Christmas 2017

I just want to take a few minutes to share a word with you. It's not going to be long, but I just want to to kind of tell you a little bit about this thing called Christmas. And the subject today is light. Now as a church, when we started Salt Church, there were there were two basic ideas, two basic things that we really wanted to put front and center.

The first one was that we wanted a place for people to come to find a clear pathway to God. That they would be, they would, because everybody's on a spiritual journey. Everybody is somewhere on a spiritual journey, and we wanted to eliminate all the, all the confusion and all the things and just provide people a way to connect with God. And at Salt Church, the idea of the name Salt was to be a preservative, to be a flavor, to be something different that actually brings about something greater. And it might just be a little bit of salt, but as you know, a little bit of salt goes a long way when you're dealing with food and things like that.

The second thing is that we wanted a place where people can actually not just come to church and just enjoy songs, enjoy a nice message, but actually experience the tangible presence of God. That people would actually walk in and connect with God. And when we come together as a group of people, God inhabits the praises of His people. And we believe that God shows up in a special way. Yeah, He's always with us.

He always is present. But when we're together in His presence, He shows up in a very special way. And if we could just offer, you know, just a little hope, a little light in somebody's dark world, we believe that's a win. Because we believe that a little bit of light goes a long way. And I believe that we live in a time where darkness is just prevalent in our world.

And it gets worse every year. I've been in pulpit ministry for probably about 10 years now. And I've been in ministry in one way, shape, or form my entire life because I'm the son of a preacher man. And so whether I was directly or indirectly in ministry, I was made to be in ministry there when I was younger. But I watched, I watched the years and I watched the church.

And more than any other time in history, every year it seems to be getting a little darker. And it's easier for people to be more discouraged. There's reasons for people to be discouraged. But what if we could have a little light in the middle of our uncertainty, in the middle of the darkness that we face? Just a little bit.

What if, what if we could have in the middle of our situation? In the middle are our difficulties. In the middle of our hard times. A little bit of Christmas. A little bit of joy.

A little bit of hope. It's amazing just, just to, how much a little bit of light can make a difference. Any of you that have kids know that nightlights make all the difference in their room. I've got two kids. I've got a six-year-old and a three-year-old.

And both of them have nightlights in their room. Max has an emoji light. And Savannah has this little balloon, hot air balloon light. And if I don't cut on that light, it's absolutely terrifying for them to be in their room. I don't understand why.

But we can, I do understand why. Because I remember being there when I was a child and how scary and how frightening the darkness was. And these little lights, these little lights we light up in the room, they don't really do a whole lot. But if that light's on, they feel safe. They feel secure.

And in some ways, they feel hope. They feel like they have a little bit of hope. And we see that with Christ. A little bit of light goes a long way. And the Bible is full of messages about light.

In fact, the central theme of the Bible, one of the central themes, that is, of the Bible is light. We see light throughout the Bible. The contrast of light and darkness. In fact, we can go all the way back to Genesis. Now, in biblical studies, the principles of biblical studies, if any of you are biblical studies trained, principles of Bible trained, you understand this law here, the law of first mention.

And what that means is when you're studying a particular topic, or a particular word, or a particular phrase, or you always go back to the first place it's mentioned in Scripture to get the clearest interpretation, or the clearest idea, or the most pure form of what that really means. So when we look at light, we go all the way back to the beginning. To the beginning. In Genesis 1, 1 and 3, it says, in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty, and darkness was over the surface of the deep.

So it was a very dark place. Darkness was over the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters, and God said, and God said, let there be light. And there was light. So in the beginning, we see here that God was actually moved to bring light to darkness.

Some of you are like, well, pastor, that's just an account, a narrative of the beginning of time, of the beginning of everything, that Jesus and God is sovereign, and all of these things, you know. Maybe you're reading into that, but no, there's more to it, because here we see that God is moved by light. And if we fast forward thousands and thousands of years later, we see this same idea. And in the book of John, Jesus comes into the world. And Jesus says this in John 12, 46, in the NLT, I have come as a light to shine.

I have come as a light to shine in the dark world. That's the reason he came. I have come because I'm moved by darkness. I have come as a light to shine in the world so that all who put their trust in me will no longer, will no longer remain in darkness. God saw the darkness on the earth and he was moved to do something.

He was moved to just bring a little bit of light in the darkness. I think it's interesting that we celebrate Christmas in one of the most darkest times of the year. The winter solstice was just passed, December 21st. And some historians believe that the Christian church, the early Christian church, documented things, show that perhaps the reason that we celebrate Christmas because we could have celebrated Christmas any time of the year. In fact, we don't really know the exact day or the exact time or the exact month of the year where Jesus came into the earth.

But the early church actually took on this time of year to celebrate because it's one of the darkest times of the year. And it's a way to symbolize the light that came into the world. So we celebrate that in the darkness. That's what Christmas is about. A little bit of light in the darkness can go a long way and make a radical difference.

John's Christmas account says this. Did you know that John, we have four Gospels. We have four Gospels. Matthew and Luke are where we gather most of our Christmas stories together. We talk about Jesus and the manger nativity and all the things that happen.

It starts at the very beginning with the birth of Jesus Christ. And then we have John and we have Mark who start at Jesus' adult life, his ministry and all he did in his life. But did you know that the book of John actually is a Christmas story as well? Here it is, John 1 and 5. Just track with me for a second.

In the beginning was the Word. And the Word was with God. And the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. And through him all things were made.

And without him nothing was made that has been made. So, Jesus has always been. He's always been. He always will be. He was there in the beginning.

He was there in creation. He was there with the Father. He was there with the Spirit. When the Spirit hovered over the waters, he was there from the beginning. His birth wasn't in the world.

He has always been. His story didn't start in the world. He had always been. But this next part is key. In him was life.

And that life was the light of all mankind. So, that light, that light that's always been was the life of mankind. And the light shines in the darkness. And the darkness has not overcome it. The darkness cannot overcome it.

The darkness will not overcome it. See, John gave us the significance. Although we get the Christmas story from the other Gospels and Matthew and Luke. And we see all that. They gave us what actually happened and how it happened.

And in the smallest of circumstances, in the most terrible circumstances, Jesus came into the world. Why? Because he could relate to us. But John gives us something even more significant, more far-reaching, more powerful. And that's that he is the light of life.

And he, as a little babe, came into the world to bring life. And that life would be available to anyone and everyone. A little hope. A little life. A little light.

And we all experience different types of darkness. Darkness. Let's just talk about darkness for a second. Darkness. We all have a bit of darkness in us.

Is the truth. I mean, I have darkness. You have darkness. I've been dealing with some things in my own life. It's the last few months just trying to...

Sometimes there's just things you just can't quite place on it. And just keeping me in a dark place. And keeping you in a dark place. And, you know, at times when I'm going through that, I try to do it on my own. And when we try to do things on our own, it just gets worse.

When we're trying to deal with darkness. When we're trying to deal with whether it's anxiety or fear, whatever that is. We try to do those. We try to wear it on our own. We try to make...

The practical thing to do is just to try to figure it out, right? But instead of asking Jesus to come into the picture. And asking light to come into the picture. And kind of pierce that darkness. But when I find myself inviting Jesus into the equation.

Inviting God into the situation. Giving Him. It brings a sense of freedom. It brings a sense of release. It brings a sense...

It breaks up that inner darkness. And we all deal with different darknesses. We deal with depression. Some of us deal with anxiety. Some of you are having a time in your marriage.

And maybe it's your job. Maybe it's your families. Some of you are going home to your in-laws. And you just don't want to go there. Because you know it's going to be a fight.

I don't know what it is. Everybody deals with a little bit of darkness. And you have something going on inside of you. And maybe you have that. And you don't really know what it is.

And you can't really place it. And you're just trying to shake it off. And you can't... What we call that spiritual darkness is sin. And we all sin.

I've sinned. You've sinned. And the question should be... It shouldn't be... Why, God, are you allowing this stuff to happen to me?

Because that's typically the question we go to, right? We say, why, God, are you allowing this to happen to me? Why are you allowing this? What did I do wrong? Instead, we should be asking the question, Jesus, why did you come?

Why would you come to bring light into this situation? Why would you come to bring light into this darkness? Why would you do this? Why would a holy God care so much about our situation that He's willing to give His Son? To willing to put His Son in a world that received Him not to bring light to our situation?

A perfect example of Jesus is in John 8. Many of you know the story of the woman caught in adultery. And the religious people were gathered around Him. They thought, we're gonna put Jesus in His place. Because He always comes back with these questions.

He always comes back with these questions. Jesus was just so cool because He could just take a situation. These guys say, these lawyers and... These theologians and these Pharisees who were raised in the law, like, we're gonna put Jesus in his place, and they said, we got him now, a woman who's committed a sin, and the law of Moses says, you have to kill this woman, we have to take her out. She cannot live.

How is Jesus gonna respond to this? And Jesus responds, he who has no sin casts the first stone. And every one of those religious leaders looked over at each other, looked at Jesus, and got quiet. And one by one, they threw down the stones, because every one of them had reasons not to live, based on the law of Moses. And Jesus looks over the woman says, do you see anybody's here to condemn you?

Well, neither do I. That's our Savior. Neither do I. So, go and sin no more. And this next part, I never really got to this next part.

What does Jesus say after that? I didn't think about how this tied together, and it goes back to light. It says in John 8, 12, and when Jesus spoke again to the people, he said, I am the light of the world. Listen, listen, listen, listen, listen, everybody here that's listening to me. Jesus says, come together.

I am the light of the world, and whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life, the light of life. And in the same way, he can do that for you. Because he doesn't condemn you. You've sinned, I've sinned, I deserve nothing. But he deserves everything.

And what did he do? He came down. He came into this world. He lived life with us. He knew our pains.

He knew our hurts. He knew our failures. He brought light into the darkness. Christmas, 2,000 years ago, light came into the world, and it came in the form of a little child, a little light. A little bit of light goes a long way.

A little bit of life makes an eternal difference. The interesting phrase in Genesis is, let there be light. And when you look up the word in Webster of let, what you learn is, it means to permit to enter. To permit to enter. And today, I want to challenge you, not just to know, but to open up your heart and open up your life to allow Jesus to enter.

It says, behold, I knock at the door of your heart. And if anyone opens, anyone permits me to come in, I will come in, and I will be with them. So I want to offer that opportunity today. If every head bowed and every eye closed, and I'm not even going to, I'm not going to embarrass you. I'm not going to call you up to stage.

I'm not going to, today, I'm not even going to ask you to raise your hand if that's you. I'm just inviting you. I'm pleading with you. Give Jesus, give the light of life an opportunity to come and break into the darkness of your life. Allow Him to change you from the inside out.

He is there available for you. He does not condemn you. He does not condemn you. He invites you in to experience true life. If that's you today, maybe God's pulling at your heart.

Maybe ever since you walked in the door, you felt that pulling towards something. That's something. That's God calling you because He loves you, and He wants to change you from the inside out. He wants a life for you. He wants life for you.

He wants light in your life. He knows the darkness. He was here. He endured it. He went through it.

And He wants that for you. So I beg and plead with you. Give Jesus an opportunity. Maybe you've never given Jesus the opportunity. Maybe you did at one time, and you've kind of fallen away because the darkness kind of came in.

Maybe you're somebody who just needs God to be more in control of your life. Maybe you're walking with Jesus today. I want to pray for all of you. But if you would just pray with me this prayer, if that's you today, that needs to invite Jesus into your life, do that. Jesus, in the name of Jesus, you would just say this with me.

Just pray this with me. In the name of Jesus, I believe that you are the Son of God, that you died on the cross for my sin, and that you rose again on the third day to conquer death and to grave. I receive you, Lord. I commit my life to you today, Lord. I permit you to enter into my heart.

As you knock on the door, I open it. Come in, Lord. Change me from the inside out. In Jesus' name. Jesus' name.

Amen. Amen.