Walking in the Light: Embracing God's Invitation

Devotional

Sermon Summary

Bible Study Guide

Sermon Clips


Liturgy is everywhere. All it means is there's a beginning, there's an end, and there's movement and order between. The first liturgy ever, Genesis 1: In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth, and then there came a day He rested. And in between, wow, it's called liturgy. [00:02:32]

The liturgy I want to appeal to most image-wise is the imagery of a restaurant. When you go with somebody you love and you just want to spend time with them, you just want time, that meeting of hearts, that ability to listen and hear. The job of the restaurateur and all those serving is to facilitate that event. [00:03:30]

If we walk in the light as He Himself is in the light, we have fellowship with Him, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sin. The invitation is walk in the light. So verse 5 begins this passage: This is the message we have heard from Him. [00:05:21]

Coming out of the dark isn't easy. We are designed in our sin to stay in the dark. Revivals were born on that text. In the 1930s, the East African revival was born on this text: humility, repentance, walk in the light. It was born on this. The preachers would come up, the revivalist preachers would come up. [00:07:32]

The word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing as far as the division of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and able to judge the thoughts and intentions of your heart. He sees you. It begins to pierce you. And then verse 13 as it follows: Nothing in all creation is hidden. [00:10:28]

When sin began to take hold of the soul, break happened, relationships divided, first between the man and the woman, hide behind fig leaves, then behind trees when the Lord God came in the midst, and then betraying themselves. Because the first thing that happened is that Adam, who could not take responsibility, immediately blamed. [00:12:35]

The light has come into the world, and men love the darkness rather than the light because their deeds were evil. And everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come into the light, lest his deeds be exposed. You see, there's a fear in this passage. Come, come out of the dark. [00:14:38]

The devil also does this. He also works against us to keep us in hiding. There's a power that keeps us in darkness. Listen to how it's said in Second Corinthians chapter four, verses three and four, where the apostle says even if our gospel is veiled, it's veiled to those who are perishing. [00:15:50]

He not only sees us, He knows us. Dear woman, go call your husband. The woman at the well said, I have no husband. And Jesus said, you've had five, and the one that you have now isn't your husband. He knows us. You might not want Him to know you, and you might think you've got the charade. [00:20:04]

He convicts us, He arrests us, and we are known. It's in the preaching of the word of God. On the day of Pentecost, as Peter lifted up Jesus and the Holy Spirit ministered to the crowd, the people came up and said we are cut to the heart. That's what conviction is, cut to the heart. [00:21:42]

He doesn't turn away. He doesn't reject us. This is what I say. This is the word of the Lord to us: Come out from behind your tree because there's another tree to cling to. There's another tree to cling to, that tree of Calvary's hill where the Lamb of God went to take our sins upon Him. [00:26:48]

When He moves upon us and showers His love upon us, that you and I can come and know, I mean know, know inside of us, deep inside of us, we are loved, we are seen, we are new in Jesus, born again to new life. And we can come now because we have peace with God. [00:33:48]

Ask a question about this sermon