPEAKER_00: He never went to those things.
13:05
SPEAKER_00: And and Himmler said we need to keep all of this quiet.
13:08
SPEAKER_00: You shouldn't even tell your children or grandchildren what we're doing to the Jews, the final solution.
13:13
SPEAKER_00: So there's a there's there's a need, there's a desire for secrecy and for darkness that exists, right?
13:20
SPEAKER_00: And people who do evil.
13:21
SPEAKER_00: That's just the essence of it, and we see it in ourselves, okay?
13:26
SPEAKER_00: So uh people love darkness rather than light because their deeds are evil.
13:30
SPEAKER_00: Now, Jesus then said a few chapters later, I am the light, saying this to uh people, I am the light of the world.
13:38
SPEAKER_00: Whoever follows me will never walk in the darkness, but will have the light of life.
13:44
SPEAKER_00: I love John because it has all of this light darkness.
13:47
SPEAKER_00: In fact, um out of like 25 verses that use the word light, in Greek it's by the way, it's phos, from which we get photon or photographer.
13:56
SPEAKER_00: Uh something like that, it's about 25, 24, 26 times in the New Testament.
14:01
SPEAKER_00: Like 20 of them are in John.
14:03
SPEAKER_00: And darkness, 14 out of 17 are in John.
14:06
SPEAKER_00: John's, and first, second, third, and John and Revelation, those five books of John are all about light and dark, so you just keep getting it.
14:13
SPEAKER_00: Isn't it?
14:13
SPEAKER_00: Isn't it great?
14:15
SPEAKER_00: The last verse I'll I'll show you before I draw six conclusions is this one from John 12, where Jesus says, I've come into the world as a light, so that no one who believes in me should stay in darkness.
14:29
SPEAKER_00: Wow.
14:30
SPEAKER_00: Good stuff here.
14:31
SPEAKER_00: So what do we draw from this uh that that's that that that that is either new or can be helpful or applicable?
14:38
SPEAKER_00: Well, the first thing that we we have to say as we walk through this is that is that this is telling us that this is telling us that heaven is is full of light.
14:47
SPEAKER_00: I for a while I thought that was one of you, but I think that's me.
14:50
SPEAKER_00: So so so sorry about that weird noise that we're getting.
14:54
SPEAKER_00: We're getting a little explosion, which is basically all the angels hanging over the balustrade of heaven clapping in unison.
15:00
SPEAKER_00: So, so that sort of explosion.
15:02
SPEAKER_00: So heaven is full of Lord, I'm sorry about that.
15:06
SPEAKER_00: That was that was that was that was not good.
15:09
SPEAKER_00: So heaven is full of light, the world lies in darkness, heaven is full of light.
15:14
SPEAKER_00: Any of you now you you've read the Narnia Tales by C.S.
15:17
SPEAKER_00: Lewis?
15:18
SPEAKER_00: Probably have.
15:18
SPEAKER_00: Okay, but he also wrote a trilogy.
15:21
SPEAKER_00: Three science fiction novels.
15:23
SPEAKER_00: They're worth your reading sometime.
15:25
SPEAKER_00: Uh, you know, they uh Out of the Silent Planet is the first one, Paralandra is the second, that's the best, and third one is that hideous strength.
15:34
SPEAKER_00: And in his trilogy, anybody read the trilogy?
15:37
SPEAKER_00: Am I the only one?
15:38
SPEAKER_00: So, yeah, it's really good.
15:39
SPEAKER_00: But what he does is C.
15:40
SPEAKER_00: S.
15:40
SPEAKER_00: Lewis backs off and looks at the whole solar system and gives the planets different names.
15:44
SPEAKER_00: He said, well, he has a he has an angel from heaven who sort of watches over each planet.
15:49
SPEAKER_00: There's an angel of Malochandra, which is Mars, and there's an angel, and the name that they give for Earth, get this, is the dark planet or the silent planet.
15:59
SPEAKER_00: And you go, what?
16:00
SPEAKER_00: I've been to astronomy class, and in the solar system, the earth's the brightest planet.
16:04
SPEAKER_00: Well, from heaven's perspective, the earth is the dark planet.
16:09
SPEAKER_00: You know, I think we sense that the world lies in darkness.
16:13
SPEAKER_00: I'm in a president not too long ago.
16:17
SPEAKER_00: Okay, maybe 10, 15, 20 years.
16:19
SPEAKER_00: You know, talked about a thousand points of light.
16:22
SPEAKER_00: Do you remember that in America where where he was talking about volunteers in America are like a thousand points of light?
16:27
SPEAKER_00: What does that imply?
16:28
SPEAKER_00: It implies that America's in the dark, right?
16:31
SPEAKER_00: And that we need people to be compassionate and kind and generous and so forth.
16:35
SPEAKER_00: And if so, you'll be a you'll be one of those thousand points of light.
16:40
SPEAKER_00: So we sort of sense that the world is, as C.
16:44
SPEAKER_00: S.
16:44
SPEAKER_00: Lewis pictured it, in darkness, or or as the Bible presents it, in darkness.
16:49
SPEAKER_00: By the way, this is sort of extra, but it kind of ties in.
16:53
SPEAKER_00: Did anybody else, I follow physics, astronomy, news, and so forth.
16:56
SPEAKER_00: Did anybody else, anybody else as shocked as I was a few years ago, and is uh like shocked like the astronomers are to find out that they discovered that astronomers have found in the last five, six years what they call the largest thing in the universe, a super void, they call it, a dark supervoid.
17:14
SPEAKER_00: You can just simply Google mysteries science can't explain, and you can read all about it.
17:19
SPEAKER_00: That six, seven, eight, ten billion light years from here, I don't remember exactly.
17:23
SPEAKER_00: There is this huge, they suddenly found this unbelievably huge, big enough that there should be 10,000 galaxies.
17:31
SPEAKER_00: Galaxies, mind you, not solar systems, galaxies like the Milky Way.
17:35
SPEAKER_00: 10,000 galaxies, 1.8 billion light years across, and there's nothing there.
17:39
SPEAKER_00: It's just all dark.
17:40
SPEAKER_00: There's no light, no radiation, absolutely nothing coming out of there.
17:43
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't make sense.
17:45
SPEAKER_00: And and the scientists, the astronomers are saying this does not fit any of our models of the universe.
17:51
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't fit, you know, the whole Big Bang model, you know, where where this Big Bang explosion and everything evenly divides up and and and is continually moving out.
18:00
SPEAKER_00: There's there's no way in that kind of an explanation that you have the largest single thing in the universe being darkness.
18:08
SPEAKER_00: It's really kind of scary.
18:10
SPEAKER_00: And maybe some of the reasons why some scientists today are going, we don't think we buy the Big Bang anymore, and and so forth.
18:16
SPEAKER_00: But that's all extra, but it is just to say darkness is a real reality in our present universe, and it's a little bit scary.
18:27
SPEAKER_00: It's scary to people who try to figure things out, and it's scary, but this is a reality of life that heaven is full of light, and the world is full of darkness.
18:41
SPEAKER_00: And but I also think uh uh we we we somehow, this is one of the values, as Ecclesiastes says, of funerals.
18:48
SPEAKER_00: It's better to be in a house of mourning than a house of feasting, because then we hear things, and I couldn't find this online even though I use it.
18:55
SPEAKER_00: I I thought everybody uses this at funerals, it's just me.
18:58
SPEAKER_00: But an old elderly Irish woman were told came up with this poem, and so uh and so I use it uh about one out of every three or four services I do.
19:08
SPEAKER_00: And it goes like this.
19:10
SPEAKER_00: I used to think, loving life so greatly, that to die would be like leaving a party before the end.
19:18
SPEAKER_00: Now I know that the party is really happening somewhere else.
19:21
SPEAKER_00: That the light and the music escaping in snatches to make the pulse beat and the tempo quicken come from a long way away.
19:30
SPEAKER_00: And I know too that when I get there, the music will never end.
19:34
SPEAKER_00: Isn't that beautiful?
19:36
SPEAKER_00: So that goes along, and that's this picture that that Lewis was right.
19:40
SPEAKER_00: That really the light and the action and the party, they're all happening elsewhere, happening in heaven, and where God is light, and in him is no darkness at all, and everything is pure light up there.
19:49
SPEAKER_00: And we actually live in the realm of darkness down here.
19:55
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
19:55
SPEAKER_00: Now that leads us to the second point, which is that heaven's light then came into the world that he created at Christmas.
20:04
SPEAKER_00: At Christmas.
20:05
SPEAKER_00: So the light from heaven, the Prince of Heaven, and I, by the way, I think that maybe is why he had certain physical manifestations that happened that night.
20:14
SPEAKER_00: For instance, we read in Luke 2, 8 and 9, say it with me.
20:17
SPEAKER_00: Now there were in the same country shepherds living out in the fields, keeping watch over their flocks by night.
20:25
SPEAKER_00: And behold, an angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them.
20:31
SPEAKER_00: So physically the light came into the darkness, and spiritually, morally, Jesus the light, came into a manger and came into the world.
20:40
SPEAKER_00: Wow, into the world that he created.
20:44
SPEAKER_00: So, how important do you think that is?
20:50
SPEAKER_00: I mean if you if you if you're into happy holidays rather than Merry Christmas, right, then then I don't know that you think that the coming of Christ is the most important event in history.
21:07
SPEAKER_00: And certainly, if you were to ask people, I mean you can you can sort of guess what different people might think was the most important single thing that's ever happened in the history of the world.
21:15
SPEAKER_00: If you ask anthropologists, you know, you can see them saying it was the uh it was the invention of the wheel.
21:21
SPEAKER_00: Or maybe even before that, maybe it was the discovery of fire.
21:24
SPEAKER_00: Evolutionists, you can sort of think, well, the greatest moment in history uh would have been maybe the the moment when the first land uh water creature crawled up and became a land creature.
21:37
SPEAKER_00: Or maybe if you're a history buff, you know, you might say the greatest moment in history was Pericles, the golden age of Greece, 500 BC.
21:45
SPEAKER_00: Right?
21:45
SPEAKER_00: Or you might say the greatest event in history, if you're a journalist, was was uh Gutenberg's printing press, 1440 A.D.
21:53
SPEAKER_00: Or if you're an American politician, you might say it was the American Revolution.
21:57
SPEAKER_00: Or if you're a scientist, modern scientist, you might say it was a discovery.
22:00
SPEAKER_00: Of atomic energy, or maybe maybe the first man walking on the moon was the greatest event in history.
22:06
SPEAKER_00: By the way, I will say that as a Chiefs fan, I do kind of lean toward the greatest event in history being January the 11th, 1970, when Lynn Dawson.
22:15
SPEAKER_00: What?
22:15
SPEAKER_00: When Lynn Dawson led the Kansas City Chiefs to a surprise victory.
22:20
SPEAKER_00: It was a surprise victory.
22:21
SPEAKER_00: I'm old enough to remember that surprise victory over the mighty Minnesota Vikings to win our one and only Super Bowl.
22:27
SPEAKER_00: That's that's injustice right there and why the Lord has to return.
22:30
SPEAKER_00: But um so the greatest, but you know what?
22:34
SPEAKER_00: If you're Christian, if you believe the Bible, then you'd better, you better understand that leaving Christ in Christmas is critical because, after all, and logical, because the greatest single moment in history is what theologians call the incarnation.
22:50
SPEAKER_00: Chili concarni, chili with flesh, the infleshment of Jesus Christ, of the light of heaven, the infleshment when he became flesh and lay in a manger.
23:00
SPEAKER_00: All right, greatest moment in history, and that's when heaven's light came into the world.
23:04
SPEAKER_00: He created.
23:05
SPEAKER_00: Third, the world turned from the light, tragically, choosing the dark, and still does.
23:14
SPEAKER_00: And by turning, some ignored him, but some went after him, and some, some brutally, as you know, they brutally killed him.
23:23
SPEAKER_00: You know what interests me is that when Jesus was born, during this time, the most famous tragedy, one of the most famous stories in the world that everybody knew who read the biblical stories, and everybody knew Jesus, you know, uh, I'm sure, knew this, the one of the most famous stories in the world, greatest Greek tragedy of all, the tragedy of King Agamemnon.
23:44
SPEAKER_00: King Agamemnon was the guy who led the troops to Troy.
23:49
SPEAKER_00: Remember that famous battle of Troy, 1200 BC it went, was the story.
23:53
SPEAKER_00: Agamemnon and remember Achilles was there and Hercules was there.
23:57
SPEAKER_00: Achilles, remember, got killed during that battle for Helen of Troy.
24:02
SPEAKER_00: And remember the story of Ulysses, who on his way home survived, on his way home went up through all these travels, you know.
24:08
SPEAKER_00: So the Odyssey, it's called.
24:13
SPEAKER_00: Well, King Agamemnon survived, okay, and he went home straight away.
24:19
SPEAKER_00: And the story goes, wonderful story, tragic story goes, that his ship landed on his on his soil.
24:24
SPEAKER_00: He was so thrilled.
24:25
SPEAKER_00: He got off and he kissed the soil, was down at kissing the soil.
24:28
SPEAKER_00: His wife came to meet him, so glad to have you home, hugged him, had servants putting out carpets, rugs, tapestries, all the way up to the palace.
24:36
SPEAKER_00: And he was so thrilled, he was so happy, and he stepped into the door of his palace, and she, Clytemnestra, was the queen's name, his wife's name, Clytemnestra, and her secret lover picked up an axe and killed him.
24:50
SPEAKER_00: Horrible tragedy.
24:52
SPEAKER_00: A little brutal.
24:53
SPEAKER_00: That's the way they their stories went back then.
24:55
SPEAKER_00: And and and yet now you have this story.
24:58
SPEAKER_00: It's no longer just a story, it's a reality.
25:00
SPEAKER_00: And now it's not King Agamemnon of a province in Greece.
25:03
SPEAKER_00: This is the this is a Prince of Heaven, the king of glory.
25:06
SPEAKER_00: And he comes down to a world that he has made.
25:08
SPEAKER_00: And now he comes back to this home he has made.
25:11
SPEAKER_00: And now the most brutal murder of all, they they not only turn from him, they actively reject him and they hang him on a cross.
25:19
SPEAKER_00: That's that's what happened there.
25:21
SPEAKER_00: That's how critical, that's how awful this was.
25:23
SPEAKER_00: Jesus, and nor would it, do you think it would be any different if he came today?
25:28
SPEAKER_00: Well, yeah, but you know what?
25:30
SPEAKER_00: He would still get rejected, wouldn't get crucified.
25:34
SPEAKER_00: A lot of famous poets have tried to describe that.
25:36
SPEAKER_00: One wrote a poem called Indifference, Indifference, and it goes like this when Jesus came to Golgotha, they hanged him on a tree, they drove great nails through his hands and feet and made a Calvary.
25:51
SPEAKER_00: They crowned him with a crown of thorns, red were his wounds and deep, for these were crude and cruel days, and human flesh was cheap.
26:02
SPEAKER_00: When Jesus came to Birmingham, goes the poem, they simply passed him by.
26:08
SPEAKER_00: They never heard a hair of him, they only let him die.
26:13
SPEAKER_00: For men had grown more tender and they would not give him pain, they only just passed down the street and left him in the rain.
26:23
SPEAKER_00: So when I see this verse, he came to his own, and his own did not receive him.
26:32
SPEAKER_00: I think of the reality.
26:35
SPEAKER_00: That you could say that he came to Topeka, and Topeka did not receive him.
26:39
SPEAKER_00: He came to Kansas City and Lawrence and we rejected him.
26:44
SPEAKER_00: He came to the USA and we turned away from him, he came to the world which he had created and we rejected him completely.
26:55
SPEAKER_00: Now the world turns from the light, even today, choosing the dark.
27:01
SPEAKER_00: To paraphrase something that G.K.
27:03
SPEAKER_00: Chesterton said the biblical doctrine of worldwide darkness is a positive, comforting doctrine for this reason.
27:12
SPEAKER_00: It explains so much.
27:17
SPEAKER_00: In one of the hundred greatest novels of the 20th century, Joseph Conrad tried to say the same thing, Heart of Darkness, that we live in darkness and that darkness is seeped into our hearts.
27:27
SPEAKER_00: And that's why people that you love and people that you respect have done the craziest, awfulest things, or maybe you have.
27:34
SPEAKER_00: Sons, daughters, parents, horrible acts, sometimes in jail, sometimes divorced, sometimes just, and you wonder how in the world could that happen?
27:44
SPEAKER_00: Some of you, like someone I talked to today, is going, how could I have done that this year?
27:50
SPEAKER_00: And you say, How can I?
27:51
SPEAKER_00: And the answer is it's so comforting that the Bible says, listen, you live, the world lies in darkness, and the evil one is out there.
28:00
SPEAKER_00: And as a result, some of you grew up in a church, a pastor you loved, and after 20, 30, 40 years, he did something that's just horrible, absolutely horrible, and shook your faith in the church.
28:10
SPEAKER_00: It's taking you years to come back.
28:12
SPEAKER_00: Right?
28:13
SPEAKER_00: And what happens is if you don't understand that the world lies in darkness, then you have nothing to explain it with.
28:19
SPEAKER_00: But if you understand that this world lies in darkness, then, oh wow, is that a comfort?
28:25
SPEAKER_00: It helps you understand why people do what they do.
28:29
SPEAKER_00: That the world turns from the light, choosing the dark.
28:32
SPEAKER_00: But listen, here's the good news is that the dark can't quench, it can't douse, it can't extinguish, it can't overcome light.
28:39
SPEAKER_00: Light is stronger than dark.
28:41
SPEAKER_00: You know that, right?
28:42
SPEAKER_00: In the physical world, you know darkness can't extinguish dark.
28:45
SPEAKER_00: Light can extinguish dark, but dark can't extinguish light.
28:49
SPEAKER_00: How many of you have plugged into that app on your cell phone?
28:52
SPEAKER_00: Is that the greatest app or what?
28:54
SPEAKER_00: The flashlight app?
28:56
SPEAKER_00: You better nod.
28:57
SPEAKER_00: If so, come up for a tutorial afterwards because when you drop your keys at night next to your car instead of crawling around there feeling in the pavement, which makes you look crazy.
29:08
SPEAKER_00: You know, do you know what I'm talking about here?
29:11
SPEAKER_00: Last night I had to have, I had to have, but you know what's amazing is you're in a terribly dark night, there's no moon, and you push that thing on your cell phone, and it's incredible how it lights up, proving that light overcomes dark.
29:26
SPEAKER_00: Isn't that a great thing?
29:28
SPEAKER_00: And so the light will overcome the dark spiritually as well.
29:33
SPEAKER_00: And listen, number five, those who do receive the light, God makes his children.
29:39
SPEAKER_00: Wow.
29:40
SPEAKER_00: And that was the good news, remember, of the verse to all who receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God.
29:49
SPEAKER_00: A statement so important to the writer that he didn't just say to those who receive him, he goes, Well, somebody may wonder what that means.
29:56
SPEAKER_00: They say, What does it mean to receive the light?
29:58
SPEAKER_00: And so he he defines it.
30:00
SPEAKER_00: He states it two ways differently in the same verse, to those who believe on his name, which means just simply believe in him.
30:08
SPEAKER_00: And I know that for some of you that's that's that's sort of stained glass language, you know, it's sort of religious.
30:14
SPEAKER_00: What does believe mean?
30:16
SPEAKER_00: And and and so and so maybe when you're in Sunday school, they tried to make it simple and they they made up a phrase called, you know, invite him into your heart.
30:24
SPEAKER_00: But, you know, if John uses believe 92 times in his book to express how you become a Christian, you know, how you become a child of God, I'm gonna go with it.
30:33
SPEAKER_00: And all it means is just simply, you know, I believe that that coach has a good game plan today, or I believe the doctor who gave me that prognosis.
30:41
SPEAKER_00: I think he's right.
30:42
SPEAKER_00: And that's all it means.
30:43
SPEAKER_00: It just means that you believe that Jesus is a son of God, the Prince of Heaven, the light who came to earth to live and to die for me.
30:50
SPEAKER_00: That I'm in the dark.
30:51
SPEAKER_00: And believe me, you have to understand you're part of the darkness before you're gonna receive the light.
30:56
SPEAKER_00: You do.
30:57
SPEAKER_00: Do you understand that?
30:58
SPEAKER_00: That you're part of the dark?
30:59
SPEAKER_00: You've been part of the dark, you had no choice ever since the days of Adam.
31:02
SPEAKER_00: We were all part of the dark.
31:04
SPEAKER_00: Plato was right when he said, we can forgive a child who's afraid of a dark, but we have trouble forgiving a man who's afraid of the light.
31:16
SPEAKER_00: There is light out there.
31:17
SPEAKER_00: Don't be afraid of it.
31:19
SPEAKER_00: And in fact, uh, John 1, the next verse, by the way, John 1.12 says, and if you've responded to the light, don't you dare for a moment think it's because you're a good person.
31:30
SPEAKER_00: Or because you did something.
31:32
SPEAKER_00: John 1.13 drops three grenades on the idea it was me, me, me.
31:37
SPEAKER_00: Don't you dare frontload the gospel with works or backload the gospel with works or think that it's something you've done.
31:44
SPEAKER_00: No, it wasn't.
31:45
SPEAKER_00: You were born as a child, you were born of God.
31:47
SPEAKER_00: It wasn't by blood, because you're royalty, your daddy, mommy went to church.
31:51
SPEAKER_00: It wasn't by blood, it wasn't by the will of the flesh, it wasn't by the will of man, it wasn't by it was God.
31:56
SPEAKER_00: It was God moving in your heart to initiate that and bring you to the place where you could respond.
32:02
SPEAKER_00: Please do that because listen, number six, and finally, your destiny rests on your response to the light.
32:10
SPEAKER_00: Your whole destiny, John says, rests on your response to the light.
32:15
SPEAKER_00: A song we used to sing in my home a couple times a week, family devotions growing up.
32:20
SPEAKER_00: We don't sing it as often anymore, but it expresses it well.
32:23
SPEAKER_00: The whole world was lost in the darkness of sin.
32:26
SPEAKER_00: The light of the world is Jesus.
32:29
SPEAKER_00: Come to the light, tis shining for thee.
32:31
SPEAKER_00: Sweetly the light has dawned upon me.
32:34
SPEAKER_00: Once I was blind, but now I can see.
32:38
SPEAKER_00: The light of the world is Jesus.
32:41
SPEAKER_00: Sometime in your life you have to say, wow, not everyone is a child of God, apparently.
32:47
SPEAKER_00: That's the bad news of John 12.
32:49
SPEAKER_00: Not everyone is a child of God, only those who receive him, who believe on his name.
32:53
SPEAKER_00: Am I a child of God?
32:54
SPEAKER_00: Not everyone is a child of God.
32:55
SPEAKER_00: Have you ever asked yourself that?
32:57
SPEAKER_00: Am I a child of God?
32:58
SPEAKER_00: The good news is that if I receive the light, if I come to the light, if I respond to the light, then I become a child of God.
33:06
SPEAKER_00: Don't be afraid of that.
33:08
SPEAKER_00: Don't be afraid of that.
33:11
SPEAKER_00: A year or so ago, out of Afghanistan came this startling statement.
33:16
SPEAKER_00: I think it was Time magazine that had it up there.
33:18
SPEAKER_00: We've lived in darkness for so long, said Nasafaz, an Afghan woman.
33:24
SPEAKER_00: When asked, why do you and your friends continue to wear the burqa when it's no longer required here in Afghanistan?
33:30
SPEAKER_00: Now that you've been set free, she said, We've lived in darkness for so long that now we're afraid of the light.
33:37
unknown: Wow.
33:39
SPEAKER_00: Don't be afraid of the light.
33:42
SPEAKER_00: By the way, if you have any questions, Terry, Terry and his wife are gonna be up here afterwards to chat with.
33:48
SPEAKER_00: If you'd like to chat with someone about the light and about how to receive Jesus, come come and that's why the barkers are coming up.
33:55
SPEAKER_00: But listen, let me just share with you for just a moment that if you're not sure where you are in relationship to the light, then make that make that decision.
34:05
SPEAKER_00: Come to the light today.
34:07
SPEAKER_00: And you know, some of you, this may be rather new to you.
34:09
SPEAKER_00: I wouldn't shove you across the line or anything.
34:11
SPEAKER_00: I'm not gonna dropkick you through the goalpost of heaven.
34:14
SPEAKER_00: But I would say, do consider it, do think about this, ponder this, come to the light show, think more about it.
34:20
SPEAKER_00: And I know some of you will say, listen, I've come to the light, I've got the light, but I have a son, I have a daughter, I have a nephew, I have a niece, I have someone who's coming to my home for Christmas, I have parents, I have someone else who isn't there.
34:31
SPEAKER_00: They're still in the dark.
34:32
SPEAKER_00: Well, we'll pray for them.
34:35
SPEAKER_00: Because it's true they do need the light, don't they?
34:40
SPEAKER_00: It happened a couple of years ago over here on 15th in McVicar, close to the corner, not exactly uh there.
34:48
SPEAKER_00: Uh it wasn't on McVicar, it was on 15th.
34:50
SPEAKER_00: Two cars were traveling.
34:51
SPEAKER_00: They weren't going all that fast, but apparently they collided directly so violently that both cars were thrown completely off the road onto two opposite front lawns.
35:03
SPEAKER_00: And worse, uh, one of the guys was not wearing a seat belt and he was catapulted out of his out of uh out of his seat, onto the road, right onto the right onto the tarmac.
35:14
SPEAKER_00: No, and no nightlights, no light shining on that part of 15th.
35:18
SPEAKER_00: He was utterly in the black.
35:19
SPEAKER_00: He was in utter danger of getting run over.
35:22
SPEAKER_00: He was unconscious, in terrible danger of getting run over.
35:26
SPEAKER_00: And unfortunately, at that same time, a car had turned onto 15th from College Avenue and had and had passed by Jewel and passed by Place and was and was getting close and did not see the man lying in the road.
35:44
SPEAKER_00: I know because I was that driver.
35:47
SPEAKER_00: And with less than a hundred yards to go, actually closer to 50, all of a sudden, fortunately I was paying close attention.
35:54
SPEAKER_00: I suddenly saw this this man, my lights lit up, form of a man in the road.
36:01
SPEAKER_00: I jumped on my brakes, I skidded to a stop before I hit him.
36:06
SPEAKER_00: Immediately backed up, turned on my brights to highlight the scene, and started punching 911 into my phone.
36:13
SPEAKER_00: And at that point, a couple of doors banged because the crash had just happened, and a couple of neighbors were running out and seeing the man lying in the road as I was getting through.
36:22
SPEAKER_00: You know, you go through something as you have to you have to explain stuff on 911.
36:26
SPEAKER_00: By the time I got off the phone, they had carefully moved him off of the road.
36:31
SPEAKER_00: He he he was he turned out okay, but you know, he he could have died.
36:36
SPEAKER_00: He could have gotten run over.
36:38
SPEAKER_00: I I was shaking, my heart was running at twice the speed, you know, and I kept thinking, I could have, I could have killed somebody.
36:47
SPEAKER_00: Listen, I think that's a great metaphor for the for the reality that John is telling us today, which is that though your loved ones and your friends are lovable people and they're good citizens, and really they're good folks, the fact of the matter is that they're lying in the road, basically, spiritually, morally, they're unconscious, they're lying in the dark because the whole world lies in the dark.
37:06
SPEAKER_00: And what it desperately needs is it desperately needs light to shine upon it and a response to the light and to get out of the darkness.
37:14
SPEAKER_00: That's what it needs.
37:17
SPEAKER_00: And if you're there, maybe that's what you need.
37:20
SPEAKER_00: And we're gonna pray for you.
37:22
SPEAKER_00: Come and talk to us.
37:24
SPEAKER_00: But if it's a loved one of yours, then I urge you this Christmas season to pray for them, pray them into the light.
37:32
SPEAKER_00: Love them into the light, maybe bring them to the light show.
37:37
SPEAKER_00: Talk them into share with them so that they'll come to the light, right?
37:45
SPEAKER_00: Because that'll change everything.
37:47
SPEAKER_00: Because their response to the light determines their destiny.
37:53
SPEAKER_00: And then when they come to the light, we'll all sleep in heavenly peace, right?
37:56
SPEAKER_00: Let's pray.
37:57
SPEAKER_00: Heavenly Father, we thank you for this wonderful story out of John about your son Jesus Christ, the light coming into our dark world and changing everything for us.
38:07
SPEAKER_00: So, how we thank you for that.
38:09
SPEAKER_00: We pray for our loved ones, we pray for our friends who have yet to discover the light.
38:14
SPEAKER_00: Or somehow they think, oh, I'm not in the dark.
38:18
SPEAKER_00: We say, Yeah, yeah, basically, you are.
38:21
SPEAKER_00: Everybody is.
38:23
SPEAKER_00: And and this is something you really need, and Jesus will give it to you as a free gift.
38:29
SPEAKER_00: But they don't want a free gift.
38:31
SPEAKER_00: I I can't take a freebie, nothing's free.
38:33
SPEAKER_00: And you say, Yeah, this is.
38:34
SPEAKER_00: Well, it costs somebody something.
38:35
SPEAKER_00: You say, Yeah, it cost him his life.
38:38
SPEAKER_00: But it costs you nothing.
38:40
SPEAKER_00: Won't won't you won't you please respond to this Christmas gift, the Christmas light?
38:46
SPEAKER_00: Lord, we ask that through our loving them and through our sharing with them and through what they hear this Christmas, but our that our friends may, may, even though they have held off for years, may this Christmas turn to the light in Jesus' name.
39:00
SPEAKER_00: And for his sake we pray.
39:02
SPEAKER_00: Amen.