Sons of Light

Wave our Bibles around, make Jesus glad in the devil.

May I say this together say Heavenly Father, I thank you for the word that was made flesh and dwelt among us.

And Lord, you've ascended into heaven and you're seated at the right hand of our Father and you expect something out of the church to make your enemy our footstool.

Hallelujah and Lord, we're gonna do just that by shedding light in Jesus' name.

That's what I wanna talk about tonight.

So let's turn into Ephesians, chapter five.

You know the tradition of all the lights lights on the tree, the lights on houses.

You know it goes back to Jesus, it goes back to the glory of the angels, hallelujah.

Ephesians, chapter five, verse eight, and this is written to the church, for believers, for you were sometimes darkness, say back when we were lost.

We were darkness, but now are you light in the Lord.

Walk is children of light.

In other words, word walk means continue, keep on walking, walk and keep on walking is light.

Children of light, for the fruit of the Spirit is in all goodness and righteousness and truth, proving what is acceptable unto the Lord, and have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them, for it is a shame even to speak of those things which are done of them in secret.

But all things that are reproved my margin says discovered All things that are discovered are made manifest by the light, for whatsoever doth make manifest is light.

Wherefore he said awake thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light.

All right, and then let's turn over to Matthew, chapter five.

Jesus is talking on the Sermon on the Mount.

He's just addressing his disciples.

And if it's true of the disciples, it's even more true of us, because we're born again.

They weren't born again at the time.

Matthew, chapter five, verse 14.

You are the light of the world.

A city that is set on a hill cannot be hid.

Neither do men light a candle and put it under a bushel, but on a candlestick, and it giveth light unto all that are in the house.

Lest your light so shine, let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your Father, which is in heaven.

So I just wanted to encourage you tonight.

We're the sons of light.

We're the sons of light.

That's what God calls us, the sons of light, and you know light.

It says here that darkness is reproved, it's discovered, it's revealed.

It's exposed by the light.

More and more we're seeing evil being exposed, I believe, because the church is beginning to shine with the light of the gospel.

More and more People say do you still think the church is asleep?

Well, I think big portions of it are, but it's showing signs of waking up.

We're seeing signs that the church has finally got the message Awake you sleeper.

I mean, you can't shine your light from under the covers, you sure can't shine your light from under the bed.

You're gonna have to get up out of that bed, amen.

And you know, really, it's one of our main mandates of the church, of Jesus Christ and of this church.

You know, he told me to wake up the church.

How did we start doing that?

Well, by shining a light on things that were dark, and it seemed like years went by.

Years went by and I kept shining the light, I kept speaking about it and I shine the light and shine the light, and it just, you know, in the last four years.

It's just amazing how people are responding now.

Yeah, lights coming on, darkness is being reproved.

You know, I tell the story.

One time, when we first built this building back then, before we remodeled the platform.

We had all these steps coming up to the platform and you know it was broad daylight, the light was really shining bright in the lobby and I knew where the light switch us.

But I was over here and I didn't wanna walk around there and turn the light on.

So I said, oh, I got enough light shining through these doors.

I can make it up to the platform.

I just need to get something out of my poop.

But I just knew that I could.

I'd never done it, but I just knew I wouldn't have to fool with the light.

And I mean I got to walking up here and I just tripped and fell right over the platform.

I mean I mean, bam, hit the steps, you know, skinned my shins up.

Thank God it didn't break my teeth out but I mean that darkness swallowed the light.

I mean you know there wasn't any light left by the time I got up here.

But I'm telling you, right now the light's coming on, darkness is being reprubed, darkness is being exposed, amen.

You know, in Matthew chapter four, just the verse before we just read it says in verse 16, the people which sat in darkness saw talking about the coming of Jesus.

People that sat in darkness saw great light.

And to them which sat in the region in shadow of death, light is sprung up.

And let me read it to you out of the message.

I just love the message Bible, that verse, matthew 416.

It says people sitting out their lives in the dark saw a huge light.

Sitting in that dark, dark country of death, they watched the sun come up.

Glory to God.

And I believe that's exactly what's happening.

You know, in Isaiah 60, it says a rise, shine, for thy light has come, for the glory of the Lord has risen upon thee.

And it says darkness shall cover the earth and gross darkness the people, but the light is gonna come and wake them up.

The light is gonna come and shine.

I believe we're living in those days right now.

I mean, let's let our light shine during this season.

Let's not hide it under a bushel.

Let's get up and let the light of the gospel, the light of the good news.

You know I was talking to Susie.

Can I use you, susie, as an example?

Susie was real concerned about a loved one and they're in the hospital and she's concerned they're gonna go off into eternity and die without Jesus.

And so she's been talking to him and talking to him and she got encouragement from another relative.

Oh, you just give them the plan of salvation and leave it with God.

And I encourage her.

I say well, I don't agree.

Your testimony is powerful.

Sometimes you can't be brief with people.

You've gotta seize the moment, and I believe we're gonna have a moment, more than a moment, with our family, our extended family and friends in this season.

People that we know are not right with God.

In some cases they're lost and undone without God.

Let's give our testimony, let's think about what things we can tell them that God has done for us.

You know, when you sit in the witness chair and give your testimony, I'm telling you the Holy Ghost will come upon people and touch them.

Lord, come on, lift your hand right now.

We're the sons of the light.

We're not gonna let darkness prevail when we've got the light inside of us.

Woo, hallelujah.

First, john 1 5 says God is light and in Him there's no darkness at all.

So if we're the sons of God, then we're the sons of light.

Jesus said it.

Everybody say I'm the lie, I'm the light of the gospel, I'm the light of, I'm the light of God.

Yeah, you are.

You got that light shining.

You know another way to look at it.

We're the unveilers.

We're the unveilers.

What does it take when you, when the light comes on, when you, when light comes on, light is unveiled and everything that's been hidden suddenly becomes when you can see it.

You know, I've been in an operating room when that and when I wasn't the one that was on the table and it's bright in there.

It's so bright you can I mean, you really kind of want sunglasses.

It's so bright in there, it's just Intense.

Why?

Because when they open, what?

If someone up for surgery, they've got to have that light to shine down so that they don't make any mistakes, they don't nick an arteries, they don't cut something that doesn't need to be cut.

I mean, just think about having to operate on somebody with a candle or With a flashlight.

You know, like, like on the battlefield.

Sometimes they've got the you know, not great conditions.

You know they've got to do emergency surgery on the battlefield.

Sometimes they don't have enough light, they don't have enough Equipment and they just have to do what they have to do and and and hope for the best.

Well, thank God, when you've got that kind of light, everything is revealed.

I'm telling you, god is shining light on evil right now, and evil needs to be reproved.

That's what God told us to do.

He said you're to reprove evil, you're not to have any fellowship when the unfruitful rights, unfruitful works of darkness.

So as we're the unveilers or the revealers, or the discoverers of of evil when it's going on.

How's that gonna?

How does that work?

Well, every time that we pray, every time that we Speak out against evil, every time we vote, every time we act and obey God when God tells us to do something, then we're doing our part.

That light overcomes that darkness.

That's what we have to do until we're taken out of the way.

One of these days we're gonna be taken out of the way and this dark world is gonna get really dark.

So our purpose right now is to what Shine.

Our purpose right now is to overcome that darkness and not let it go any further.

This far and no further.

Praise God.

So you know, I go back to just this past September.

You know, two months ago was our fourth anniversary of the Wednesday night.

It was Rosh Hashanah and or Sunday night.

It was a Sunday night.

It was Rosh Hashanah and the Jewish New Year, and God had a word through me that said, you know, this next year is when you get to the end of next year, which would have been 2020, you're gonna say this is the greatest year of my life.

And what was 2020?

Well, 2020 was the COVID shutdown.

I think for a lot of people, they would say 2020 was their worst year.

For a lot of people, people died.

For a lot of people, people were very sick.

For a lot of people, they got broke.

But, you know, for a whole lot of people in this church, god's perspective was different.

God had a different perspective.

He wanted the church to be blessed.

He wanted the church in position to reap a mighty harvest.

And you know we did.

I mean, we saw in one of the words that we had that night is God is going to increase our footprint.

What does that mean exactly?

Well, it just means you're gonna increase in prominence.

Oh well, you know I'm humble.

Well, no, I mean, you know, I know where you don't do anything to be prominent, you do something because in obedience.

But you know, if you humble yourself under the mighty hand of God, what did he do?

He'll exalt you and do time.

He'll draw attention to you.

And so we had three words that we went into the 2020 with and I just wanna remind you because it's kind of a similar timing going into 2024, I see I'm not prophesying, but I just know 2024 is gonna be a pivotal, pivotal, pivotal, pivotal, pivotal, pivotal, pivotal year.

And he gave us three words perspective, god's perspective.

We've gotta get out of our perspective.

We've gotta get out of our light, our understanding, our, you know, our 60 watt bulb, our candle bulb.

We're gonna have to get God's perspective.

We're gonna have to get in his light and see as he sees.

We're gonna have to line up with him.

We're gonna have to line up with how he sees things.

Well, how do we do that?

Well, get into this word.

This word is invalid, this word is eternal, this word is non-negotiable.

Praise God.

And then so we come out of the under the covers, get the covers off so that our light can shine brightly.

Perspective when our light shines.

Everyone else's perspective sees what he sees.

When they see what he sees, they've got two choices repent and join up with us or perish.

Our job is not to see everybody saved.

Our job is to get them to a place of decision, but they've got to have light to do it.

Everybody say perspective, and then the power is the overwhelming light.

The more you cooperate with God and see his perspective, he will give you supernatural power to influence this world like you never thought you could.

That's what's happened in this church.

We're influencing people at the highest levels that we never even heard of us before COVID Never even heard of us before.

We opened on Palm Sunday 2020, and refused to shut down for Palm Sunday.

And then the Sunday after that was Easter News media out there in the parking lot, interviews with newspapers across the country, periodicals.

I mean you know it went just like wildfire.

Just God.

When we turn God's perspective about COVID and God's perspective about a non-essential church, I'm telling you the light.

I mean the rat started scattering.

You ever come into a dark house.

I had a rent house one time and it was dark in there.

I turned I still had power to it and when I turned the lights on, roaches came from everywhere.

I mean they were flying off.

They just got in my hair.

I mean I wanted to leave the way I came.

You know they were laying up on top of the door, right between the door and the door frame.

I opened the door and all the roaches fell down on my shoulder.

I mean, wow, woo, woo, woo, woo, woo.

That's a nice thought for Camp Fire Christmas.

We've got s'mores out there.

Everybody say perspective, god's power, and then finally, prominence.

God is going to exalt us, he's gonna put us in places of influence our footprint, he's gonna expand our footprint.

And don't exclude yourself.

Everybody is, from the youngest to the oldest.

Every one of you is a candidate for what God has planned here this next year.

Why?

Because we are the sons of light.

Come on, lift your hands and receive the word tonight.

Glory to God.

Hallelujah, lord, we just thank you for everyone here tonight.

We thank you that you've led them here by your spirit, that you've filled them with your spirit, that you've given them your word, and we're looking forward to getting in the witness, standing in the witness chair and giving our testimony of what we have seen and heard and what we know.

We've seen a lot, we've heard a lot, we know a lot and we're gonna convey that to a lost and dying world, hallelujah.