Matt Guelzow: I AM The Light of the World | 15:03:26

Good morning church. Good to be here.

I'm here today to talk about light.

And I was doing some research. I was

looking at things. I found definitions.

There's a few engineers in here. I found

definitions about waves and all those

sort of things. But I'm like, "No, I'm

not about that. I'm a simple man."

But what I want to bring to your

attention today, I wonder, as you can

see, I've dimmed the lights.

But

light is such a simple thing. I flick

the switch

and light comes on. It changes the room.

It changes the atmosphere.

It changes

how we see things. Let's pray.

Lord, I thank you for this time. I thank

you for this place and for bringing

everyone together today. I just pray

that as we look at your word,

you teach us and you guide us and you be

with us in Jesus name. Amen.

So yeah, you walk into a dark room and

you flick a switch and all of a sudden

everything changes. What once was dark

is now light.

The darkness doesn't fight back.

It just disappears.

Gone.

It doesn't fight back. It just

disappears when we turn the light on. I

read something recently that made me

stop and think. Actually, it was on a

kid's website. I I looked up I want to

know just basics. So, I looked up kids

science light was my Google search and I

found some things and it said this

thing. It said darkness is the absent of

light. Absence of light. You can't

actually create darkness.

To make somewhere dark, you simply stop

the light from coming in.

Darkness is the absence of light. You

can't actually create darkness. To make

somewhere dark, you simply stop the

light from coming in. So, I was looking

at this before.

I can see the light trying to come in

here. But if I was to do this, the light

would come in.

But we're stopping the light from coming

in.

Darkness.

Anyway, that's a side point.

But even a small light can change a dark

room.

This light's from my bedroom. I use it

all the time and it lights the room. But

I wonder if I can give you this quote if

my clicker thing works.

Yes, I can.

Martin Luther King once said something

that captured this idea really well. He

said, "Darkness cannot drive out

darkness.

Only light can do that. Hate cannot

drive out hate. Only love can do that."

And when you think about it, that's

exactly how light works.

You don't fight darkness, you simply

introduce light.

And Jesus once said something and it's

what we're focusing on for the next

little while. The I am series. He says,

"I am the light of the world.

Whoever follows me will never walk in

darkness, but will have the light of

life." The message translation says it

this way.

I am Jesus. I am the world's light.

No one who follows me stumbles around in

the darkness. I've provided plenty of

light to live in.

And as I looked up this passage,

I knew I was preaching on I am the light

of the world. So I went to John 8

and I looked and I found the verse, John

John 8:12

8:12. But something caught my eye as I

went to that verse and found it.

I found the context of it. And like

Pastor Ben preached on last week about

the bread of life. I am the bread of

life. I am the bread of life comes after

the feeding of the 5000.

And when I found the verse, I am the

light of the world.

What precedes it? What comes before it

is the woman caught in adultery.

And I was like, I'd never noticed that

before.

I think we've all read them in separate

context. We've read, "I am the light of

the world.

No one who follows me stumbles around in

darkness. I provide plenty of light to

live in." But I'd never noticed that the

very preceding story was this story.

And it comes straight after the woman

caught in ad idolatry.

And when we think about I'm the light of

the world, we often imagine that just as

a single teaching moment.

But it actually

is a moment where Jesus shows mercy to

someone.

You see, the the the crowd had brought

uh the woman before Jesus.

She'd been dragged into the middle of

the crowd. She was caught in sin. You

know, many people believe that she was

they just dragged her straight from the

very act of adultery.

probably wrapped in some bed sheets,

embarrassed,

put in the middle of this crowd.

Everyone was mocking her. And then if

you read the story and you could read it

later, the religious leaders are ready

to condemn her and they place her in

front of everyone and ask Jesus what

should be done.

But they weren't looking just for Jesus.

They were trying to trap him. And Jesus

bends down and begins riding in the

dust. And then he stands up and says,

"Let the one

of you who is without sin be the first

to throw a stone at her."

That stuffs them up a little bit.

This crowd that was once accusing and

yelling and boisterous

begin to walk away. One by one, the

stones begin to drop. The people start

to realize that they're judging her. And

eventually it's just Jesus and the woman

standing there. And Jesus looks at her

and says,

"Here we go." Jesus straightened up and

asked her, "Woman, where are they? Has

no one condemned you?" "No one, sir,"

she said. "Then neither do I condemn

you. Go now and leave your life of sin.

I am the light of the world. Come

straight after this.

And I realized something. I realized

that uh the first thing that Jesus does

here when he's talking about light in

John chapter 8 is he stops condemnation.

John 8 · chapter mention

No, that's not the one I want. I thought

I had one. He stops condemnation. The

first thing the light of Jesus does is

stop condemnation. The light of Jesus

exposes sin, but it does not exist to

destroy people.

The crowd were there to destroy people.

They were there to destroy a reputation.

They were there to to give

he found it. They were there to give um

accusation to say you're worse than me.

And then the crowd suddenly realized

that no, they're not worse than her.

And that's why they kept dropping stones

because it was who has no sin can you

know drop the first stone.

So one by one the sins they dropped

the light of Jesus exposes sin but it

does not exist to destroy people. It

exists to save them. When Jesus said

these words people listening you got to

remember again where this happens. So

this happens in the temple courts. It

happens at a time of celebration.

It happened

when the festival of tab tabernacles was

on. So that was they what they do in the

festival they would light light these

large lamps in the in the in the

festival grounds in the grounds of the

of the of the place of the temple.

And this was to remind the people of God

that God led Israel through the

wilderness with light.

So there's examples of that all around.

This is God. What God did in Israel.

This is what God did for you in the

past. This is what God did for you.

The God of the Old Testament. This is

what the God of the Old Testament did

for you. But here Jesus is saying, "I am

the light."

Now in form of a human.

He wasn't just pointing towards the

light. He is saying, "I am the light. I

am the light." That was that verse

there.

There's a verse in Exodus that

highlights that around

God leading them out of Israel, uh,

Egypt. By night, the Lord went ahead of

them in a pillar of fire to give them

light.

So, talked about that.

We'll get to this bit.

Always when I think of light in the

context of Jesus,

I think about lighouses. It's just what

I do. Often when I go and write my

messages,

I park in that car park near the

Birkenhead Tavern near the bridges. I

slide in there, park under one of the

big trees, and I have the the port in

front of me. And so as I'm writing this,

the lighthouse is there. And and I love

the image of lighouses. I grew up in the

Salvos and and the Salvos have a an

image in lots of their centers that is a

lighthouse and has people swimming in

the ocean and and the lighthouse is the

place of safety.

So ships navigate dangerous waters and

they look for the lighthouse. They look

for that beacon of light.

But it's not the building or the the

structure

that is the thing that creates light.

Inside the power, there's a lamp. But

this lamp isn't as effective unless it

has mirrors around it.

Because the mirrors are the things that

guide that light out. They're the things

that point that light out to the to the

ocean.

The lighthouse simply reflects the light

it receives.

How do we fit in that? The lighthouse

simply reflects the light it receives.

And the mirrors need to stay clean.

If they become dirty or clouded, the

light is still there, but it doesn't

shine as clearly. And sometimes our

lives can be like that. We reflect the

light we stay close to.

Jesus says, "You are the light of the

world." In Matthew 5:14.

Matthew 5:14

And this is the story where it says they

put a lamp on a stand and they covered

it. You know, we're called to be the

light of the world. We're called to be

light in this world.

I was lying there the other morning.

I'd got up to pray and I still had some

time and I was tired. So, I'm like, I'm

going back to bed. So, I went back to

bed and the Holy Spirit didn't let me

rest cuz I was in prep mode. So he gave

me a thing and he goes,

"Glow-in-the-dark stickers."

So I'm lying there. You imagine I'm

lying there trying to sleep, trying to

rest. And he goes, "Glow-in-the-dark

stickers?" I'm like, "What the heck are

you mean by glow-in-the-dark dark

stickers, God? I have no idea what

you're talking about." But then it

became clear to me.

I remember as a as a dad of two kids,

the glow-in-the-dark stickers in the

shop and and they want one and they're

two bucks in office work, so I just

bought lots of them, but that's a trick.

Um

the little moons and stars you stick on

the ceiling. I think Samuel's still got

some. He's 15, but they're still on the

ceiling cuz cuz you don't take them down

once they're stuck there. They're there

for for life, right? They're just stuck

there. I'm not getting back up there to

fix them.

and and often they don't work straight

away. They you get them and they're

like, "Why is this thing not glowing?

It's meant to glow." They think it's

going to glow. Especially these are the

nice bright yellow ones, but those white

ones that don't look like they're

functioning or doing anything.

They're not glowing. And in the shop,

you they're you think they're going to

do everything, but once you get them

home and stick them on the roof,

nothing. Absolutely nothing.

And the reason is simple.

It's because this doesn't produce light

by itself.

Glow-in-the-dark stickers don't produce

light themselves.

They absorb light and then reflect it

when it gets dark.

They absorb light and then reflect it

when they get dark. So they need

exposure to light.

They need time under the light.

How many times have you stood there as a

parent?

I've got one here. Yeah. How many times

you stood there as a parent held it

really, really, really close to the

light and you're getting blinded because

you're trying to hold it here and I can

already see I'm going to get dots if I

close my eyes. But how many times you

holding it here so it glows for your

kid?

They absorb the light and reflect it

when things get dark. They need exposure

to light. They need to be close to the

light and if they don't re receive

enough light, so once we stick them on

the roof, you'd think the theory was

that daylight is going to do it. But

daylight doesn't cut it.

But those ones that are stuck on the

roof and aren't glowing haven't stopped

being what they were made to be.

They just aren't fully charged.

They glow best when they spend time in

the light.

What have I got up here? They glow best

when they spend time in the light.

Sometimes

I know my life can feel like that. I

know I had someone who I'm close to in

this church recently.

I was tired and I was serving and I've

been doing stuff and someone said to me,

just gave me a little said, Matt, how

much time you spending with God? And I

went, "Thank you for that. I will

receive that and I will ponder that and

I will see how I go this week."

Sometimes our faith can feel like that.

We're still around the light, but we're

not always giving Jesus the attention

our hearts need.

Life gets busy kind of faith. We just

live it. Yeah, we believe in Jesus and

it drops into the background. But

following Jesus doesn't happen by

accident.

And it wouldn't be a preach in the port

church without a Eugene Peterson quote.

So I found one.

Wait. But yeah, this is the point that

our faith journey, if we just fumble

around and stumble around and keep going

through the motions, we're not going to

glow. We're not going to be close enough

to the source. So we have to be

intentional.

It doesn't happen by accident.

And here we are.

Disciplehip is a long obedience in the

same direction.

That just means that we have to maintain

the course.

That we have to continue even when we

don't feel like it. that when our

sticker feels like it's getting old and

crusty on the roof and it hasn't

received any light, we don't just ignore

it. We understand it's part of a

journey. That staying close to the light

is something we have to choose again and

again and again and again.

Cuz light in our lives is intentional.

It is. It's intentional.

Now, Pastor Ben last week gave out some

worksheets. He called them homework,

which grated against me

cuz I don't like homework. Never have,

never will. So, when he said it was

homework, eh, now I've got worksheets. I

got things today. I don't know what I'm

I'm giving you stuff later on. We'll do

it. Don't worry, my helpers. I'm not

there yet. Don't freak out. But

everyone's going to receive

uh a guide and it's going to have one of

these stickers on it, one of these

little glow-in-the-dark.

And I I would love for you to take that

home with you today

and place that sticker somewhere you're

going to see it every day.

So, chuck it on your fridge, put it in

your car, stick it on your phone cover,

um put it on your mirror, stick it

beside your bed, wherever you want to

do, do it. do at the back of the toilet

door. You could just one singular

sticker on the toilet door. Yeah.

Perfect.

And every time you remember, you see it,

you remember these things. Stay close to

the light, recharge daily, and reflect

Jesus.

Now, on that on that handout, you've got

some guides around that. you've got some

some thinking around that as a

reflection

because Jesus said, "I am the light of

the world." And our job is not to create

the light. Our job is to stay close to

him.

Because when we stay close to the

source,

his light begins to shine through us,

into our homes, into our friendship,

into our community.

And people navigating the darkness of

light will see something different in

us. They'll see us reflecting Jesus.

But it's not us. It's not our light.

It's Jesus light. Because Jesus says, "I

am the light." So it's a light that's

not ours,

but it's his.

Why don't we just take a moment right

now

just to ponder that thought

just to ponder

the sticker,

the need for recharge,

the need for recharge so that we can

reflect Jesus in our community.

perhaps take a moment to

do a

a check on ourselves.

Have we just been going through the

motions?

Have we just been rocking up to church

on a Sunday?

Have we just been

living in this chaotic world which it is

right now?

and forgetting

about the light that guides us,

about the beacon on the hill.

Have we forgotten that

amongst the crashing waves of the ocean

and the chaos of the storms?

If only we'd look up.

If we're only we'd lift our eyes from

our troubles and see the lighthouse on

the hill.

Wait for it. It's coming. The light is

coming.

Sometimes it might blink,

but the hope of the light is there.

Why don't you ask for God's light to be

more evident in your life?

And maybe

and a little dirty

or a little clouded.

We haven't paid attention to that.

Lord, give us strategies to

shine Jesus into our world,

into our communities, into where you

place us. Help us, Lord, to shine your

light.

Recharge us, I pray.

Amen.