Who Are You | Light of the World - Daniel 12 | December 1

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Daniel 12. At that time, Michael, the archangel, who stands guard over your

nation, will arise. Then there will be a time of anguish greater than any since

nations first came into existence.

But at that time, every one of your people whose name is written in the book will be rescued.

Many of those whose bodies lie dead and buried will rise up,

some to everlasting life and some to shame and everlasting disgrace.

Those who are wise will shine as bright as the sky, and those who lead many

to righteousness will shine like the stars forever.

But you, Daniel, keep this prophecy a secret.

Seal up the book until the time of the end. when many will rush here and there,

and knowledge will increase.

Then I, Daniel, looked and saw two others standing on opposite banks of the river.

One of them asked the man dressed in linen, who was now standing above the river,

how long will it be until these shocking events are over?

The man dressed in linen, who was standing above the river, raised both his

hands toward heaven, and took a solemn oath by the one who lives forever,

saying, it will go on for a time, times, and half a time.

When the shattering of the holy people has finally come to an end,

all these things will have happened.

I heard what he said, but I did not understand what he meant.

So I asked, how will all this finally end, my Lord?

But he said, go now, Daniel, for what I have said is kept secret and sealed

until the time of the end.

Many will be purified, cleansed, and refined by these trials.

But the wicked will continue in their wickedness, and none of them will understand.

Only those who are wise will know what it means. From the time the daily sacrifice

is stopped and the sacrilegious object that causes desecration is set up to

be worshipped, there will be 1290 days.

And blessed are those who wait and remain until the end of the 1335 days.

As for you, go your way until the end. You will rest, and then at the end of

the days, you will rise again to receive the inheritance set aside for you.

Amen. Let's start with some prayer this morning.

Lord, we just thank you for this time, this time today, but also this time that

we've had in the book of Daniel and all of the richness that you've had for

us, all the challenges to just trust you, to know you,

to dedicate our lives to you that we may find ourselves, that we might live

with purpose for you in this world.

So we just have one more encouragement from this book today.

And I just want to say thank you, Lord, for your words today,

what you're going to speak to our hearts, the ways that you're going to change

us, the ways that you're going to enlighten us and open our minds and reveal

the reality of the spiritual world to us,

that you are alive, that you are working, that you are making real changes in

this world around us in our own hearts.

So I just pray, Lord, that we would see, that we have eyes to see,

that we have ears to hear, and we have minds that understand,

and they would have hearts that love well. Amen.

So we're just a month away from Christmas, which is pretty crazy to think about.

The year's flown by, it seems, and even now we find ourselves in the last chapter

of the book of Daniel. So just one more crazy fever dream left,

and we'll be at the end of this book.

And it's funny as I was thinking about as I was reading

this chapter I was thinking about this time of year and

all that kind of stuff the Adam Sandler Hanukkah song

came to my mind you know that one the Hanukkah is

the festival of lights instead of one day of Christmas we have our presents

we have eight crazy nights right we're all familiar with the song I would hope

we've actually played it for the kids a couple nights ago I'm not quite sure

when Hanukkah starts but you know what's even more interesting is that Hanukkah

is a celebration that reminds us a lot of Daniel.

So the story of Hanukkah commemorates the rededication of the second temple

following the Maccabean revolt, which you'll have heard about by now.

And this takes place against the Seleucid Empire.

So the revolt was sparked because Antiochus IV, Antiochus Epiphanes,

which is a name you should be familiar with by now.

So Antiochus IV, he outlawed Jewish practices and we just read the desecration of the temple.

He desecrated the Jewish temple. So after this victory...

The Maccabees that they had against Antiochus Epiphanes. They cleansed the temple,

they rededicated, and the claim is that they witnessed a miracle, right?

That when they entered into the temple, they found a small container of oil

that was enough to light the candle,

light the menorah for one night, and miraculously, the oil lasted for eight

days, which is how long it took to dedicate the temple and how long it took

for them to get more oil to bring.

So, they witnessed this miracle of oil that should have only lasted a night,

but it lasted eight nights, and that's why Hanukkah exists.

Hanukkah is a word that means dedication in Hebrew.

It's a celebration, eight days by lighting the candle, lighting a menorah in honor of this miracle.

There's another Hanukkah song that you're probably familiar with.

It's the dreidel song. I don't know if you ever sung that.

We grew up in sort of ancillary Jewish home, not really a Jewish home,

but so we kind of heard these songs as well.

But the dreidel is a toy that you spin, right? It has four sides.

And on those four sides are Hebrew letters, Nun, Gimel, He, and Shin.

And so these letters are forming an acronym that remind us of a Hebrew phrase,

which translates to a great miracle has happened today.

And so the dreidel song can memorize this dedication, this miracle as well,

that Hanukkah honors the miracle of light during a time of oppression.

That's what it's all about. Hanukkah honors the miracle of light in this intertestamental

period for the Old Testament and the New Testament. It's during a time of oppression.

And as you may know, there are other holidays and other traditions which we

celebrate and observe during the season. We just started...

Celebrating Advent today. We'll continue that because none of you probably celebrate

Hanukkah, if I'm willing to guess. I've never heard that come from any of you.

But I'm pretty sure I know that a lot of you celebrate Advent and then pretty

much all of us celebrate Christmas, although maybe to varying degrees.

I could see Tori being like, really about Christmas.

He's probably decorated before Halloween, if I were a betting man.

But Advent anticipates the light of Christ entering the world to overcome its

deepest darkness, right?

Hanukkah, we just read, is the celebration of the light emerging from a dark

time in which God's people weren't allowed to worship.

Christmas is the celebration of the light of the world entering into the darkness

of our own sin in order to make us children of the light.

So, together, these reveal a shared spiritual truth that the light of God's presence brings hope.

Transformation, and a promise that darkness will never prevail,

that the times are evil, as we've seen in the book of Daniel towards these last

chapter, and they're only going to get worse.

But we, the light of the world has come. We who are walking in darkness have seen a great light.

On us who live in the land of deep darkness, a light has dawned, right?

These celebrations, this time of year reminds us that the light of the world

has entered into our darkness, that Jesus is the light of the world.

So what I want to do with our time today is look at two more identities of Jesus

before we get back to the last chapter of Daniel and see how this affects our

identity as his beloved children, but two ways,

two more ways that Jesus chooses to refer to himself throughout his life and ministry.

Two claims. And the first is in John chapter 10. If you've got your Bibles with

John 10 · chapter mention

you, if not, you can grab them on the end here, but if you want to follow along,

I'm going to be in John chapter 10 first, starting in verse 22.

John 10 · chapter mention

At that time, the Feast of Dedication took place at Jerusalem.

It was winter, and Jesus was walking in the temple in the colonnade of Solomon.

So the Jews gathered around him and said to him, How long will you keep us in

suspense? If you are the Christ, tell us plainly.

Jesus answered them, I told you, and you do not believe.

The works that I do in my Father's name bear witness about me,

but you do not believe because you are not among my sheep.

My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me.

I give them eternal life and they will never perish and no one will snatch them out of my hand,

my father who has given them to me is greater than all and no one is able to

snatch them out of the father's hand I and the father are one so the Jews picked

up stones again to stone him,

Jesus answered them I have shown you many good works from the father for which

of them are you going to stone me the Jews answered it's not for your good work

that we are going to stone you but for blasphemy because you,

being a man, make yourself God.

Jesus answered them, is it not written in your law? I said, you are gods.

If he called them gods to whom the word of God came and scripture cannot be

broken, do you say of him who the father consecrated and sent into the world,

you are blaspheming because I said, I am the son of God.

If I'm not doing the works of my father, then do not believe me.

But if I do them, even though you do not believe me, believe the works that

you may know and understand that the father is in me and I in the father.

Again, they sought to arrest him, but escaped from their hands.

Did you catch, did you catch what's taking place? What's going on at the beginning of this story?

What's going on as Jesus is interacting with these people, these Jewish people,

these religious leaders, do you catch what's happening?

It says, verse 22, at the time of the feast of dedication took place at Jerusalem,

it was winter. It's Hanukkah.

Jesus is celebrating Hanukkah. It happened maybe a couple hundred years before

Jesus or 120 or so like that, but Jesus is in the temple for the feast of dedication.

Jesus is celebrating Hanukkah in Jerusalem, and he makes it a point to be there for Hanukkah.

And this is not mere coincidence. The Bible is a fantastically brilliant book.

It's absolutely brilliant. So it's hard to imagine that, or I guess,

I guess just to say hardly anything is, is, is put into the Bible that doesn't

have meaning and purpose is none of it's done by accident.

So it's, it's not a coincidence that the light of the world is in Jerusalem

during the festival of lights, but it's also not really our focus,

not really our focus for today, but Jesus claims here to be the son of God.

Although he doesn't really say it like that.

I mean, he does in the sense that the Jews interpreted him to say that he is

the son of God and he said that they are correct and agree that they are correctly

interpreting his words to say that, but he doesn't actually make the declarative statement,

I am the son of God, at least not in what we have recorded.

So perhaps he does and it's just not written down word for word,

but here's how the exchange really goes.

Verse 31, the Jews picked up stones again to stone him.

Jesus said after a bit, he said, do you say of him who the father consecrated

and sent in the world, you are blaspheming because I said, I am the son of God.

So he doesn't originally say he's the son of God, although maybe he does,

but the Jews interpret it correctly,

that he is making that declarative statement that he is the son of God.

And maybe this is actually like the first recorded message,

happening of the instance of the mandela effect i'm

not sure if you know what the mandela effect is but it's like this social

phenomenon where a large group of people misremember

an event or a detail of an event so it's called that because it originally comes

from this lady who discovered that like her many other people had the false

memory of nelson mandela dying in prison in the 80s when in reality he was released

from prison in the 90s was the president of south africa from like,

I don't know, 92 to 90, 94 to 99.

And then it passed away like 2013. But so many people had this false memory

of him dying in prison that it came, they came up with this identifier of the

Mandela effect where people,

a large group of people misremember some event. It doesn't have to be in history.

The most popular instance of the Mandela effect is actually from Star Wars episode

five, the Empire Strikes Back, all of you Star Wars fans, right?

What does Darth Vader confessed to Luke.

Yeah. Luke, I am your father, except he doesn't say that.

He says, no, I'm your father is all that he says. But for some reason,

pop culture has solidified that the quote from that roomie is Luke,

I am your father, but that's not actually what he says.

Cause this is a Mandela effect thing where this misquote has stuck in pop culture forever since.

And that's what people believe he actually says, but that's not what he actually

says. But so what Jesus actually confesses,

What Jesus actually confesses is I and the father are one. That's what he says.

That's what the Jews hear, but what they understand to be correct is that he's

identifying himself as the son of God.

So what he says is I and the father are one and the Jews are incited and want

to stone him because they hear correctly that he is making this claim for it.

That's why they pick up the stones to kill him because son of God is an identity of the divinity.

Like Jesus is making a divine claim here. He is saying that he is claiming to

be God, even in his actual words, I and the father are one.

In those actual words, he's claiming this divine authority, he's claiming to be God.

So notice that what the Jews say when response is, it's not for good works that

we are going to stone you, but for blasphemy, because you being a man, make yourself to be God.

They're hearing correctly that Jesus has a claim to divinity.

And what's happening is they can't prove any of his works were evil.

They couldn't disprove per se that his works didn't prove his divinity.

So what they're doing is kind of covering their tracks and saying,

it's not because of your good works that we're stoning you.

It's because of your God words that a mere mortal would claim himself to be,

make himself out to be God.

So we're stoning you for your words, not your works. They said,

which they totally missed Jesus's point in 1032, which is what Jesus is saying

is my works clearly demonstrate who I am.

My miracles clearly demonstrate my oneness with the Father.

All that I am doing proves what I'm saying about myself.

So they would, that Jesus is not just, he's not making himself God. He is demonstrating.

He's showing that he is God by his works and his words.

And Jesus says that they couldn't receive it because they were showing themselves not to be his sheep.

So Jesus wasn't making himself God. He was demonstrating that he is God.

Jesus is the son of God, speaks to the divinity of Jesus, right? Jesus is God.

John writes at the beginning of the gospel, in the beginning,

the word already existed.

The word was with God and the word was God. He existed in the beginning with God.

God created everything through him and nothing was created except through him.

The word gave life to everything that was created and his life brought light to everyone.

The light shines in the darkness and the darkness can never extinguish it.

So John identifies Jesus as the one and only son from the father.

He's clearly identifying Jesus as God's divine son.

He's a son unlike any other son of God. And therefore Jesus,

Actually, what we see throughout John, that John returns to this idea,

oh, time and time again, of Jesus's divine nature,

that Jesus is Yahweh incarnate, who is greater than all things because he was

before all things, that he's equal in every way with the Father.

John returns to this identity time and time again, which leads the Jewish leaders

to desire Jesus's death because Jesus is a mere mortal, they claim,

is making himself out to be God, right?

The author of Hebrews writes this, the sun radiates God's own glory and expresses

the very character of God.

And he sustains everything by the mighty power of his command.

When he had cleansed us from our sins, he sat down in the place of honor at

the right hand of the majestic God in heaven.

So Jesus, the son of God radiating with God's own glory, the glory of God to

bring light into the darkness.

The light, which reaches into all corners of the world to reach down into your

own life, that light may dawn.

The son of God radiating with the glory of God, bringing light to the darkest reaches of the world.

Son of God is a clear statement of Jesus' eternal sonship, of his deity,

you could say, but that's not the only way that son of God is used in the Bible.

Jesus as the son of God also speaks to his humanity and his purpose.

The title son of God is given to others throughout the Bible.

Usually to those who manifest obedience to the father, we are called the sons

of God. We are given sonship.

So sonship is not just defined predominantly in biological terms.

Sonship is, is a term for being in one accord and submissive towards.

So it's a title that not only speaks of identity, but it speaks of purpose.

And D.A. Carson explains that this Christological title has been often overlooked,

but demonstrates how son of is not just positional, beloved in the family,

but often vocational. So it's about what you do.

It's about what you see that your father defines your work.

That's what the title son of God is demonstrating that your title,

your father defines your work. It's about what you do.

More specifically, Christ himself receives the Son of God title because in the

sense that he fulfills all the roles of Adam and Israel and David,

but in being a covenant mediator, but he is above and beyond.

He supersedes these previous people who are listed as sons of God.

Jesus is the one whom his father had set apart and sent on mission into the

world to redeem those who are dead and their trespasses and their sin.

That Jesus was set apart on mission for a mission to redeem the lost world.

He sent him into the world as the one who was fully man, yet the only son of

God, that he might be the sacrifice for the sins of man.

That Jesus is the light of the world, the son of God.

But there's another title that you may be equally as familiar with.

It's actually the primary title that Jesus uses when referring to himself.

And it's the title that we're going to kind of focus on the next three weeks

that bring us up to the Christmas.

And it's Jesus looks back to Daniel, looks back to Daniel's prophecies,

and he calls himself the son of man.

The son of man who takes away the sin of the world. The son of man who has come

to seek and save the lost.

The son of man who came to serve and not be served, the son of man full of glory,

who has the power to forgive sins, the son of man who is coming on the clouds

of heaven with power and great glory.

Jesus is referred to the son of man 82 times in the New Testament.

In the only instance, the only time that son of man is used in clear reference

to Jesus that doesn't come from Jesus himself, but comes from someone else is

from the lips of Stephen as he is being martyred.

That's the only other time that Son of Man is used in reference to Jesus,

but is not coming from Jesus directly because it usually is coming from him.

This title Son of Man is the one I really want you to pay attention to.

And we're going to camp, like I said, we're going to camp on it for the next

three weeks because it is the one that is most often used in the New Testament.

And it is the one that is almost exclusively used by Jesus.

And it refers back to this Old Testament prophecy of Daniel,

where Daniel had a vision into the interior of heaven's courtroom,

where he saw the ancient of days enthroned and judgment was set.

And to the ancient of days comes one like unto a son of man,

it says, who then has given authority to judge the world.

So since we read from Matthew chapter 24 and 25 a little bit last week,

Matthew 24 · chapter mention

why don't we read some from chapter 26 this week?

This is another account akin to John chapter 10, where the people who Jesus

John 10 · chapter mention

is speaking with aren't very happy with the way he's talking about himself.

So this is Matthew chapter 25 or 26, sorry.

Matthew 25 · chapter mention

Then the people who had arrested Jesus led him to the home of Caiaphas,

the high priest, where the teachers of religious law and the elders had gathered.

Meanwhile, Peter followed him in a distance and came to the high priest's courtyard.

He went in and sat with the guards and waited to see how it would all end.

Inside, the leading priests and the entire high council were trying to find

witnesses who would lie about Jesus so they could put him to death.

But even though they found many who agreed to give false witness,

they could not use anyone's testimony.

Finally, two men came forward who declared, This man said, I am able to destroy

the temple of God and rebuild it in three days.

Then the high priest stood up and said to Jesus, well, aren't you going to answer

these charges? What do you have to say for yourself?

But Jesus remained silent. Then the high priest said to him,

I demand in the name of the living God, tell us if you are the Messiah, the son of God.

Jesus replied, you have said it. And in the future, you will see the son of

man seated in the place of power at God's right hand and coming on the clouds of heaven.

Then the high priest tore his clothes to show his horror and said,

blasphemy. Why do we need another witness?

You have all heard his blasphemy. What is your verdict?

Guilty, they shouted. He deserves to die.

So, strikingly enough, we have both titles here, Son of God and Son of Man.

And in this one, Son of Man speaks the same volumes as to Jesus' identity and

purpose and character as the last one does.

Son of Man is a title of humanity and,

Other titles for Christ, such as Son of God, which we've just looked at,

might overt, more overtly speak to Jesus's divinity, although we just saw that

it also speaks to his humanity as well.

But Son of Man specifically focuses a lot on Christ's humanity.

God called the prophet Ezekiel Son of Man 93 times.

And in doing so, God is just simply calling Ezekiel a human being.

Son of Man is a title that just is synonymous for the word human.

So Jesus Christ was truly a human being.

He came in the flesh. Son of man is a title of humility that the second person of the Trinity,

eternal in nature, would leave behind heaven's glory and took on the flesh of

man, took on human flesh, the appearance of man, becoming the son of man, born in a manger,

despised and rejected by humankind.

The son of man had no place to lay his head. The son of man ate and drank with sinners.

The son of man suffered at the hands of men.

This intentional lowering of his identity, his status from king of heaven to

son of man is the epitome of humility in his humanity.

Philippians 2 speaks a lot to this. This is something that we may or may not

hear multiple times over the coming weeks. I'm not quite sure.

But in verse six, it says, though he was God, he did not think of equality with

God as something to cling to.

Instead, he gave up his divine privileges. He took the humble position of a

slave and was born as a human being.

When he appeared in human form, he humbled himself in obedience to God and died

a criminal's death on the cross.

So Jesus Christ, son of man, fully human, God himself became nothing.

And came to us. This is the heart of the gospel. The heart of the gospel is

not that we try to live our best life so that we can go and be with God.

It's that God made himself nothing and came to us.

He met us in the thickness of our darkness so that we get to be with him now in the thick of it.

Not, not only at some later date, but we get to be with God now in the thick

of the darkness that Jesus is with you now.

In your worst day, he is here.

In your best day, he is here. At all times, he is here. That's the beauty of

the gospel is that Jesus came to us.

Paul tells us in Philippians that we have to have the same approach to life,

that we have to have the same mindset. You must have the same attitude that

Christ Jesus had, Paul tells us.

Don't make yourself into God, chasing your own will and desires.

This is what the humanity has been doing since the garden.

Rather make yourself nothing. Anybody want to raise their hand and volunteer to be nothing?

Make yourself nothing in our humanity, humbling ourselves to serve others in

obedience to Christ so that through us, he may be glorified.

Because although his humanity is part of the story, It's not the fullness of the story.

If we keep reading in Philippians, it goes on to say, therefore God elevated

him to the place of highest honor and gave him the name above all other names

that at the name of Jesus,

every knee should bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth and every tongue

declare that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God, the father.

That's because son of man is not only a title and identity of Jesus's humanity.

Son of man is also a title of deity.

It too speaks to the divinity of Jesus.

Ezekiel may have been a son of man, but Jesus is the son of man,

the eternal son of man, the only son of God.

Jesus is the supreme example of all that God intended humanity to be.

He is the embodiment of truth and grace, the perfect representation that in

him, all the fullness of deity dwells in bodily form.

And for this reason, the Son of Man is able to forgive sins.

The Son of Man is the Lord of the Sabbath.

The Son of Man comes to save lives, rise from the dead and execute judgment.

And that's the funny thing about this passage in Matthew that we just read.

If you could say that there's anything funny about this at all,

it's not a particular humorous story, but the funny thing is that the religious

leaders believed that Jesus was being judged, that they were judging Jesus, but he is the judge.

They believe that they were judging him all the while they didn't even know. They didn't have a clue.

And that's what makes this statement of Jesus here so powerful and so infuriating

to those who are listening.

At his trial before the high priest, Jesus said, I say to all of you from now

on, you will see the son of man sitting at the right hand of the mighty one

and coming on the clouds of heaven.

And they immediately accused Jesus of blasphemy and they condemned him to death

because Jesus sitting on the throne is a picture of judgment.

And they understood that they, they knew what he was saying.

He's saying that I am the king and I have already judged you.

I've already found you wanting. You don't measure up.

This is Jesus, picture of Jesus sitting on the throne, but it's not the same thing he'll say to us.

It's not the same way we'll see him. We'll see Jesus in the same way that Stephen

saw him, not sitting, but standing and welcoming us in with open arms.

We who have faith and believe, we who know God and endure to the end will be welcomed.

Stephen told them, look, I see the heavens open and the son of man standing

in the place of honor at God's right hand.

Then they put their hands over the ears and began shouting.

You see the difference in these pictures?

This is the son of man is a fulfillment of prophecy, right?

That Daniel saw glory and worship and he saw a kingdom, an everlasting kingdom given to the Messiah.

To him was given all rule and dominion and power and authority and a kingdom

that all nations and peoples and languages which serve him.

This is Daniel's vision, that the son of man is a heavenly person,

a heavenly person who descends to this world and whose principal role in his

return is that of heavenly judge.

We tend to only think Jesus calling himself as the son of man as an expression

of his humanity, his humility. It is a claim to his divine authority, his position as judge.

It is a highly exalted title. Jesus, the son of man, the son of God, the light of the world.

That's what we encounter here as we conclude our time in the book of Daniel.

Daniel's not writing, as you have heard before, that we may know when is the end.

Verse four says in Daniel chapter 12, you, Daniel, keep this prophecy a secret,

Daniel 12 · chapter mention

seal it up, seal up the book until the time of the end, when many will rush

here and there and knowledge will increase.

And again, verse eight, I heard what he said, but I did not understand what

he meant. So it's a hidden secret to be discovered only at the end of time and

not in the midst of time as we live it.

That Daniel's not writing that we would know when the end is.

Daniel's writing that we may know who God is.

Verse 10, many will be purified, cleansed, and refined by these trials,

but the wicked will continue in their wickedness and none of them will understand.

Only are those who are wise will know what it means.

Verse 12, blessed are those who wait and remain until the end.

Daniel's writing so that we may

have hope because the times are evil and they're only going to get worse.

Verse one says that then there will be a time of anguish greater than any since

nation first came in since nations first came into existence.

But the son of man will come. The son of God will come. The light will dawn

and the saints will inherit the kingdom.

As for you go your way until the end, you will rest net the end of the days.

You will rise again to receive the inheritance set aside for you.

Verse two, many of those whose bodies lie dead and buried will rise up,

some to everlasting life and some to shame and everlasting disgrace.

Those who are wise will shine as bright as the sky. And those who lead many

to righteousness will shine like the stars forever.

So we've been talking about the book of Daniel is identity. We've been answering

this question. Who are you?

Knowing that if you know who God is, you'll know who you are and you'll know

what to do. You'll know your purpose.

And Satan's number one goal is to make you forget who you are in Christ.

And what your identity and your purpose are.

That you are beloved children of God who exist, who are here to make disciples.

In other words, to help others see their real identity and purpose.

That's why you are here. You're beloved of child of God, here to make disciples,

to help others see their reality, their real identity and their purpose.

So how many, the warning for Daniel is to endure until the end.

How many countless names of believers are there who fall away when it becomes.

It no longer becomes advantageous for them to be a Christian.

It's no longer beneficial to them. In fact, it costs them greatly.

It costs them everything.

Daniel writes that we might not be counted among that number.

That's his warning to us. So let's go back to the beginning.

We talked about Jesus as the light of the world.

We talked about that Jesus, who is the light of the world, made it a point to

be in Jerusalem during Hanukkah.

That he who was called the light of the world was there in celebration of hope

and of justice against the dark, pervasive tyranny that existed in those evil days.

That he told his followers, Jesus told his followers that they were the light

of the world and they were not to be hidden away, but they were to be like a lampstand.

They were to be a candle. They were to be menorah.

Jesus says that they are the light of the world. He tells us,

let your light shine before men that they may see your good deeds and worship

your father who's in heaven.

During this season, let's be light.

Let's be light in the darkness with all the evil division, oppression,

injustice that exists in this world.

Those who celebrate the lights of this season, we who celebrate the lights of

this season must be the light of the world.

Of this season, that to the people around us, that in the midst of their darkness,

the light of Jesus might dawn.

Now we who celebrate the lights of this season are to be the lights of this

season for others, that light might dawn in their darkness.

Let's pray. Lord, you are the light.

You are light and love. And you have come into this world, that light might dawn.

And now as we wait in the midst of Daniel's vision, from then until the end,

I just pray, Lord, that you would shine your light through us,

that you might push back the darkness.

That you might bring your lost children home. So Lord, help us be lights.

Help us remember in this season, as we light these candles, as we remember that

you are the light of the world and that you tell us that we are the light of

the world and we should let our light shine brightly, Lord.

So I just pray that, that you would do that, that you would answer that promise

in us that others might see and be drawn to you through us in this season and, and, and following.

That your spirit would be heavy upon us, that it would be evidence that we'd

be visible and tangible and all those that we interact with day after day.

And that through it, Lord, that you would give people an experience of your light.

Lord, I just pray and ask and wait in anticipation and excitement of the day

that we get to experience the fullness of that light.

Advent is a time of not just remembering you came, but it is a time looking forward to your coming.

So we just pray and we join in the words that conclude the Bible,

Lord. Amen. Lord, come, Lord Jesus, come.

Thank you for listening to Mountainside Church's podcast. We hope you found

inspiration and encouragement in today's teaching.

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