Spiritual Sunburst

MESSAGE TRANSCRIPTION: 

Well, good morning, everyone. It is so good to see you. I don’t know if I told you lately or not, but, man, this is a great-looking group of people. I’m telling you, Father, forgive me for I’ve seen sinned, but I’m teasing. You look great. You look fantastic. So glad that you’re here if you’re new around here. I’m Virgil Grant. I’m the senior pastor here at Eastside and also one of the leaders. We have about 150 leaders that lead all kinds of different ministries around here. The church is way too big for one person to lead it. We have a bunch of different leaders. And if you’re joining us today, we’re in the sermon series called The Magnificent Seven, and we’re looking at seven statements about Jesus. And they’re found all in the Gospel of John. These are not seven statements about the other people made about Jesus. These are the statements that Jesus made about himself. And so if you really want to understand who Jesus is, then you need to in these magical days leading up to Easter. I would just encourage you to come each week because we’re pulling out one statement each week from the Gospel of John, where Jesus, on seven different occasions, says that I am, and then we fill in the blank. And in fact, last week, if you remember, we looked at the phrase that Jesus said, I am the bread of life. And today, we’re in John chapter eight, and we’re looking at another statement from Jesus. And here’s what it says in John chapter eight, verse 12. Then Jesus spoke to them again, saying, I am the Lord of the world. He who follows me shall not walk in darkness but have a lot of life. So Jesus says, I am the light of the world. Now today’s message is entitled Spiritual Sunburst. Would you say that with me? Spiritual Sunburst. Now, I don’t know about you, but when a sunburst happens on a cloudy, cold day, there’s nothing like it. When the sun comes out from behind the clouds and all of a sudden, there’s a beam, a ray of sunshine that hits you. There’s nothing like it. Would you not agree with me? It’s just so warming. You want it to last for a long time, and then all of a sudden, there are more clouds, there’s more overcast. The sunburst is now hidden behind the cloud, the clouds. But when that sun comes out and you have the sunburst and that warmth that overwhelms your entire body, that describes Jesus to a tee. Now, someone, some scholar once upon a time, said, if you want to to to summarize the entire Bible, Bryan, you can summarize the entire Bible in four words. And when I was reading this, I thought it was interesting because here’s what he said. You can describe the entire Bible from darkness to light. Would you say that with me?

From darkness to light. 

Now, if you think about it, if you go back all the way to Genesis chapter one, and in the very beginning, we find in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form and void, and darkness was on the face of the deep. Next slide. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face, the waters. Then God said, What? Read it with me. Let there be light. And so, from darkness to light in the very beginning. And then we go to the Book of Revelation, where there’s going to be the perpetual light that’s going to last forever and ever. And we get to walk with God again. Notice what it says in the Book of Revelation. There shall be no, not there. So in heaven, there’s no, not there’s no darkness. There’s nothing. Because why? There’s no need for the lamp. Nor a lot of the sun for the Lord. God gives them light. And they shall reign forever and ever and ever. And folks, listen. You can summarize the entire Bible from darkness to light. And when you think about it in the very beginning, where there was all darkness and God transforms it into light, and then we get to the end of the Book of Revelation, where there’s perpetual light in between the beginning and the end. There’s something that begins to transpire. Then the thing that transpires there is the darkness of. Death continues to creep in year after year. The darkness of guilt keeps creeping in the darkness of shame. The darkness of despair. Of emptiness, of loneliness. The darkness that we cause by going in our own direction. And Jesus is God turning off the darkness in the world. Jesus is the God who’s turning off the darkness. And that is the story from Genesis to Revelation. That is the gospel of Jesus Christ. If you think about Christmas, my friends, what is Christmas? Christmas is nothing more than God turning off darkness but turning on the lights because there have been 400 years of silence, if you remember. And then, all of a sudden, there’s this announcement of a coming savior. He is born. And as he’s born, remember that there’s a dazzling light show that takes place bright. There’s something that happens. The wise men see the star, the shepherds tending to the flock. They see the light. And what does God do? I don’t know how the light appears, but here’s what I think. Just that maybe just happened because God owns it. All right? God is in charge of the Northern Lights. I think God just brought the northern lights right over the Middle East, and he goes, okay, I’m God. I was going to turn it on form for about a minute or so. And then this dazzling light shows there at the birth of Jesus Christ. Why? Because it announced the Ministry of Jesus from turning darkness into light. And then we read about Paul and his instructions to Timothy. And he talks about immortality and the luminosity of God. How do you like that big word? Luminosity of God? have to work on that word? It was so flowing here. Look at this with me, if you will. Oh, we have fun doing. He’s the only one who never does. There’s no beginning and no end to God. God is the eternal God. He lives in a lot so broad that no one can go near him. No one has ever seen God or can see Him. The invisible God. He wanted to make himself visible to us. And what did he do?

He sent his son Jesus Christ to be the visible image of the living God. And all power belongs to God. God is Lord. All the way through Scripture. Even in First John, Chapter one, it says this. God is what? Blood. And in him, there is no darkness at all. We just back up a couple of books and go to John. Chapter one. I love John. Well, he says we should just do a book study on that. But John, chapter one.

John 1:1-3 (NIV)

“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 all mankind. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.”

Folks, listen to me. God is Lord, but a lot is not. God understands That is that God is light, but it’s just not what he does is who he is. And so God is not less than light, but God is more than Lord. And we don’t say that a lot is God. Because if we said that, then we would believe in pantheism, and we don’t believe in that. And so we believe that God is Lord and where His light shines, darkness does not stand a chance, for light always wins. And all you have to do to drive out darkness is to turn on the light. And that is the reason why Eleanor Roosevelt said, Is it that the way that you get rid of darkness is not by yelling at it, The way that you get rid of darkness is by turning or lighting a candle. And folks here’s the thing that you need to understand for where there is light, there cannot be darkness, for darkness is simply the absence of light. Therefore, by definition, where a lot has been turned on, darkness has been turned off. We don’t need to turn off the darkness in our hearts. We just need to give our hearts to Jesus. And he becomes our light. And she, folks, this is the reason why we are seriously crazy. This is the reason why we have a bulldog attitude about pushing back darkness through our grand vision that we just call legacy makers. Where we believe that God has called us to be legacy makers and that God wants us to help to push back the darkness. And we don’t push back the darkness by fighting evil. We push back the darkness by helping more people like Paul find Jesus and step out of darkness and step into the light. And as we have more people like Paul, there’s more light in the community because there are more people who’ve been transformed by the saving power of Jesus Christ. And what is he sad about? He says his helping is all about. It’s helping as many people like Paul as we can to find their hope and their faith in Jesus Christ and not in the things of this world. So if we’re going to understand this statement that Jesus makes, that I’m the light of the world, whoever follows me should not walk in darkness but shall walk in the light. There are three things I want you to just write down very quickly this morning. The first thing I want you to do is to look at this passage. I want you to look at the metaphor.

 Metaphor.

Jesus is giving us a metaphor. Jesus is saying when he stands up and says, I am the light of the world. The easiest way for us to understand that Jesus is the light of the world is for you and I to think about the sunshine that shines down upon us. Because when you think about the sun, I want you to look at this phrase and tell me. I want you to leave this up for a while for them to copy this down. It says.

The sun gives us life, gives us vision, and gives us joy or happiness.

The Sun because Jesus has given us a metaphor. The sun gives us life. The sun gives us vision. And the sun gives us joy or happiness. The thing that you can do. You can cross out the U and write the letter O., And it’s the same thing. It’s a metaphor. It’s a parallel. When we look at the physical star of the sun, the sun helps us to understand who Jesus Christ is. Let me see if I can help you to understand this. Is that you? I think that you understand this is that if we do not have the star, the sun, then we do not exist on earth. Does everybody understand that? Right? Like if the sun is one degree closer, something happens. If it’s one degree away from us, something happens, right? I mean. I mean, without the sun, we are toast. We’re done. We’re cooked. Put a fork in us. We’re out of here. Right. And you understand that if the sun stayed behind the clouds for an extended period of time. We’re toast as well. Because if you think about everything on earth, all the trees, all the plants, all the flowers, all the moss, what do they do? Is that what they grow? They stretch up towards the heavens, towards the sun. Because why? They derive their energy from the sun as they reach in towards the sun, and they get energy, and they do something. I don’t know what they do, but then they give us oxygen, and we get to live. That’s all I know. And so that’s a pretty good thing. And so, just as we look at this, the sun that gives us life. Jesus is saying, I’m the light of the world. And what you need to understand is that you’re totally dependent on me. Just like the earth is totally dependent on the sun for life. Is that as you follow me, then you’re totally dependent on me. Because I am your life. And Paul understands that. Paul understands that in order for him to stay sober, he has to depend on God for everything. Amen. Amen. And so here’s the thing. So. So here’s the metaphor, is that the sun gives us life, but the sun also gives us vision. Now, if I’m driving down the road just in my truck, there are two ways I can discover if there’s a wall out there, right, Drew? I can see the wall, or I can run into the wall with my truck, right? And once I run into it, I will know that there is a wall in front of me. But because of the light, we can actually see color, and we can actually have a vision. Now, here’s the thing that you need to understand, and I’m just going to read this for you because it’s highly complicated, but you understand that as the sun is hitting my Bible, hitting the surface, it’s going to my eye. And I am seeing a lot that’s reflected from the surface that’s going into my eye. That’s causing me to see a certain color. And so the light hits this Bible. It goes into my retina. It’s a perpetual bank chart that’s going on. That’s how we see. And when the light goes into my pupil here, it gets focused in the inner lens, and it gets beamed into the rear wall of my eye. Into your other is called the retina. And this is a surface covered in millions of photoreceptors. These are called rods and cones, and they take the information to the optic nerve, to your brain for constant processing in real-time; hoping that you understood that. Okay. I mean, this is what’s going on. And so when we see, for example, the color red, we’re not actually. This block is not really red. Now, no, this is like blowing some of your minds. And it’s okay. You can just do the research yourself, and you can decide for yourself. But what’s happening is as light is hitting this block. This blog is actually absorbing every single color except red. It is actually deflecting red off of the block. And as a result of that, the block appears to be red. In reality, it’s not. And it’s the same for all of these other colors. It’s just an illusion that we have because of what it is that color only exists in our minds. Now, if I asked the tag team and tag team, I’m not asking you to do this, so please don’t do it. If I asked the tech team to take everything in the room dark, this block would no longer be red. It would be black. And the reason why it would be black is because there is no light that’s hitting the block. And it’s not absorbing any of the light or any of the other colors and deflecting one. And so, as an issue, if we went dark, this would become black, this would become black, everything would become black. Because light is what gives us vision, and it helps us to see. And so this is the same thing for Jesus. What does Jesus do as you follow him? What does He do? He gives you a vision of how to live your life. But notice the last part. And the sun also gives us joy and happiness. Now, we know that many of you right now, at this point in your life, because of the season that we’re in, many of you, you have a vitamin D deficiency. And what is it? Vitamin D deficiency is the lack of what? sunshine And some of you, you’ll go on social media and go, hey, in ten days or in two weeks or in three weeks or in 65 days, I’m going to be getting my vitamin D on. And what are we talking about? We’re talking about you going and getting some sunshine, being at the beach. And we know that when we get sun rays on our body, it provides us with some joy and some happiness. And we know that people who live at the North Pole, the South Pole, who gets very little light, very little sunshine. That their level of depression and despair. Despair is a lot higher than anywhere else, and we know that. So Jesus says, I’m the light of the world. He’s giving us a metaphor for helping us to understand just as the sun gives us life, it gives us vision, joy, and happiness. This is what Jesus does as well. Is that helpful at all? The metaphor. Okay, good. Let me give you the second phrase I want you to write down. I want you to write it down.

The magnitude of the moment. 

Because when Jesus spoke these words, it was in context. And the scholars will tell you when I say they what I’m talking about; scholars would tell you the context is king. So when you’re studying a passage from the Bible, you have to understand the context. And when Jesus spoke these words, there was something specific that was happening in the Jewish calendar, and in the Jewish calendar, there would be holidays, and there’d be festivals and be celebrations that the nation of Israel and the Jews would celebrate together. And on this particular occasion, as they’re celebrating, they’re celebrating the Festival of Tabernacle. Now, what is the Festival of Tabernacle? It was an annual holiday or festival that the nation of Israel observed. And the reason why they observed it, Drew, was to do to remind their people about God’s faithfulness during the desert, during the wandering around for 40 years, and how God provided for them water out of the rock. And so what they would do is that they were living in homes now that they had built that settled down. But on the Festival of Tabernacle, what they would do is they would move out of their homes for a period of time, and they would build these little huts and little lean-tos if you will, that they would live in for a season, remind them of. The wandering are there for fathers, for fathers. And some of them would do it on top of the roof. Some of it. Some of them would do it in the front yard. Some people lived in town. So they went to like a little RV park, and they built these huts, and they lived in there. And they just reflected on the promises and the faithfulness of God over 40 years period of time. And the kids would bellyache, as you can imagine. Hey, I don’t have my PlayStation. There’s no Internet. You know, And the parents are going, you little ungrateful snot. You are for fathers. They didn’t even have a home to live in. And you’re bellyaching about no Internet, you know, whatever it may be. But for our purposes, what we need to understand about the entire Festival of Tabernacle is there were gigantic golden candelabras that were utilized in the festival. And I would talk to you a little bit about that because you understand I couldn’t really find a proper picture to show you the temple. But you understand that the temple was broken out into different segments like the churches. Today, we have different segments. We have, you know, birth through four-year-olds over here. We have, you know, you know, pre-K through third grade. Over here, we have for the fifth graders upstairs, and we’ve got two offices, and we got the churches divided. The same thing happened for the Tabernacle and then the temple of the Tabernacle. There was the court of the women, and then there were the courts of the Gentiles. And so the Gentiles could only come this far. The courts of the women, any Jewish woman could come into. Then there was the court of Jewish men, for just simplicity’s sake. And then there was the court where the priests could go. And then, there was an area called the Holy of Holies, where the high priests could go in. How often? One time a year. Right. And he would go into the holy of holies and remember that when he went into the holy of holies, remember, what would happen is that they would put bells on his robe and they would do what? Tie a rope around his ankle? Now, why would they do that? Because you remember that the pre the high priest went into the holy of holies, and he had any unconfessed sin in his life. What would God do to somebody? Tell me, what would God do? What would kill him on the spot? Now, who’s going to go in and rescue him if he died on the spot? Nobody else is going in there. You know, they talked about the most dangerous jobs in the world. They talk about commercial fishermen and lumberjacks. I think maybe the most dangerous job of all is going into the holy of holies. I don’t know about you, but I mean, it seems pretty serious. But they would drag him out if he got killed. And so here we are is that we are in this place that is called the Court of Women. It was a common area. It was a place where they had big golden candelabras where they would have the treasury. And it was often referred to as the Treasury area. And so they had these big, gigantic candelabras. They would come to the last night of the Feast of the Tabernacle. And what they would do, they would actually light all of these big golden candelabras that were in the Treasury area. And here’s what William Barclay said of this, the brilliance of the lot. He says.

“They sent such a blaze of light throughout Jerusalem that every courtyard was lit up with their brilliance.”

William Barclay

And so the candelabras were so broad that they just illuminated the entire area. Then all the individuals who were celebrating this would take their individual torches. They would light their torches. They would begin to wave them around. They would begin to sing and dance and praise the Lord until the rooster crowed. And guess where Jesus states the words or declares the words that I am the light of the world. What do you think he does that you don’t take a guess in the Treasury area? Look with me at John Chapter eight, verse 20. These words Jesus spoke in the treasury as he taught in the temple. Now I challenge you to go and read the last part of John, Chapter seven, and read the first part of John, Chapter eight. And what you discover is that you will discover that the candelabras had already extinguished the torches has already been extinguished. The rooster has already crowed. The party is all over, and Jesus stands up early the next morning as all the light has been extinguished. The celebration is over with, and he stands up and he says, I am the Lord of the world. You do not have to walk in darkness any longer. You do not have to walk in emptiness any longer. You do not have to walk through life with no meaning. You don’t have to walk through life wondering if you’re going to make it to heaven or not. You don’t have to walk through this life with no joy or purpose because I give abundant life. And folks, this is where Jesus declared the statement that I am the light of the world. When all the candelabras had been extinguished, all the torches had been extinguished. The rooster has crowed. The party was over. And Jesus just says, All of that is temporary. But I am the eternal Lord of God. Doesn’t that change the entire story when you understand the magnitude of the moment? So we have the metaphor. We have the magnitude of the moment. But in John chapter eight, verse 12, we find one more thing and notice what he says. He says.

 John 8:12 (nkjv)

“I am the light of the world. He who follows Me shall not walk in darkness, but have the light of life.”

Folks Being a believer of Jesus means that we have to follow Him. When you receive Jesus as your Lord and Savior, when you invite them into your heart, what you’re saying is that you’re going to follow him all the days of your life and see folks. The third thing I want you to write down is that this is our

Mission. 

If we decide to accept it, our mission is to follow Jesus. It’s not even negotiable. It’s non-negotiable. It is a requirement of those who believe in Jesus Christ. If you put your faith in Jesus, then your mission, you have to accept it. If you don’t, there’s it’s another whole sermon. But. But your mission is to follow him and to take up your cross daily. And to follow him. That is your mission. That is my mission. That’s the mission of this church. I think the reason why God is a blessing, Eastside, is because we keep saying Yes, Lord. Yes, Lord. Whatever you want us to do, we’re going to follow you. It doesn’t matter if it makes sense. It doesn’t matter what other people think. We’re going to follow you because that is the mission that you’ve given to us. And folks, we follow Jesus because Jesus was able to do for us what we could not do for ourselves, and that is to live a perfect life and to go to the cross and die on the cross for my sin and for your sin. See, folks, some of you, you’re walking around this morning. You’re walking around in this new week. And you’ve got emptiness. You’ve got loneliness. You’ve got lawlessness. You have no purpose, no meaning. There’s no contentment. There’s no peace. There is nothing in your life except turmoil. And I’ve got good news for you is that you can give all of that up this morning, and you can find a peace that will pass all understanding if you place your faith in Jesus Christ this morning. Because Jesus Christ, whether you believe it or not, he’s standing at the door of your heart, and he’s knocking on the door of your heart, and he’s asking you to let him in. He’s a gentleman. He’s not going to force himself upon you. He’s waiting for you to open the door of your heart. And if you open the door of your heart, he will come in and listen to my friends. What will he give you? He will give you peace. Days of your life here on earth. He will raise all of your sins. He will write your name in the Lamb’s Book of Life. He will give you a brand new start. He will give you hope. He will give you purpose. He will give you meaning. He will give you the assurance that nobody can snatch you from his hands. He will give you eternal security. But, my friends, you have to do your part. You have to be willing to say, Yes, Lord, I open my heart, Lord, come into my life. Today is your day of salvation. This is the moment. That God has been orchestrating everything for is for you to be here this morning and for you to receive his son as your Lord and savior. I’m just going to ask you, would you pray with me, please, Father, as we are praying? Every head is bowed. We want to thank you for this opportunity this morning. Just to. Extend. To those who need a fresh start, the opportunity to receive Christ as a Lord and Savior. And father, I believe that many of us are drawn here for this moment. And the reason that they’ve been drawn here is because God loves them. God wants to save them. God wants to know them, and he wants them to know him. And I understand that for many this morning, that has to cheer that they didn’t come with the ideal or the concept or the that they were going to receive Christ. But you know that today’s your day. And this morning, in the early service, we had two people who raised their hand to receive press. We had ten last week. They talked about, I believe, they were going to have more in this service. And how do we know that? Where to in the first service and ten last? We can’t. It’s really simple. He said I’m going to lead you in a prayer in a moment for you to talk Jesus into your heart, to let Jesus into your life. And I just want to make sure that I include you in the prayer that we’re going to pray and the way that I make sure that includes you in the prayer. Is that? I ask you to just raise your hand in a moment when I ask you to raise your hand, and you say, pastor, I want to be included in the prayer. I want to open my heart to Jesus. I want him to come in to save me. Give me eternal life. Write my name in the book of heaven. I’m ready for that. This is the moment. In history. That is your moment. For you to step out of the darkness and embrace the light. And so this morning. If you’re here. And you know that God is knocking on the door of your heart. And, you know. This is your moment, and even though you don’t fully understand it, you’re ready to step out of darkness and start living in the light. You are to be included in the prayer. I just want you to do me a favor. I want you to be brave. I want you to raise your hand really high. One. To. Three. For. Five. Seeing anybody on the balcony muttering that. Anyone. Six. Seven. And here’s what I’m going to ask you to do. I want to ask everyone in attendance this morning to look at the screen. I want you to just read this out loud, but especially the seven that raise their hand. I want you to just read this, and this is how you open your heart to Jesus, and this is how you invite them in. Just read it with me.

Dear God, I know I’m a sinner. I cannot fix myself. Please come into my heart. Forgive me of my sins. Made me new. I believe Jesus died for me and rose from the dead. Thank you for new life. I give you mine. Amen. 

Can we welcome these seven people into the kingdom? Of God this morning. And friends, just as we’re celebrating here in this physical location, people are celebrating one. I just want to say something to you that heaven is celebrating. The angels are celebrating Because why? Because in the book of Colossians, it talks about how when life invites Jesus into their heart, they are transformed from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of light. There’s been another Soul that has been rescued from the clutches of hell and the devil himself. And now your name is written in the Book of Heaven and Friends. That is worth celebrating. That is worth giving God the glory.