The Light Reveals Us – Part 2 of 2

Let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith. Criminals like to do their deeds under cover of darkness.

Police search lights can make them visible. John chapter 3 tells us that everyone who does evil hates the light lest his deeds be exposed. The light of Jesus came to be the search light of God and we need to turn to him for salvation.

Stay with us. From the Moody Church in Chicago, this is Running to Win with Dr. Erwin Lutzer, whose clear teaching helps us make it across the finish line. Pastor Lutzer, why do some people refuse to come to the light of Jesus while others gladly come? Dave, your question is more difficult to answer than it might appear, so I'm going to just look at this through the lens of a human being. There are some who will to come and there are those who reject coming for whatever reason. Usually it's because, as you mentioned, their deeds would be exposed.

They'd have to deal with their sin. From the divine standpoint, of course, God is at work in all of these decisions. Our responsibility is to share the light and trust God for the results. I'm holding in my hands a book that genuinely makes me excited. It's entitled Without Excuse, Compelling Evidence for Creation. Now, if you could see this book and hold it in your hands, you would discover it has 365 devotionals, but it's all based on creation. And it has color photos of animals, of birds, all kinds of ways that we might better understand the uniqueness of what God did when he created the world. It's a great opportunity for you to receive this so that you can begin January 1st. As you think of this as a devotional, you'll learn about history, botany, astronomy, and all kinds of issues that relate to God and his creation. Now, very quickly, for a gift of any amount, it can be yours.

Go to rtwoffer.com or call us at 1-888-218-9337. And let us never forget that the greatest light came to us when Jesus came to Bethlehem. One artist said to a young man, never paint a dark picture unless there's a road leading out. Jesus is the way to hope and to help. So the light has come. We no longer have to work in darkness and light tests us because the text says that it is both loved and hated. Let's talk for a moment about the fact that it says the people love the darkness and that's you and me. Today as I speak, I'm not pointing my finger at anyone particularly because we're all part of the folks who love darkness rather than light. And you'll notice it says those who do wicked things, and now it becomes a little stronger, they actually hate the light.

Now you may argue with me. You may say I don't hate the light. I don't know Christ as savior. I don't receive him, but I love the light. I'd rather have peace than violence. I'd rather have justice than injustice. I'd rather have love than hate.

I get that. But what Jesus does is his light shines farther all the way to the Gentiles, by the way, it says in the Old Testament that he is also a light to the Gentiles. It shines farther, it shines brighter, and it shines deeper into our souls. Jesus asks the question, why is there any injustice? Why is there this lack of peace?

Why is there hate instead of love? And so he begins to probe the human heart, and what he finds is not encouraging, though eventually in this message there's going to be massive amounts of grace. But for now let's look into the human heart. You think, for example, of Jesus as he stands there and gives the sermon on the mount. And what he says is that you think that you have to go out and kill somebody to be a murderer, but if you hate your brother, you're already a murderer. And you think that you have to go out and commit an act of adultery.

Listen, if you lust for a woman within your heart, you've already committed adultery. And if you give your gift in church in such a way that you want to be seen and admired, you're actually a hypocrite because all that you're doing is managing your image. And so what Jesus did is he probed into the human heart in such a way, and we don't like that kind of light, do we? Now if you talk about people who actually walk in darkness, and we oftentimes, all of us have retreated into the darkness, because darkness can be a safe place. It can be a place sometimes where we get out of a jam, like the boys sit in Sunday school. A lie is an abomination onto the Lord, but a very present help in time of trouble. Darkness sometimes is comforting to us. But if you persist in your darkness, what will happen is you will not even recognize it as darkness anymore.

You'll think that you're walking in the light. You know, Rebecca and I have a friend who works in Bloomingdale's who sends us beautiful perfume and oftentimes sends me some cologne with fancy names that I can't pronounce. I was looking at one this morning.

It seemed to be Dallas Cabana, probably flown in from Paris. Now I'm a farm boy. That's at least where I grew up. And some of you who are brought up in the city, you never really smell the skunk in your life. I'm serious. You've driven along the road and you know, it smelled and you said, oh, that's a skunk, but you know, you're, you're beyond it. Listen, I know what it's like to be close to a skunk that considers me to be an enemy.

Now it is so debilitating. You almost choke. Now, do you think that the skunk is having a problem with what he's emitting? I don't think so.

He says, I'm just opening my bottle of Dallas Cabana. Have you met people like that? You see, what happens is we do not notice our own darkness, but we notice the darkness of others with clarity and with deep conviction. How can you tell if someone's walking in darkness? First of all, they have a very critical spirit because the reason for that you see is if they can cut other people down, if they can show other people's faults, what they're really saying is this person is more at fault than I am.

I would never do that. It's covering their darkness and making up for their own emptiness. And then they become very defensive. You know, they're the kind of people, boy, you'd better think through how you're going to approach them because they will dig in their heels.

They will defend themselves until the facts are so strong that they may have to give in. But meanwhile, they protect their darkness. You know, why is it that we do that? Yesterday at the church here, we had a marvelous lecture by a man by the name of Jerry Root, who's an expert in CS Lewis and his topic was humility. Well, you know, I sometimes jokingly say I have a great message on humility.

Problem is I haven't found a crowd big enough to preach it to. But what he said is this, that at root, the reason that we like our darkness and want to defend it is because we do not believe that we are radically loved and radically known at the same time. He said, if we really believe that he who knows us fully loves us completely, then it wouldn't really matter. You know, we wouldn't be threatened when our darkness is exposed because we'd say, here I am.

If I'm loved by God and you think of John 17, where Jesus is speaking about the elect and he says regarding them, thou has loved them as thou has loved me and thou lovest me from before the foundation of the world. If that could actually sink into our souls, then we would not be threatened when our darkness is exposed. And so Jesus said, people love darkness rather than light because their deeds are evil.

And he goes on to say that those who do wicked things actually hate the light. You parents who sent a kid to college, you sent that child to university and the child writes back and says, mom and dad, I'm no longer going to church, no longer going to Bible studies because I'm an atheist now. I don't believe in God.

Well, isn't that interesting? And then the child will probably go on to give you reasons why I can't believe in the miracles. The Bible has contradictions. It is an ancient book that has all of its roots in culture that doesn't apply today and on and on it goes. Isn't it interesting that Jesus gives an entirely different explanation for why they have left the light and that is because their deeds are evil. It is a moral explanation. I don't at all discount the intellectual problems that some people have with Christianity because there are problems and working through that is something that we as a church are committed to help you to do.

But at the same time at root, oftentimes it is a moral issue. We hate the light. That's why Huxley made the statement.

The reason that we accepted Darwinism with practically no proof is, and I'm quoting now, we did not want a God to interfere with our sexual mores. So Jesus said, that's the reason that people love darkness rather than light. Now let's go on for a moment and notice that the positive aspect is this. There are people who really are the light lovers. Verse 21, but whoever does what is true comes to the light so that it may be clearly seen that his deeds have been carried out in God.

Please don't read this and think, well, this is where all the goody saints are. They are always under the light because all of their deeds are so wonderful. You see the way in which you get into verse 21 is what you do is you have to leave the darkness and you have to come into the light. And when you come into the light, there's cleansing, there's forgiveness, there's the acknowledgement of darkness. There's the recognition that within us there may be certain closets that we have closed. And sometimes that darkness is not because of what we have done, but because of what others have done to us. Either way, Jesus is saying, become a light lover. And if you do be exposed in my presence for all that you are, and I will give you light. What a gift that God has given to us at Christmas time. Now, how do we nail all of this down for us?

First of all, could I say is a couple of bottom lines here. First of all, we have to understand that Jesus experienced darkness so that we could walk in light. He experienced darkness.

You know, the Bible says that when Jesus was crucified and when he cried out and said, my God, my God, why has thou forsaken me? It says that darkness came across the whole earth. And there are several reasons for that darkness. God says in effect what is happening here.

No man can understand. No man can see as our sin was placed on Jesus and he paid our debt. But Jesus is saying, because I experienced darkness and fellowship with the Father was even broken, not ontologically, but in terms of the fellowship with the Father, you now can be exposed to the light. You don't have to walk in darkness. And I am willing to go into your life in the various closets of your existence, the things that you have been hiding, the cisterns that have been closed and walled off. Just know that when you walk in there, I come with you.

And in the process, your darkness will disappear. When I was out on the farm growing up, we did not have electricity for many years. In November of 1952, electricity came to our farm.

And I know that not because I review that date every once in a while. I just know how significant it was. I remember the days when we were able to take our lanterns and hang them up in the barn and say, we don't need these lanterns anymore. We as kids used to flip the light switch just to remind ourselves that we didn't have to light a lamp in the old kitchen anymore. And electricity was a tremendous miracle. But one of the things it did is on the farm, here's the house, here's the barn, right in between the two, we had a huge yard light.

I remember I think the bulb was 200 watts, something like that. But we as kids used to play tag at night under the yard light. What we noticed was that the farther we were from the yard light, the longer our shadows. In fact, there were times when our shadows just went off into space, we couldn't even trace them anymore. Darkness. But the closer we came to the light, the closer we stood under that bulb, the shadows became shorter and shorter and shorter until standing there, we'd stand there and try to look down and see if there's any shadow at all.

And there would be, but it would be very small. To those of you today who are in your darkness, come to the light. Jesus will take the shadows of your life, he will give you hope. Because what he said is because I endured darkness, you can enjoy walking in light. And if we walk in the light as he is in the light, we and God have fellowship one with another.

God has fellowship with us, we have fellowship with God. I urge you today, come to the light. Second, I think what we must do is to realize that we must see light, we must see the light.

But for most of us, we also have to feel the heat. You see that man that I began this message with who lied to the investigators regarding stealing the iPad, lied, lied, lied, lied until he couldn't take it anymore. Once they set off the buzzer on the iPad, he had to produce it. Today, as I preach this message, there may be a buzzer that is going off in your heart.

And that buzzer is reminding you of issues that have never been brought to the light. And you see, it is when we so begin to hate our darkness that we come to Jesus, and you know what the Bible says? Jesus will do for us what he did for Nicodemus, and we know he did it for Nicodemus. Paul says that we are translated from the kingdom of darkness, and there is a kingdom of darkness that is huge, into the kingdom of his blessed Son. And you see, it only happens when we experience the conviction of sin, and there's some of you here whom God brought to this church today that you might respond to Jesus, that you might say, I just cannot manage my darkness any longer. I want to come to the light. So we must keep in mind that that is true.

Truth hurts, but lies hurt even more. Finally, what we must understand is, and I've already hinted at it, only God can bring us from darkness to light. This is not something that you can do. It's not a matter of saying to yourself, well, I'm going to walk in the light today, and I'm going to make some New Year's resolutions that I'm going to keep, and thanks to behavior modification, I am going to change, and I'm going to be different. No, you won't. With enough time, you'll revert back to form.

You'll be the same person you always were. The Bible puts it very starkly and asks the question, can a leopard change his spots? And the answer is no, and nor can you and I pull ourselves out of darkness unless God does. When Jesus was discussing this with Nicodemus, you remember what he said? He said, and I didn't take the time to read it, but it's there, unless a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. This new birth is a birth from above. It isn't produced because of human effort.

It isn't a matter of human willpower. It is a gift of God, and if God is speaking to you today, you can respond to that Holy Spirit that is convicting you of your darkness, and you can come to light, and Jesus will transform you and bring you from one kingdom to another. I told you at the beginning that Nicodemus came to Jesus by night. Now let's turn to a passage of scripture, and you need not turn to it, but you might like to write it down. This is what we read now in the 19th chapter of John regarding Nicodemus. After these things, Jesus has been crucified, by the way. After these things, Joseph of Arimathea, who was a disciple of Jesus, and you know what? I have the wrong passage here. I was talking about Nicodemus, and this is about Joseph of Arimathea.

I'm so glad that this is the first mistake I remember making in all the years I've been preaching. Praise God for his forgiveness. I don't know what I was thinking of, but I do know that Nicodemus, at the end—this is true, I just don't have the right passage—at the end identified himself with Jesus, he now came into the light publicly. The beginning of chapter 3, he is actually one who, what shall we say? He is in the midnight of conviction, and later on he comes to the midday of confession. He does come to Jesus, even if I have the wrong passage. I promise, it's there.

It is. Where does this leave you? Once again, to refer to the lecture that was given here yesterday, Jerry Root asked the question, what sound does rain make? And the answer is, really no sound until it hits something. Maybe an umbrella, maybe you're going outside, maybe the roof of the car.

Rain makes no sound until it hits something. In the very same way, grace, we don't see grace until it's received. It can only be received by an open, willing heart.

Do you have that today? Are you tired of darkness? Jesus said, I am the light of the world. He who comes to me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life. Jesus gave his body and his blood to reconcile us to God so that we could be his forever. We need not walk in darkness. Would you pray with me?

Father, we want to thank you today so much for these words of Jesus, and we ask Lord God for those who are struggling today to come to the light. They have so many issues. They are so overwhelmed. They may be saying to themselves, there's no way that I can come to the light.

It costs too much. Help them to know that whatever they pay will be worth it because truth hurts, lies hurt even more, and they eventually lead to destruction. But we need help, Lord, because we're locked into our darkness. Unless you rescue us, come to us, we pray, even as we give you thanks in Jesus' name. Amen. And my friend, if you've never opened your life to the light of Jesus, would you do that right now?

Our greatest desire is to see people come to saving faith because they're tired of their darkness and they seek the light, the light of Christ. I'm holding in my hands a very special volume. We're making it available for you. We have never made this volume available before. It's a daily devotional based on God's creation. Wish that I had more time to tell you all about it, but here's what you can do for a gift of any amount, it can be yours. Go to rtwoffer.com or call us at 1-888-218-9337.

365 photographs and explanation of the wonder of God's creation. Be sure to get it before the first of January. Right now, connect with us, go to rtwoffer.com or call us at 1-888-218-9337. Here at the Ministry of Running to Win, we do not lose sight of our purpose is to make it all the way to the finish line. You can write to us at Running to Win, 1635 North LaSalle Boulevard, Chicago, IL 60614. Next time, we jump to John chapter 8 and learn how the light leads us. Plan to join us. Thanks for listening. For Pastor Erwin Lutzer, this is Dave McAllister. Running to Win is sponsored by the Moody Church.