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Good morning my brothers and sisters in Christ. Grace and peace be unto you from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ. Welcome to the corporate worship of our God. Please stand and hear God call you to worship through his word.
Praise the Lord. Praise God in his sanctuary. Praise him in his mighty firmament. Praise him for his mighty acts. Praise him according to his excellent greatness. Praise him with the sound of the trumpet.
Praise him with lute and harp. Praise him with timbrel and dance. Praise him with stringed instruments and flutes. Praise him with loud cymbals. Praise him with clashing cymbals. Let everything that has breath praise the Lord.
Praise the Lord. Let us pray. Oh Lord our Lord how majestic is your name in all the earth. You have made the heavens and the earth by your great power and outstretched arm. Your invisible attributes your eternal power and divine nature are clearly seen through what you have made.
The heavens declare your glory. We praise you for your providence. You are the governor and sustainer of all things. In you all things hold together. In you we live and move and have our being. You give to all life and breath and all things.
You work all things after the counsel of your own will. You have numbered even the hairs upon our heads and not even a sparrow falls from a tree apart from your will. We praise you our God for these your great works of creation and providence.
But above all we praise you for redemption. There is no other God besides you no other Savior no other rock to whom the ends of the earth may turn and be saved. We rejoice that you so love the world that you gave your only begotten son the Lord Jesus Christ to be the Savior of the world and gave your spirit to abide within with us and within us and teach us all things.
May we have fellowship with you Father, Son and Holy Spirit. We ask all these things in Jesus' name. Amen. Please kneel as you are able for the corporate confession of sin. Let us join together in confessing our sins.
Almighty and most merciful Father, we are thankful that you are wider than our wanderings, deeper than our sin. Forgive our careless attitudes towards what our purpose is, our refusal to leave the suffering of others, our envy of those who have more than we have, our obsession with creating a life of constant pleasure,.
Our indifference to the treasures of heaven. I reflect with your wise and gracious love. What.
You love and do what you command through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. Please stand and receive these words of comfort in our assurance of pardon. Seek the Lord while he may be found. Call upon him while he is near.
Let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts. Let him return to the Lord and he will have mercy on him and to our God for he will abundantly pardon. For my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways, says the Lord.
For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts. My brothers and sisters in Christ, sing, shout, rejoice. Your sins are forgiven in Christ.
Amen. Please take up the trinity hymnal and turn to hymn 94, How Firm a Foundation, hymn 94. Please take up the insert and look for our Psalm of the Week, Psalm 73, Yes God is good to Israel,.
Psalm 73. The tune is the tune to faith of our fathers, Psalm 73. Amen. Please remain.
Standing for our reading from God's word from Genesis 5, the book of Genesis chapter 5.
This is the book of the generations of Adam. In the day that God created man, in the likeness of God made he him. Male and female created he them and blessed them and called their name Adam, in the day when they were created.
And Adam lived 130 years and begat a son in his own likeness and after his image and called his name Seth. And the days of Adam after he had begotten Seth were 800 years and he begat sons and daughters.
And all the days that Adam lived were 930 years and he died. And Seth lived 105 years and begat Enos. And Seth lived after he begat Enos 807 years and begat sons and daughters. And all the days of Seth were 912 years and he died.
And Enos lived 900 years and begat Canaan. And Enos lived after he begat Canaan 815 years and begat sons and daughters. And all the days of Enos were 905 years and he died. And Canaan lived 70 years and begat Mahalaliol.
And Canaan lived after he begat Mahalaliol 840 years and begat sons and daughters. And all the days of Canaan were 910 years and he died. And Mahalaliol lived 60 and 5 years and begat Jared. And Mahalaliol lived after he begat Jared 830 years and begat sons and daughters.
And all the days of Mahalaliol were 890 and 5 years and he died. And Jared lived 160 and 2 years and begat Enoch. And Jared lived after he begat Enoch 800 years and begat sons and daughters. And all the days of Jared were 960 and 2 years and he died.
And Enoch lived 60 and 5 years and begat Methuselah. And Enoch walked with God after he begat Methuselah 300 years and begat sons and daughters. And all the days of Enoch were 360 and 5 years. And Enoch walked with God and he was not for God took him.
And Methuselah lived 180 and 7 years and begat Lamech. And Methuselah lived after he begat Lamech 780 and 2 years and begat sons and daughters. And all the days of Methuselah were 960 and 9 years and he died.
And Lamech lived 180 and 2 years and begat a son. And he called his name Noah saying, this same shall comfort us concerning our work and toil of our hands because of the ground which the Lord hath cursed.
And Lamech lived after he begat Noah 590 and 5 years and begat sons and daughters. And all the days of Lamech were 770 and 7 years and he died. And Noah was 500 years old. And Noah begat Shem, Ham, and Japheth.
This is the word of the Lord.
Thanks be to God.
Well, let us continue our worship by confessing our common Christian faith in the singing of the Apostles Creed. Amen. Please be seated. I'd like to ask Pastor Breno and the Lemke family to come up front.
And as they're making their way up front, I'd like to ask you all to look for the insert that is labeled covenant baptism vows.
You guys stay for just a minute.
This is a glorious occasion to baptize a covenant child into communion with the people of God, Christ, and his church. And one of the things I was thinking about last evening and early this morning was how are godly seed produced?
God desires godly seed. And it seems that the way he does this is he unites a Christian man and a Christian woman together in a covenant of marriage, a serious commitment to Christ and to one another.
And they have children and they cling to the precious promises that God would be God to them and their children. And they bring them to the church and they get them baptized and they instruct them in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.
This is how the ordinary way God accomplishes his goal of having godly seed. The sacrament of baptism is administered by the church in obedience to the command of Christ that the nation should be converted, baptized and taught all that Christ has commanded.
Baptism represents and seals our union with Christ. The outpouring of the Holy Spirit and resulting regeneration, adoption and cleansing from sin. By baptism, we are admitted into the covenant community and made members of the body of Christ.
There's a lot of biblical revelation that happens in scripture, but there is a unifying and singular covenant of grace. Abraham had the gospel preached to him. He believed God. His faith was reckoned to him as righteousness.
He entered into a covenant with God signified by the sign of circumcision. Yet he was commanded to apply the sign of his adult faith to his infant child and all infant children thereafter. Why? Because of God's promise, Genesis 17, I will be a God to you and to your children.
The saving purposes of God include the children of believers because he is their God as well as their parents. The children also receive the sign of the covenant and are admitted into the covenant community.
When we come to the New Testament, no new principle is introduced. Children are not now excluded from the covenant community. Rather, in an era which we rightly speak of a greater covenant with better promises, children have not a reduced but a more privileged status.
At Pentecost, in the delivery of the first Christian sermon, Peter said, For the promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off, as many as the Lord our God shall call to himself. Now, brethren, this occasion isn't just a special day for the Lemke family.
Let all who are here present be reminded of their own baptisms, of God's grace confirmed, of the privileges of the covenant into which they entered, to which you have entered, and of your responsibility to live holy lives and to serve God with thanksgiving.
Let the parents here especially be charged not to neglect the means of grace. Be sure that you provide a godly example that you pray with and for your child, that you instruct Mary Elizabeth in the word of God, and that you make use of the catechisms of the church and you bring her weekly to the public worship of the church.
I'm going to ask you now to pray with me. O Lord, we rejoice. We give thanks to you for the gift of this child and for your covenant promises. We pray that you would grant the inward reality that corresponds to the outward washing, that this child will be received into the protection and care of Jesus Christ and his church, that even as he has been the God of the child's parents, that the Lord would be the child's God as well, that the child would be granted the gift of the Holy Spirit, that her heart would be renewed and regenerated, that she would grow up never knowing a day apart from Christ, like John filled with the Holy Spirit from the womb, like David, trusting God while still a nursing infant.
O Lord, we pray that you would bring this to pass, not only for Mary Elizabeth, but for all of our children who are here and all that will be born. We ask all this in Jesus' name. Amen. I'm now going to ask the Limpkins to come.
The congregation, as you will look inside your bulletins, you're going to see we have.
Mitchell and questions. Do you acknowledge your child's need of the cleansing blood of Jesus and renewing grace of the Holy Spirit? Do you trust in God's covenant promises on their behalf? And do you look in faith to the Lord Jesus Christ for their salvation as you do your own?
Do you unreservedly dedicate your child to God and promise in humble reliance upon his divine grace that you will endeavor to set before them Christ and his gospel, provide a godly example, that you will pray with and for them, that you will teach them the doctrines of our holy faith, that you will strive by all the means of God's appointment to bring them up in the nurture and.
Admonition of the congregation. You, as a church body, undertake the responsibilities to nurture.
What is the Christian? Mary Elizabeth Limpkins. I baptize you in the name of the Father.
And of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Let us pray. Praising almighty God for his sovereign grace in Christ Jesus, praying that the Lord will guide and protect this child, that she will grow daily in the love and knowledge of Christ, that she will serve God all her days and live for his whole his glory, that she or rather her that her parents shall with will show wisdom, discernment, diligence as they seek to rear her in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, that she will live so as to be a credit to her family and church.
We ask all these things in the name of Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen. Please take up the trinity hymnal once more and open to hymn 441, Jesus shall reign. Please stand. Hymn 444, Jesus shall reign. Amen.
Please now make preparations for the prayers of the people. And Jesus said, after this manner therefore pray ye. Our Father which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. And lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever.
Amen. Pray that we may glorify God in all that we do as we live and work in the creation that displays.
His power and be pleased to dispose all things to his own glory. Pray that Satan's kingdom may be.
Destroyed and the kingdom of grace may be advanced. Ourselves and others brought into it and kept in.
And the kingdom of glory hastens. Pray that God for Christ's sake would freely pardon all our sins.
And we are encouraged to ask this because by his grace we are able from the heart to forgive others. Pray that God would either keep us from being tempted to sin or support and deliver us when we.
Are tempted. Our Father taking encouragement and prayer from you alone in our prayers we praise you.
Ascribing kingdom power and glory to you and to testify of our desire and assurance to be heard we say together amen. Please stand and take up the insert once again and look for our Psalm of the.
Month. It is from Psalm 122. Oh, it was a joyful sound to hear. Psalm 122. Amen. Please turn in your.
Bibles to the first epistle of John in chapter one. I'm going to read all 10 verses of the chapter. This is God's holy and infallible word. That which was from the beginning which we have heard which we have seen with our eyes which we have looked upon in our hands have handled of the word of life.
For the life was manifested and we have seen it and bear witness and show unto you that eternal life which was with the father and was manifested unto us. That which we have seen and heard we declare to you that you may also have fellowship with us and truly our fellowship is with the father and with his son Jesus Christ and these things write we unto you that your joy may be full.
This then is the message which we have heard of him and declare unto you that God is light and in him is no darkness at all. If we say that we have fellowship with him and walk in darkness we lie and do not the truth but if we walk in the light as he is in the light we have fellowship with one another and the blood of Jesus Christ his son cleanseth us from all sin.
If we say that we have no sin we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say that we have not sinned we make him a liar and his word is not in us.
May the Lord be pleased with our consideration of his most excellent word. Please pray with me. Oh Lord we know that you dwell in unapproachable light and we ask oh Lord that you would grant us the faculty to walk in your light to live as Christians in a thorough and comprehensive way that the entirety of our lives would bear the reflection of the light and glory of your grace.
We ask all this in Jesus name. Amen. Please be seated. Today we will be considering verses five through seven of this first chapter in first John and for those of you who are in need of an outline I have three divisions for you.
The first is the perfections of God. God is light. The perfections of God. Second the necessity of gospel transformation. The necessity of gospel transformation. And finally Jesus is the light of the world and his gospel light cleanses us from all sin.
Really quickly again. The perfections of God. God is light. To the necessity of a gospel transformation. And third Jesus is the light of the world. His gospel light cleanses us from all sin. It's been a couple weeks since we've been in first John so I want to remind you of the very grand way that John introduces his epistle.
As an eyewitness, as an apostle, as a band of apostles he says that which was from the beginning referring to Christ, declaring Jesus Christ to be the second person of the trinity, the agent of creation.
It is a grand entrance into the epistle. He said we have heard from him, we've seen with our eyes, we've looked upon him, we've handled him concerning the word of life. This life Jesus was manifested and we have seen it and bear witness and show you that eternal life which was with the father and was manifested unto us.
That which we have seen he says and heard we proclaim, declare, preach to you that you may have fellowship with us and truly our fellowship is with the father and with his son Jesus Christ. And children I want you to look very closely at verse four.
John's purpose is that you would experience as the Christian the fullness of joy. We write these things that your joy may be full. Let's consider verse five. This is the message. This is the grand announcement.
This is the precept that you must lay hold of. This is the message that we preach. This is the message we declare to you that God is light. And in him is no darkness at all. There's a message. It's an announcement.
It's a proclamation. It's the revelation of Jesus Christ. The apostle says that we have heard and all of his people have heard his voice, his sheep hear his voice. We have comprehended by hearing. We have heard God's voice to the point in which it prompts him to grant us birth in faith within in Christ that we would believe upon Jesus Christ that we would believe in him as our only savior.
This is the grand message. And then he gives us this incredible declaration about the perfection of who God is, that God is light. The light of God is the manifestation of God's self-existent life. That follows nicely with our Sunday school lesson this morning.
Self-existence. The God of aseity. We can't go back any further. He exists in himself. And this light is the divine illumination that reveals and imparts life through Jesus Christ. So the argumentation is incredible from John here.
He says, the man who we know as Jesus is the second person of the Trinity. And in fact, he's the agent of creation. He is the embodiment corporeally of the divine wisdom of God. And this one has come to bring light and truth and holiness and purity and salvation to his people.
God is light. And what is amazing to think about is that in this, the consummate majesty of this principle is inaccessible to human comprehension. What an amazing thing to consider. He dwells in unapproachable light.
But now, with the revelation of Jesus Christ, that which is inaccessible, that majesty which is beyond human comprehension, has now been accessible, made so by Christ, and comprehensible in Christ. The glory that would burn our retinas out, the people of God can stand in that presence because of the mediation of Christ.
This is a spectacular thing that has happened. Men can now approach the bright, shining, holy light of God in Christ. This idea of light is also used of that heavenly state, free from every imperfection to which the true disciples of Christ will be exalted.
Colossians 1 .12 says, We give thanks unto the Father which has made us to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in the light. We have to ask the question, what is this biblical doctrine of light?
He's saying something that there seems to be a knowledge, a background, an understanding for among the people who are the recipients of this letter. Genesis begins in chapter 1, verse 3, Let there be light, and there was light, and God saw the light that it was good, and God divided the light from the darkness.
Now, I want to point out something here to you that will have some significance later, and we have a couple of messages referring to the light in chapter 2 that will be coming, but I'm going to introduce this idea now.
The light that is here described is not the light from the sun. This is the light that proceeds from God. On the last day, in the consummation of the kingdom, there's going to be no need of sun or stars because his light's going to shine.
So he, before there's a sun and before the calendar of time, a six day creation starts, there's light proceeding from God. There's a period of history, and it's going to reach its end, and its important middle is the Lord Jesus Christ, the light of the world.
At the end of the period of history, there's going to be no need of sun or stars because the glory of God is going to shine about his people. God is light. When we get to verse 16, he creates the natural order of things.
He creates two great lights, the greater light to rule the day, the sun, the lesser light to rule the night, the stars. So there's three ways I want us to think about this biblical doctrine of light. First, light proceeds from God, first and foremost, and from natural sources that he created.
Second, and here's where the physical and the spiritual begin to begin to be integrated. Light illumines that which would otherwise be in darkness. Light illumines that which would be otherwise in darkness.
And then third, light is critical to life, not only physical life on the planet, but to spiritual life in Christ. Light comes from God, it proceeds from God. There are three theophanies that I want to point out to you, and this is going to have some importance to us at the end of the message.
The first is, of course, the burning bush in Exodus chapter three. There is a bush that burns and shines, but it is not consumed. And the mouth, the voice, I should say, of God proceeds from it and talks with Moses.
The burning bush, and these theophanies, these appearances of God, pre-incarnate Christ, are accompanied by light. Next, and this is going to be very important at the end of our message today, the pillar of fire in the wilderness in Exodus 13.
Light comes from God. The people of God followed the pillar of fire. It was the presence of God typified and shown and revealed in this theophany of a pillar of fire at night, supplying both light and heat.
And third, the glory at that meeting place where God hid Moses in the cleft of the rock in Exodus 33. You can only see the backside of God's glory. He has to cover his face to his glory. His brightness, his shining, is another picture of this radiant light that proceeds from God.
There are over 300 uses in the Old Testament of light and 100 in direct relation to this idea in 1 John that God is light. The next principle of light, again, we're trying to understand this biblical doctrine of light, is that light illumines that which would otherwise be dark.
The light shines in the darkness. You go to your house tonight and you flip the light switch. Your room was dark. When you flip the switch on, light permeates and fills the room. The darkness is obliterated.
It's pushed out. It enables people to see not only physically, but spiritually. The light reveals hidden things. It shows us the way to go. Psalm 43, Psalm 119. Conversely, when light is withheld, people are unable to see.
Deuteronomy 28, they're cursed. Hidden things are not revealed. Job 24, people stumble around in the darkness. They do not know which way to go. Psalm 82, and maybe most profound in this illustration from Exodus 10, sometimes God shines light in one place and not another.
Sometimes he withholds it. I want you to think about this for a minute. We generally think of light as being the absence of darkness, but sometimes, can you imagine positively God imposing darkness? How great that darkness must be.
It's not just the absence of light. It's the imposition of God, darkness upon the wicked and the reprobate. You'll remember in Exodus 10 that he sent a plague of darkness onto the Egyptians. At the same time, he supplied light to the Hebrews.
In the Egyptian dwellings, they couldn't trim any lamps, they couldn't light any fires, they couldn't light any torches, but the children of God, the children of Israel, had light in their dwellings. God concealed his light to one and shows it, reveals it to another.
Children, some of you have studied the idea of photosynthesis, how plants take sunlight and CO2 and water and soil and nutrients and nitrogen and they grow. Light is obviously critical to life. Plant, animal, human life cannot be sustainable without it.
Can you imagine if the sun went out today? One of you homeschooled children could maybe calculate how long would it take if the sun just turned off? We'd freeze to death in a very short period of time.
This broad God is light designation seems to be revealed in these three categories. The presence of God is light because light proceeds from him. Spiritual illumination is light from God. If there be spiritual illumination, it means God has shown his light upon a sinner.
Third, righteous living is light from God. God is both the source and sender of light. It's even embedded in the Aaronic blessing, isn't it? The Lord bless thee and keep thee. The Lord make his face shine upon you and be gracious to you.
The Lord lift up his countenance upon you and grant you peace. God is light. He's the source of light. He possesses it within himself. And conversely, in him, look at our text again, is no darkness at all.
He is thrice holy. Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts. The whole earth is filled with his glory. There is no unrighteousness in him. He is light. There can be no darkness in him. In the scripture in the New Testament, it refers primarily, it seems to spiritual darkness and spiritual darkness is ignorance of divine things.
And if you're ignorant of divine things and the light of the glory and gospel of Jesus Christ does not shine upon you, then there is a wickedness that accompanies it. John chapter three, probably the most famous chapter in the Bible, well known.
Jesus says, and this is the condemnation that light has come into the world. But men have loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil. Paul in the great description of the church of Jesus Christ in the book of Ephesians says, for you were once darkness, Ephesians five.
But now you are light in the Lord. We have been conveyed from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of light in Christ. Walk as children of light. The fruit of this spirit is in all goodness, righteousness and truth.
Finding out what is acceptable to the Lord and have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather expose them. For it is shameful even to speak of those things which are done by them in secret, but all things that are exposed are made manifest by the light for whatever makes manifest is light.
Therefore, he says, awake you who sleep. Arise from the dead. And Christ will give you light. Hebrews chapter four. It says there is no creature hidden from his sight, but all things are naked and open to the eyes of him of whom we must give account.
I want to pause here for just a moment. We're in that section now where we're talking about the the transformative power of the gospel to change lives. But there's something that I have to ask us. Why are we so dull about this particular thing?
We hide and conceal our sin from one another, but it's all laid bare before Christ. It's it's a ridiculous thing. Many years ago, my daughter Susanna was a little baby and I don't remember the offense, but she was under two years old.
And I remember I was looking for her to charge her with the crime. And she was standing behind a post like the one that's here by Mr. Lemke. And she was hiding from me, but her little rear end was poking out from the bottom.
I could see her diaper. I can see the bloomers. I can see she's right there. The folly of a little girl who's hiding from her parents in her sin, it's not a big sin, a little sin, but the folly of it.
But that's what we do. We pretend that the God of light doesn't see. And he sees it all. So we have to live as the children of light who are willing to have our lives exposed because they already are.
And God, in his mercy and love with all of those secrets, he loves us and bids us to come and draw near to him. This light is so filled with truth and love and purity and holiness. It conquers the darkness in human souls.
We have to let the light of Christ shine in our lives, be honest about our sin and confess it, knowing that we are accepted in the beloved, knowing that we have a savior who is Christ, the Lord, who will forgive us.
We need to take responsibility for our sin and shine the bright light of God and his truth and his holiness in our lives and and reveal it and repent of it, knowing we have salvation and the one who's come to be the light of men.
We need not fear coming to our God as sinners. He has made provision for that in Christ. With that in mind, we have to acknowledge in the most basic sense, light and darkness are antithetical to one another.
God is light and there is no darkness in him. Since this is true, it requires attentiveness and action on our part. If we say we have fellowship with him and walk in darkness, we lie and do not the truth to have fellowship with him and walking in darkness is completely incompatible.
Walking in ignorance of the divine personage of God is revealed in Christ. It denies that the salvation that can only be found in Christ. It fails to recognize that Christ is the light of the world and has revealed salvation in himself.
It it makes men recipients of his salvation by virtue of their union with him. The efficacy of his sacrifice. The wonders of his grace, the new nature that results, the transformation that occurs if a man has had the light of God and Christ has shown upon him, his life is irrevocably changed.
Because this divine in birthing. The power of his Holy Spirit. To have fellowship, deep fellowship with Christ and one another, a one flesh union with Christ makes walking in darkness completely at odds with the new nature.
There's a call here to action. If there be any walking in darkness in your life today, repent and turn from it. Do not cherish it any longer. We don't want to walk in darkness. We're the people of the light.
We have fellowship with Christ. He has been pleased to shine his love on us. We don't want to contradict the truth we affirm with our lips with a life of inconsistency. There is freedom and liberty and joy and thanksgiving and walking in the light.
You're a wretched sinner and God knows it. And he said, my son has come to pay the penalty of your sin. Do not conceal it any longer. Bring it into the light of day that you might be forgiven. It takes us to our last verse.
It says, if we walk in the light as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another. In first John, there are three major errors and that helps us understand this passage a little bit better. Prominent errors.
One is heresy that cut off the people of God from the light and caused them to walk in darkness. Doesn't represent all the possibilities of walking in darkness, but in context, internal evidence gives us some real help.
There's a specific context that John writes in and it helps us understand the sum of this text. Here are the three grave errors. And there's a fourth that's kind of attached to the second one. And this is kind of the basis of John's argument and why he's arguing for these things here in chapter one.
First, there is a want of agape love and that is a self-sacrificing love for the brethren. It is utterly astonishing how many times John says love one another in this book. And the love that he calls us to is very different from the love of the world.
More on this in chapter three when I preach on it. But this love is self-sacrificing. And friends, this is very rare in even the Christian life. We give to get. We love to be loved. This agape love is not self-seeking, it's self-sacrificing.
And John calls us to that. It's going to be further teased out in the epistle in the coming weeks. That's the first problem. There's a want of this deep fellowship and love for the brethren. The Christian is to be known by his love for Christ, his people and confounding even their enemies, according to Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount.
That's found in chapter two, verses seven through 11. Second, again, these are the errors that accompany walking in darkness in the first epistle of John, disordered loves. The Christian is known by his love, the unbeliever, the reprobate is also known by his love, his love for the world, the things of the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the pride of life.
The cosmos here is that evil world system which we prayed against today under the run and reign of the devil that sets itself in opposition to God to be under the sway of the evil one. Those two are very real for us.
There's worldliness here in the Christian church. There's a want of that agape love here. I hope there's no number three. And that's a denial of Christ as the Messiah. That's why he starts so strong in chapter one about who Christ is, the second person of the Trinity, the creator and all those things.
And this idea includes the idea that Christ alone is salvation. They deny that they say that he is not the incarnate one. There's some teachers there who are coming into the churches. The eternal word didn't come in the flesh.
The fully God and fully man didn't come to bring salvation. Of course, there's no hope of salvation. You can't have the father apart from the son or the son apart from the father. It's found in verses 21 through 23 of chapter two.
But for I think it's connected to the worldliness and the love of the world is a laxity and obedience. There's an incipient antinomianism in the church. Everyone that does righteousness is born of him.
And the implication is that not everyone is performing the righteousness. Chapter two, verse 21. These are characteristics of those who walk in darkness. Now, what John is doing is he's not kicking us out of the church and excommunicating us.
He's saying that every Christian has a root of agape love for the brethren. Every Christian is at war against sin and the love for the world and the love for the things of the world. He's at war with that.
He may be lax in his obedience, but he has a desire to be obedient. So John is encouraging us to better and greater things as we walk in the light. The idea of walking in the Hebrew understanding has an ethical sense to it.
I conduct my life and I live in such a way that is out in the open in the light of Christ. The Christian abides in the light of Christ, the light of Christ and his gospel regulates the Christian life and governs his conduct.
The Christian's deportment, his manner, the way he carries himself is a reflection of Christ's love. And if this is true, we have been brought into fellowship with Christ and his people. We are united to Christ and members of the body.
I want us to go now and this will be the last section to explain number three. I want us to go to the gospel of John. We're going to look in two places there and this is going to help us wrap this up.
In the coming weeks, we're going to have a couple more light oriented messages in 1 John. The prologue to John's gospel, you'll hear a fuller treatment here than what we see in his first epistle, but there's great crossover.
John is the apostle of Christ and his divinity. He's the Christology apostle. It says, in the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God. He's declaring the divine Logos to be Jesus Christ, that he himself is God.
He is uncreated. He's begotten of the father. He was there when there was a beginning. Speaking to his preexistent eternality as a member of the Godhead. It says in verse two that he was in the beginning with God and listen to what it says.
All things were made by him and without him, nothing was made that was made. Jesus Christ is the creator of the universe. When God said, let there be light, Jesus Christ was saying, let there be light.
And so what we have is this grand drama of redemption. The creator himself is going to come who is light and he's going to come and shine in the darkness to bring salvation to his people. The creator is going to rescue his creation from darkness and corruption.
It says in verse five, the light shines in darkness. The darkness comprehended it not. In context, I think part of what John is doing here, maybe to a degree that we have not appreciated like we ought.
He is saying the Jewish people, for example, knew who God was. They had theophanies. They had the oracles of God, the very scriptures. And Jesus comes and shines and they're shrouded in darkness. They don't lay hold that God is light in the person of Christ.
But it says in verse seven, there's a man sent from God. His name was John. Let's see what it says. The same came for a witness to bear witness of the light that all men through him might believe he was not that light, but was sent to bear witness of that light, referring to Christ.
Verse nine. That was the true light which gives light to every man coming into the world. Salvation has come in Jesus Christ now. I'm very excited about this. I hope you're as excited as I am. Let's turn over to John, chapter eight.
We are in the Yohannin corpus trying to understand. God is light. Fleeing the darkness, the person of Christ and how this goes together in context, Jesus and his disciples have come to Jerusalem to observe the Feast of Tabernacles.
Indicate to us the very beginning of John, chapter seven. That's why he's in Jerusalem. He's come for the feast. This week long feast included daily lighting rituals that involve tall lamps, candelabras in the temple courts.
I want you to imagine there's no electricity. People live by lamps and torches and candlelight. And these massive candelabras are here in the city for the Feast of Tabernacles, commemorating and remembering when God was the pillar of fire leading them in the wilderness.
This is the occasion that this all happens. This is the backdrop. The flames are dancing and illumining the holy city. The flames are popping and crackling. I can hear it almost. The dark city is illuminated with this brightness, but the temple courts commemorating God's presence.
The pillar of fire revealed God's presence. He was with the Israelites in a visible way. And when the pillar of fire moved, the Israelites followed it. The pillar of fire guided them against this backdrop.
I want you to go with me to verse 12. It says this is John eight, chapter eight, verse 12. Then Jesus spoke again unto them saying, I am the light of the world. Do you understand what's happening? They've come to celebrate a theophany and the light of the world is standing in their midst.
The true light from heaven, the glorious one. He's there. He says, I am the light of the world. What an amazing backdrop. What an incredible piece of drama in this redemptive history. He that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life.
The theophany of light in the wilderness and the pillar of fire is now eclipsed by the glory of Christ and his revelation. God was in their presence. The light of God, the light of life was there bringing his people salvation, the tides and shadows.
Are now. Overtaken by a brighter light, the glorious light of Jesus Christ. This biblical theme of light, which is comprehensive and vast from Genesis all the way through to this point, now reaches its crescendo and climax.
Jesus Christ is the light. Of the world. Time won't permit us, but at the end of chapter eight, and there's a connection to Exodus three. Moses asked the question, who shall I say I spoke with? This is I am that I am.
Jesus at the end of chapter eight of John's gospel says before Abraham was I am. Now the Jewish people, they knew geology. This man's not even 50 years old. Moses is our very ancient patriarch father.
The ancient of days has come in the flesh to rescue and save his people to be a light that would shine in the darkness. Well, what should we do? We should walk in the light. We should bask in the glow of Christ and his salvation.
We should love as he has love. We should emulate his manner of life. And we can do this because we are clothed in his righteousness. And as faithful followers of Christ, we need to heed his teaching from the sermon on the mount in Matthew chapter five.
Christian, you are. A light bearer, the glory that shines out of Christ, it has shown upon us. Jesus is the light of the world. You are his light bearers. He says in Matthew five, you are the light of the world.
A city set on a hill that cannot be hidden. Neither do men light a candle and put it under a basket, but on a candlestick, and it gives light to all that are in the house. Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your father, which is in heaven.
The Christian has. I'll stop here. I always thought carrying the Olympic torch would be one of the coolest things. It starts somewhere in Greece or wherever, and they run it all the places all the way to the place where the Olympics will be held.
The divine light of heaven has come down and the Christian church has passed the torch one to another. And we carry the bright shining light of Christ with us wherever we go and we hand it off. We light other people on fire.
May the Lord set our hearts ablaze for the glory of Christ that that his glory might shine through us, that his radiance might be reflected in every corner of our live and all of our vocations, all of our callings in all of our doings.
May they see the glory of Christ, the light of the world in us. Amen. Let's pray together. Lord, we pause and we think. Surely you are the light of the world and. We rejoice that you have shined in the darkness of our hearts and the hearts of our family and all the people in this church and every church everywhere.
You have made us alive in Christ. Your light has given life its truth and it's powerful and it's beautiful and it's holy and it's filled with glory. Lord, I pray that this would be a cause of our worship and Thanksgiving today or that we would count it a privilege.
To walk in your light and we would see the impediment of sin to this very grand purpose for which we were created and redeemed to have communion with you and to be your light bearers in the world. Oh, Lord, I pray in the power of your spirit that we would put sin to death, that we would mortify it, that we would expose our guilt before a loving savior and there find forgiveness and salvation in Christ.
And also, Lord, I pray that we'd be able to do this with one another, that we might have that depth of agape love and fellowship with one another to bear each other's burdens, to spur each other on, that we would live as a Christian people together for your glory and namesake.
We ask all of this in Jesus name. Amen. Let us continue our worship with presentation of the tithe and offerings. Please stand with me. Let's pray together. Oh, Lord, we thank you that we are the children of light and we have work to do, resources, time to manage, and Lord, we pray that you'd give us greater faith and faithfulness as we discharge these duties.
We pray that these offerings would be used for the rapid advance of your kingdom light in this world. We ask this in Jesus name. Amen. Now, brethren, we have an opportunity to have a reflex spiritual.
I associate more. Let's give the father glory and.
Passionate, zealous singing. Lord be with you. Lift up your hearts. Let us give thanks to the.
Lord. It is right in a good and joyful thing that we should at all times and in all places give thanks to you. Oh, holy Lord, father, almighty, everlasting God, because you sent your beloved son to redeem us from sin and death and to make us heirs in him of everlasting life, that when he shall come again in power and great triumph to judge the world, we may without shame or fear, rejoice to behold his appearing.
Therefore, with angels and archangels and with all the company of heaven, we praise and magnify your glorious name evermore, praising you and.
Singing. Be seated before I pray. I want to point out to you just how perfect the sacrifice of.
Christ is in light of the perfections of his nature. There's no darkness in him. His death is our life. His blood is our atonement, and we can have absolute confidence that his sacrifice is sufficient to cover all of our sins.
Isn't that a cause for our rejoicing? Let's pray together now. Oh, Lord, I thank you for your condescension to our creatureliness, our physicality and our spirituality. Lord, we understand bread and wine, but oh, Lord, your your body is the bread that we eat.
Your blood is the wine that we drink. You have you have purpose to communicate to us through these creatures of bread and wine, the body of Christ and him crucified for us, the shedding of blood for us that we might live.
Oh, Lord, I pray that our partaking of the supper today would draw us closer to you in our union, but also, oh, Lord, to that more perfect fellowship that we enjoy with one another. We have been redeemed by you.
We are all children of the light. Oh, Lord, cause us to love each other and be more united to each other as a result of the supper. We ask this all in Jesus name. Amen. Our Lord Jesus on the night in which he was betrayed, took bread.
Likewise, he took the cup after supper, saying this cup. Therefore, we proclaim the faith. The prayer of approach, I think, has multifaceted elements. There is humility. There's trepidation, but there's also expectancy, excitement and thanksgiving.
With that in mind, let's pray together in unison. We do not presume to come to this your table, merciful Lord, trusting in our own righteousness, but in your manifold and great mercies. We are not worthy so much as to gather up the crumbs under your table, but you are the same Lord who always shows mercy.
Grant us, therefore, gracious Lord, his blood, that our sinful bodies may be made clean by his body and our souls washed through his most precious blood, and that we may evermore dwell in him and he and us.
Amen. Christ, our Passover was sacrificed for us. Therefore, let's keep the gifts of God. Oh, the precious gifts of God for you, the people of God.
Well, it's quite a day to have both sacraments and rich worship together in light of these.
Things without a spirit of roteness or routine. Let's consider these words and the prayer of commitment and let's make them true for us. Let's pray together now. Almighty and ever-living God,.
We thank you for feeding us with the spiritual food of the most precious body and blood of your.
Son, our Savior, Jesus Christ, and for assuring us in these holy mysteries that we are living.
Members of the body of your Son. And oh Lord, grant us this other benefit, that you will never allow us to forget these things, but having them imprinted on our hearts, may we grow and increase daily in the faith which is at work in every good deed.
Now, Father, send us out to do the work you have given us to do, to love and serve you as faithful witnesses of Christ our Lord. To him, to you, and to the Holy Spirit, the honor and glory now and forever.
Please stand. Receive now.
The blessing. Now may the God of peace that brought up our Lord Jesus Christ from the dead, that great shepherd of the sheep, through the blood of the everlasting covenant, make you perfect in every good work to do his will, working in you what is well-pleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be the glory forever and ever.
Amen.