Canton South Church of the Nazarene - Weekly Guide 10/26/08
Jesus is the Light
Scripture: John 1:1-18 & Matthew 5:13-16
1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was in the beginning with God. 3 All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being 4 in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. 5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.9 The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world. 10 He was in the world, and the world came into being through him; yet the world did not know him. 11 He came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him. 12 But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God, 13 who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God. 14 And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father's only son, full of grace and truth. .16 From his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace. 17 The law indeed was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. 18 No one has ever seen God. It is God the only Son, who is close to the Father's heart, who has made him known.
You are the salt of the earth. But what good is salt if it has lost its flavor? Can you make it useful again? It will be thrown out and trampled underfoot as worthless. 14You are the light of the world-like a city on a mountain, glowing in the night for all to see. 15Don't hide your light under a basket! Instead, put it on a stand and let it shine for all. 16In the same way, let your good deeds shine out for all to see, so that everyone will praise your heavenly Father.
Matthew 5:13-16
Welcome: We are glad you have joined us for worship today. This is a really cool day to be here we get to not hear a sermon but do a sermon but first we are going to worship God through singing and giving and then hearing his word.
Introduction
I. The Prologue of John - John 1:1-18
A. Who is Jesus?
. Word . Life . Incarnate Word
. God . Light . Glory of God
. Pre-existent . Rejected . Grace and Truth
B. Thinking about Jesus as the Light
Let's start by reading our passage for today:
A few years ago some of you may remember the Sunday prior to Halloween I talked about Jesus as the light. I carved a pumpkin with Jesus' name. Today we are going to revisit that a little bit. This is what I want to start with the book of John is a masterpiece and paints pictures of who Jesus is, Jesus as god, who Jesus transformed communities. And the purpose of the book of john is. so that we might believe.
This passage we read called the prologue we get several pictures of who Jesus is, the word, the life, incarnate word, god, glory of god, pre-existent, rejected, grace and truth. Light. In Matthew we read we are to be a light to the world so the rest of the world can come to Christ, but I feel we hide a lot of times. We have to actually shine. Jesus was and is the originator of the light. We put god on and we wear god. God does not need us but wants to use us to shine for him so his majesty will be even more revealed and that goes into something even deeper.
So we are going to do something different today. And don't get excited this is not something we are going to do all the time, but god has been leading me and putting this idea into my head. So today we are not going to hear a sermon we are going to do a sermon. Right now some of you are thinking uh what? I'll explain, but first. We are going to break up into family groups and I want those of you to be proactive to make sure everyone has a family. And just so you know I asked several people about what we are going to do today and they all thought it was a great idea and it will really convey this message of Jesus as the light. So first we are going to break up into family groups. The purpose of this is how often do we do things as families. This is what we are going to do. For the rest of the service time we are going to go to the fellowship hall. And we are going to carve pumpkins. I know some of you are thinking this is going to be great and you are right. Listen up this is important. I want you to know the purpose of this. Our doing this provides a hands on sermon. It will help us be able to solidify these truths. We will be doing this as community. Think about this how often do you do things with your family and how often is it centered on making Jesus the light and really focusing on Jesus the center of everything we do? This will help us. so we are not really carving pumpkins we are making Jesus the center and learning about him. These pumpkins you can put what you want on them Jesus, god, Christ messiah, crosses and so on. They are going to shine the light of Jesus on this holiday. You see we can be proactive in shining Jesus light. We don't have to shy away from Halloween because it is evil we need to shine Jesus light even more brightly. Now when we are done you have a choice take it home and shine at your home Jesus' light, or create even more community take it to someone. Just knock on the door hey we made this in church today and would like for you to have it. happy Halloween. Jesus loves you and leave. If they accept then great if not you planted a seed and showed them god's love. But don't force a conversation beyond that. Only answer their questions. Some of you won't be comfortable doing that and that is ok. Shine your Jesus light at your home. We will clean up at 11:30 so you may not be done take it home and finish or finish after we eat. This is very new testament church. This is something they would have done.
I have some things for us to talk about while we do this and I will ask you to lead a converstation at your table and talk about these things. You have the list in your sermon notes for today.
II. What Carving Pumpkins Have to Do with Jesus
A. Open Up
B. Clean Out
C. Carve on Our Hearts
D. Let His Light Shine!
Conclusion
To carve a pumpkin we have to first open it up. Now for us to come to Jesus the first thing that has to happen is we have to open up. We have to be willing for Jesus to take a knife to us and cut us open. We know it may be painful but we have to allow Jesus to open us up so he can begin to change us and really when you open and pumpkin up you have to clean it out to make a proper carving. You can't clean it out without opening it up first and the same goes with us we need to be cleaned out. All the yucky inside of us has to be cleaned out just like the yucky in the pumpkin.
So once opened we then clean out the yucky out of the pumpkin and once we allow Jesus to work in our lives all the yucky will be cleaned out. Now sometimes it takes a while and can get pretty messy, but all we need to do is have faith and Jesus will get all the yucky out and the seeds as well. Reminds me of another illustration, the seed of sin in our lives that we have to allow Jesus to remove. So once it is all clean, and we can never get a pumpkin as clean as Jesus can get us, we have to carve the pumpkin. But isn't a shame how dirty we make Jesus' hands get to clean us out. Pilot washed his hands clean of Jesus death but Jesus got his hands dirty for us to have life.
You know in Hebrews there is this passage and it talks about this idea it says:
This new plan I'm making with Israel
isn't going to be written on paper,
isn't going to be chiseled in stone;
This time I'm writing out the plan in them,
carving it on the lining of their hearts.
I'll be their God, they'll be my people.
Pretty cool god is going to write on our hearts. He is actually going to carve it. you know when you carve something that means it is pretty important to you and when we accept God he carves it on out hearts.
The last step is to put a candle in the pumpkin. You remember there is a passage where Jesus talks about the house that was cleaned of the demons and how nothing was brought in to replace them and the demon comes back with his buddies and the house is worse off. You see a pumpkin would be like that empty house all ready to go Jesus has done the work of cleaning out the house but has not been invited in. Our pumpkin would be empty.
Remember what I said at the beginning of the sermon how I have been thinking a lot about Jesus the light. I know some of you have made the connection but there really is a connection here you see we need to bring Jesus the light into our lives and let the carving in our life shine so others can see it. It has to point to Jesus.
Now we have to be careful a pumpkin light is dangerous and can go out easy. We can't let Jesus' light go out of our lives. We can't let it burn down low so no one sees it. We have to let it shine. It has to shine bright like in a dark place so others can come and find the light and be opened up cleaned out carved on and have the light of Jesus shine in them. We call that life transformation because our mission and purpose is to lead people to become fully devoted Christ followers. And we do that by bring them in, build them up, train them, send them out.
Jesus is the light come into a dark place to dispel the light.
"Tolerance = welcoming people where they are with a view to transformation."
Eddie Gibbs