Walk in Light

[00:00:00] Grace, mercy and peace be to you from God our father and from our Lord and savior, Jesus Christ. Amen. [00:00:09] The last verse that we just sang. Come, Lord Jesus, by your spirit in our hearts, your work begin. [00:00:19] What an invitation. I mean, not to, like, praise the invitation, you know, it's Jesus who. Who says, you know, invite me, call me in, you know. But we're asking the light of the world to come into our hearts by his own gracious invitation and there to dispel the darkness to give us light. What is light? To give us understanding, to give us wisdom. [00:00:51] Come, Lord Jesus, by your spirit in our hearts, your work begin. [00:00:57] Come in and work. [00:01:03] Bring the healing restoration of your image lost by sin from your fullness, all receiving grace on grace, new life within. [00:01:15] So we're going to start out here talking about darkness and light. [00:01:21] Darkness is the absence of light. And in the darkness, you can't see. [00:01:26] It's pretty simple. And in everyday reality, if you get up early enough, it's dark, and you can't get around until you turn on the light, unless you remember what's around you, which is kind of fun sometimes. Then you can make a mental map and try and avoid things, but otherwise, well, you're in the dark. And the only reason you might be able to navigate in the dark is because at one time you were able to see everything. [00:01:52] So you kind of have light in your mind still. [00:01:55] But darkness is no fun. [00:01:58] None of us would want to live in a world of darkness where we can't see where we're going, we can't make it around, where we can't keep ourselves from getting hurt. [00:02:10] Light is a basic need. [00:02:14] Obviously, there's a spiritual application of this in that realm of things that we can't see, like the truth and what's right. Like, those things don't manifest themselves in the physical world like an object. You're not like, oh, you know, I know where to go buy some, right, king supers. You know, so these things are hidden to us. And amazingly, amazingly, the physical world that we do see and that we live in and experience, naturally, it maps on to the spiritual realm of things so that light perfectly images like what it means to have understanding. [00:02:55] So we're thinking about darkness and light and just, just the need for light ought to give us a kick and say, you know, you don't want to be in confusion. [00:03:10] You know, it hurts to not know the truth. [00:03:13] You want to know the truth? Well, where do we find the truth? You know, and Jesus says, I'm the way the truth and the life, he says, come to me and I'll, you know, the truth will set you free. That kind of thing. [00:03:32] Lord Jesus Christ, enter our hearts, scatter the darkness. Give us understanding, restore us in the image of God. [00:03:42] Conform us to yourself. [00:03:46] Sunday school is such a gift. It's an underrated gift. Or maybe not. You know, maybe you all are holding it in your hearts, as important as it actually is, you know, but I'll confess I don't every day remember the work of my Sunday school teachers and give thanks to God for them. I probably should, though, you know, Carolyn Merritt, among, among many others, like, thank you for. For teaching me, you know, for speaking the truth, for speaking Jesus into my heart. Sunday after Sunday, in that little hour when I was squirmy and not necessarily ready to listen, you know. Well, I did listen because I was a child. And as we say, children are sponges, you know, there I was sitting there, and what did it look like? We sang some songs. We talked about a Bible story, and all the time, like, Christ was entering my heart and shaping me by his word. [00:04:52] How beautiful is that? It's so simple and so, so important in our world today. [00:05:02] You know, maybe it's. Maybe it's all the more important because our society as a whole is no longer shaped by God's word or by the truth. Like, what is truth? You know, is the slogan of this age. Like, there is nothing true. There's just, you know, there's no darkness. Really. [00:05:22] Again, I'll just mention it. Like, that was the theme of the latest Star wars show, you know, our, like, there is no dark side anymore. This is the world we're living in now. And so, you know, whereas, I mean, I grew up on the Jimmy Stewart, you know, and things like that, like, like the movies where you really had somebody to look up to. Like, you see them and you're like, I want to be that. And. And that is, like, virtuous. [00:05:47] Well, that's gone. [00:05:49] And so, I mean, not completely gone, let's say. And we need christians and, you know, like, we need to. We need to create things. Like, we can make. We can make movies. Like, we can, you know, so, so there's a whole opportunity to still do that. And there are people doing it and championing that cause, too, saying we need to tell good stories in an age where stories have become disconnected from reality. [00:06:15] So that's important. [00:06:17] But, okay, we do live in a different society today, and so it's all the more important that we have. Sunday school. Thank you, Sunday school teachers. Thank you to my teachers and parents. I mean, same message to fathers and mothers that in this day and age, we can't just say we're part of a system and I'm just going to send my kids through the system. That might have worked in a time when God's word shaped a community more, but it's being turned on its head. [00:06:53] We don't have that anymore. So you can't, like, you can't expect to just put your kids in school and then they're gonna be, you know, fed a proper diet of the truth, so to speak, and become what they. What they really need to become, right? Or to be. I mean, to become faithful men and women, you know, children of God. [00:07:18] They might be encouraged to be a cat. [00:07:20] You don't know. You know, so, like, we can't. We can't trust the system like that. Okay, so what do we do? Like, well, this is what we are. We're a system, you know, we are. We are, like, we've come together to hear Christ and to be fed by him, right? Literally to consume Christ, because we are what we eat. [00:07:43] Right? [00:07:45] So you want your children to grow up in the faith and. And become faithful men and women of God, who, I mean, by God's grace, are grounded in wisdom and in the truth and whose lives display virtue. Thanks be to God. You want that? Well, how do you do that? How does that happen? It happens through a constant diet of God's word. [00:08:15] And it might need to look a little more extreme these days than in the past because they're not going to turn on the tv and just keep receiving that diet. [00:08:23] Now. I say they just realized I'm kind of talking about children. And that's because it's our responsibility, all of us. Responsibility given to us by God to raise up generations of faithful people. [00:08:39] That job is given to every one of us. It takes. Takes a village. You know, it's cliche, but so true. [00:08:46] But it applies to all of us, too, right? Like, we all still need that diet. And so it assumes that we all are receiving that consistent diet of God's word, that we all are being shown Christ, you know, that Christ is held in front of us and that we all are consuming him, are receiving him, and that he's conforming us to himself so that we can guide young people in that. See, that's what our church is about. That's what the church is about. It's about nourishing all the people in it and those that we come in contact with and drawing more in by God's grace being built up into Christ's body. [00:09:32] Now we're going to. We're going to make a text connection because there are reasons that I'm speaking this way beyond rally day. [00:09:41] So we need a healthy diet of God's word. And let's just say of Jesus Christ. [00:09:47] Jesus says some things that, I mean, they sound very bold, like, eat my flesh and drink my blood. [00:09:55] It's like, whoa, what do you mean by that? [00:09:59] A little bit earlier in this chapter of John, he says, don't work for the food that perishes. [00:10:07] Work for the food that endures to eternal life. [00:10:13] Well, what is that? What is the food that endures to eternal life? He's not talking about, like, the latest health, nutrition stuff. Like, he's not talking about a product that you can go buy at King Supers once again, you know, he's talking about, well, he's using the image of eating to talk about that healthy diet, that spiritual diet. So I think it's helpful to overlay that verse, you know, don't work for the food that perishes. Work for the food that endures to eternal life. We can overlay that on, like, what he says in Matthew six, don't lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. Like, this is the treasure that perishes. [00:11:06] Lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroy. Where thieves don't break in and steal. [00:11:13] Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. [00:11:16] In other words, like, earnestly seek things above. Earnestly seek spiritual, spiritual food. Right? [00:11:29] And why food? Because food is what you are. Like. You are food. You are what you eat. [00:11:38] That is just the truth. [00:11:41] My kids growing up, like, what are me? What's the composition of my body? [00:11:47] I mean, I think it's probably only things that I've eaten, you know, and I've heard that certain cells, like, last longer. Others last, you know, a very short amount of time in your body. And so, like, I think brain cells last for years, maybe, but still, like, you know, we are. We are made up of what we eat. And so, you know, so we might want to be conscious of what we eat. And the same applies spiritually. [00:12:13] We want our children, we want ourselves to be faithful men and women of God, you know, to walk as children of the light rather than, you know, take part in works of darkness. As Paul says in Ephesians, well, it requires a steady diet. And so Jesus says, well, first of all, he says, the bread that he gives for the life of the world is his flesh. [00:12:44] He also says, flesh is of no avail, which is kind of interesting. Well, we should draw that out sometime a little bit more. But flesh is kind of shorthand for talking about things on earth apart from heaven. [00:13:00] So the sinful flesh is like us when we're us, apart from being fed by God's word or having Christ dwelling in us. So that I can say I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. I'm just merely earthly. That's what flesh is. [00:13:18] Jesus says, I've come down from heaven. [00:13:23] So he says, flesh is of no avail. But he says, the food that I give for the life of the world, the food that will give you eternal life, not that perishes, but like that lasts. The food that I give for the life of the world is my flesh. And the key word there then, is my. [00:13:40] Because he's saying, I came down from heaven to give life to the world. I'm not merely earthly, I'm the man from heaven. Come to bring you to heaven, right? [00:13:52] Come to give you treasure in the heavens, come to seat you in the heavenly places with Christ. As long as we're in Ephesians, Jesus Christ is otherworldly, and he's this worldly. He's come to this world and taken on our flesh and transformed it in himself so that we, coming to him in faith and consuming him, are built up as his body, so that we receiving him are conformed to him, built up, like in the image of God. And he is the image of God. [00:14:30] We live in a world that is increasingly confused, right? It's always been confused. There's always been darkness. But let's say we used to count on our society kind of being shaped by God's word and that we had a system beyond the doors of the church or that the. That the society was kind of enfolded into the life of the church, you might say, in some sense. And that's going away. [00:14:58] That's no reason to lose heart. Like, here we are, you know, the world is our oyster. No, like, you know, what. What can't be accomplished with God, you know, with God, all things are possible. We can do all things through Christ, who strengthens us. So can we shape a generation of young people by God's word? Yeah, you know, we've got Sunday school and Sunday school teachers speaking them, you know, speaking. Speaking God's word to our children. And we can come hang out as often as we want. You know, if you want more opportunities to, you know, meditate on God's word and sing and pray together. We can do that. Just talk to me, right? Like, we can do this by God's grace. [00:15:41] How do we do it? We gather around Christ. We look to Christ and receive from him to be shaped by him. [00:15:52] I think that's why Jesus says that if you want to enter the kingdom of heaven, you must become like children. It's like we just sit at the feet of Jesus and say, I'm a sponge. I'm ready. [00:16:07] We meditate on God's word together. [00:16:10] Finally, I just want to draw attention to the end of the epistle. Reading here. [00:16:17] Paul says, essentially, that walking as children of the light, then we become bearers of that light for one another. To children in Sunday school, to children in our school, children at home, to one another, to friends, family members, coworkers. He doesn't really give a limit to where this should happen. He says, don't get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery. But be filled with the spirit, addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with all your heart, giving thanks always. You could think of that as, like, being directed toward God with a posture of faith, giving thanks always and for everything to God the Father, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ. [00:17:17] Singing Psalms thank you, Pastor Hesse, for singing to us, singing God's word. This morning, I heard Pastor Hesse singing, you know, this is the day. This is the day that the Lord has made. You know, it was a great one for thinking about Sunday school, saying that as a child. But also thank you for speaking God's word to me and entered into me. And I considered, oh, yeah, this is the day that the Lord has made. Let us rejoice and be glad in it. I thank God for each one of you and for our life together and for the awesome responsibility and adventure that we have laid out before us. You know, that race to run given to us by God. [00:18:00] It's a wonderful and important thing. And I thank you for your dedication to that in all of us together, like supporting our school and raising up young people, and also Sunday school. And just want to encourage you, if you do want to participate in helping to bring up our young people, this next generation, this youngest generation of God's people, or if you want to learn yourself, that's what teaching does. You learn things better, then talk to Amanda or talk to me. [00:18:39] We all are doing this together, and it's a really important and wonderful thing. Let's close by praying for our Sunday school. [00:18:51] Heavenly Father, we thank you for this awesome task, this incredible responsibility that you've given to us in being your mouthpiece and speaking light and truth into one another, and maybe especially into our young people. We ask that you would bless us, that you'd give us the words to speak, all of us, and also that you would raise up volunteers, that we might together be built up into Christ's body, and that the church might grow and expand, that more might come to know you and be joined to Christ in our salvation. [00:19:36] We thank you in Jesus name. Amen.