He Came: Christmas Series | He Came as the True Light (December 17th, 2017) - Mike Armstrong

Alright, you guys ready to get into God's Word?

I'm ready for this.

So why don't you turn in your Bibles to John chapter 1 as we uh get going here in our uh He Came series, continuing on in the Christmas series today.

John 1 · chapter mention

Now, um I'm kind of actually attempting to preach from an iPad today.

All right, here I'll give you some proof of all of that.

And uh, you know, why, you know, why am I doing this?

Well, the reality is it's just kind of a funny thing in this room, right?

We've got lights that are kind of up a little bit kind of high, uh, but we've got a pulpit that's sort of tilted a little bit, and really what it does is it creates like this black hole of darkness uh for me on Sunday mornings, and so I feel like my eyes, I can't afford my eyes to get any worse, and the hunchback as I turn over like this to look uh to get any worse.

And so if you see like a bit of a glow off the iPad, I doubt it's like uh Moses at Mount Sinai, Shekinah glory thing.

That'd be kind of cool, but I really doubt that it's that.

Um, it's just really um for me to be able to see.

Now you're like, why, why, why do I tell you this?

Right?

Not because certainly not because any of that is interesting information to you.

You're like, who cares?

Like you're preaching from an iPad, no one cares.

I'm not trying to channel my inner, you know, millennial or something like that and be constantly plugged in all the time.

It's not that.

Rather, the reason I would I would tell you that is because I I think we could probably all agree uh that light uh is helpful.

Light is helpful, right?

You plug uh a night light in the hallway in your upstairs of your house to help your kids find the bathroom at night.

We uh we leave the front la the front porch light on uh at night as well so we don't stumble and trip and destroy our ankle in the snow uh trying to get home.

Right?

That's the way we do it.

Right?

Light illuminates hidden dangers.

It brings clarity and it gives direction.

And, you know, in in the sense of being afraid of the dark, it can even sort of flush away fear.

Light helps us, it helps us really see as we should.

Okay, so our verses today actually show us that Jesus came as the true light.

Jesus came as the true light, meaning several things.

It means that he came, uh, first of all, to expose, okay, to expose the darkness of our sinful hearts.

He came to expose that, he came to reveal true righteousness and and moral purity to all mankind.

He came to highlight for us exactly who God is and and what he's like.

When we look at Jesus, we get an even better picture of who our God is.

He is He is the light.

And so our series in John 1, as we are in part two of three today, okay, it's really intended to sort of pull back the veil on what the Christmas story actually is.

That's what it is.

It's about who Jesus is and and what he came to do.

And so last week was about how he came as what?

He came as he came as God.

Right?

He came as God in the flesh, and today it's about how Jesus came as the true light.

So let's read this here then.

Uh our verses today are actually verses uh six to thirteen, but I'm gonna start at the very beginning here and just uh kind of continue and reread what we studied last week.

So follow along with me in your copy of God's Word, verse 1.

It says, In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

He was in the beginning with God.

All things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made.

In him was life, and the life was the light of men.

The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

And then here are our verses today.

There was a man sent from God whose name was John.

He came as a witness to bear witness about the light, that all might believe through him.

He was not the light, but he came to bear witness about the light.

The true light, which gives light to everyone, was coming into the world.

He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him.

He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him, but to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, who were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.

Lord, again, your church gathers here today, and God, we know how needy we are.

Lord, we know of you know, if we were to pull this room, there would be multiple stories of brokenness from this week alone, multiple stories of fragility in our own lives and and God, multiple stories of just desperation for you to move, you to act, you to do something.

And so, Lord, we implore, please do that today.

Lord, please do that in your church as we are seated here and as we have your word open, Lord, we recognize that we are staring into the face of the Most High God.

And so, Lord, would you speak to your people?

Lord, we are desperate for a word from you.

We are desperate for you to shine your face on us, to answer our prayers, to hear our cries, to change our hearts.

God, would you please do this, Lord?

We thank you.

We thank you that you are the true light.

Lord, you illuminate what is wrong with us.

You illuminate the way of salvation, you illuminate how awesome our God and Father is.

And so, God, please teach and train and equip your church, Lord.

Give us a greater hunger for you, a greater heart for you, a greater heart for the mission, Lord, to make disciples.

Lord, would you please do all of this?

Would you do even more than we are praying now?

We bring all of these things to you in the name of Jesus.

Amen.

Amen.

Well, the Christmas story is that Jesus came as the true light.

All right, he came as the true light, revealed for all to believe.

That's the first thing here.

So why don't you take a look at verse six here as we kind of walk our way through these verses here down to verse 13?

But here's verse six.

It says this there was a man sent from God whose name was John.

He came as a witness to bear witness about the light that all might believe through him.

He was not the light, but he came to bear witness about the light.

Alright, now what you notice here, especially as you read this in the context of the first five verses that we looked out at last week, is that our narrative takes a quite a pronounced shift here, doesn't it?

Quite a pronounced shift.

We spent last Sunday talking really about Christ's pre-existence, right?

Before his existence before the creation of the world, his sovereign rule over creation as the second member of the Trinity.

The focus being almost entirely on what was taking place on the heavenly realm.

Right?

That's what the first five verses are really all about.

And now these verses, they take quite a shift, right?

They change gears here to what was taking place here on earth at this time.

All right, and so we're introduced to a character here.

We're introduced to John the Baptist, who uh we see here, the verse says was sent from God.

Now, both Malachi and Isaiah, the prophets of the Old Testament, uh, they prophesy about John the Baptist as the one who would precede the Messiah.

He was gonna come first and and and really pave the way for Jesus.

Now, in Luke's gospel, he kind of fills in some of the some of the gaps for us.

He gives us the details of the story, and and we're told that that his birth, John the Baptist's birth, was miraculous uh in the sense that uh his parents, Zacharias and Elizabeth, they were they were quite old.

All right, and they had never had, they had never had children of their own.

But of course, uh, an angel of the Lord comes and he visits uh Zacharias and tells him that they would conceive, Elizabeth would conceive, and that their son would have a very uh distinct mission of preaching a gospel of repentance to prepare people's hearts for the coming of the Messiah, of Jesus Christ and his ministry.

Now, Jesus himself uh said these things about John the Baptist in Matthew chapter 11.

Matthew 11 · chapter mention

He said, Truly I say to you, he said, Among those born of women, there have there has risen no one greater than John the Baptist.

Imagine Jesus saying that about you.

That's pretty incredible.

And what he's referring to here is is not only the quality of John's character, uh, we know it was high.

We know that that John was a man sold out to the Lord for sure, but it's also speaking to the immense role that he played in in human history as as a forerunner uh to Jesus Christ and his ministry.

Now, John the author, okay, so we're gonna be like flip-flopping-flopping back here between John the author and John the Baptist.

Kind of a bit for us to kind of wrap our minds around here, but I think we can manage this, all right?

John the author uh of our verses here, he goes to really great lengths here to make sure that we understand John the Baptist correctly, that we have him, we have a kind of the right mentality about him, because we're the kind of people, right?

Just humanity in general and maybe even us, we love to, you know, we love to kind of embrace our inner fanboy or our inner fangirl.

We love to make a huge deal out of people that we that we admire, whether it's celebrities or or athletes or celebrity pastors and Christian leaders and you know, all of those, you know, kinds of people.

We love to do all of that.

Now, John the Baptist, he was the kind of guy that people were taken by.

People really, really loved to follow him.

Now, of course, he had his enemies too, and it ultimately cost him his life, but but people love this guy.

I mean, he was certainly different, and we know this.

What did his diet consist of?

His diet consisted of locusts, which is like super gross, and like basically a bigger, kind of gnarlier, grosser version of a grasshopper.

This is what this guy ate, but I guess he poured, he put like wild honey on it.

I guess that makes it, you know, all good and better.

I'm willing to just kind of take his word for it and uh not try that at all.

Okay, but that's what he ate.

That's what his diet consisted of.

And you know, he wore, you know, he wore clothing made of camel's hair, so definitely a unique kind of guy for sure.

And and people were kind of taken by all of that, but he preached with he preached with boldness and clarity and urgency.

He was obviously obviously prophetic in all of that.

And and as a result of all of those things, he stirred up quite a following.

He had a following of people.

And uh it was actually later on, years later, the Apostle Paul actually had to address some of his followers in Acts chapter 19.

Acts 19 · chapter mention

He addresses some of John the Baptist's uh followers or fan club or however you want to kind of look at all of that.

All right.

But then here, uh John, again, our author, he says this in verse 7.

Take a look.

He says that he came.

Okay, he came.

Not as the main event.

He didn't he didn't walk in with a swagger and say, all right, the real show is can begin now because I, John the Baptist, have arrived.

Right?

That's not his mentality um at all.

That's not where he is is coming from.

It says, but he came as what?

As a witness, right?

As a as a witness to bear witness about the light.

You know, jump over to verse 8 for a second.

He says here, he was not the light, but he came to bear witness about the light.

All right, so so clearly, again, John is going to great lengths to help us realize who John wasn't.

Right?

And he's realiz he's he's he's telling us here that John the Baptist came to point people to Jesus.

His role was to reveal the Christ, the Messiah.

So that verse 7 says, so that all might believe, okay, all might believe through him, that we would all believe in Jesus for salvation, right?

That we would believe in Christ.

Not believe in John, not give glory to John.

It's not about worshiping man, it's about worshiping God Himself.

And so John, and of course, many, many others before him were simply agents of our belief, right?

In the sense that their ministries really paved the way for us to believe, right?

They were agents of our belief, whereas Jesus is the object of our belief.

He is the one that we anchor our belief to or in.

Now I love this.

I love what uh John MacArthur says and how he puts it.

He says this Jesus is the light.

John merely reflected it.

I love that.

That's so good.

Okay, so again, at the end of the day, the Christmas story is about Jesus coming to the creation that he made.

It's not a tale to be entertained by.

It's not merely an excuse to, you know, put up a tree or give gifts and you know, drink some eggnog.

By the way, don't have a problem with all that stuff, but but rather it's about a Savior God to believe in.

Alright, so the obvious question as we look at that, as we read these verses, and and as the Lord is moving us, the obvious question is, do you believe in Jesus Christ for salvation?

Do you?

Do you believe in him?

And to be totally clear here, crystal clear, the question is not, do you believe that he existed or that he exists?

Hey James himself deals with this in the New Testament when he says that, hey, listen, even the demons believe.

And they shudder.

They shudder.

Listen, many people in this world are in the same category, so to speak, as the demons that James is talking about here in the sense that they believe in God's or in Christ's existence, that there is a God out there, you know, somewhere that Jesus did in fact walk this earth as a man at one point.

But listen, believing that he exists, while a very good start, it really is, it's not enough.

Okay, it's not enough for us.

Not if you in any way desire to not have your sins held against you and God's wrath pointed at you when this life is over.

Okay, so to believe in Jesus means to have faith in him.

To have faith in him, to to trust him, it's to it's to anchor, like I said earlier, to anchor our our hope in him, in who he is and what he has done for us.

It's really to believe the gospel.

It's to believe the gospel, to believe that that his death on the cross was for you.

It was for you, and it was uh it was a substitutionary death, it was a substitutionary sacrifice.

So when I believe in Jesus Christ, my heart is saying, listen, Lord, I I believe that you died for me.

You died in my place.

I I'm done playing the game where where I you know trust in myself and and in my works to make me acceptable to you.

I I'm done in the endless search of of otherworldly things to try and fill the hole of my heart and to try and bring satisfaction and meaning to me.

All of that is at the end of the day, meaningless and empty and broken.

I am done chasing all of that.

I am flawed.

This is what our heart says when we believe.

I am flawed and I admit it.

I I have sinned, Lord, is it is against you, and I deserve eternal punishment for it.

Who you are, Lord, and and in what you have done is where my ultimate hope lies.

Lord, I want to follow you.

I I want to give my life to you, I want to follow your ways forever.

All of that, that is belief in Jesus.

So is that you?

Is that you?

Is that what you have done?

Have you done that before?

Can you think back to a time or a situation where your sinfulness became such a burden to you, and the clarity of that was like, wow, I I need, I, I, I, I, I'm a wreck, I'm a mess, and I need Jesus to come through.

Lord, would you save me?

Have you done that here today?

I want to put the question to you straight up.

Please, I would urge you, if you have not, do it, do it now.

Because Jesus is the true light.

He came to shine a light on your greatest need, bar none, which is to be reconciled with the God of the universe, the God that you and I have egregiously sinned against.

Receive the gift of salvation that he has revealed to you.

He's revealing it to you even now.

As I teach us, as we open up God's word, he's revealed it to you through his son.

It's it's simply something that you accept by grace.

It's a gift given to you through through faith, through trust, through the word that we're looking at here this morning, through through belief.

Through belief.

Alright, here's the second thing.

The Christmas story is that Jesus came as the true light, though many, many would reject him.

Many would reject him.

Look at verse 9 here.

Verse 9 says this the true light, which gives light to everyone, was coming into the world.

He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him.

He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him.

What these verses do is they they point out the tragedy of humanity's rejection of Jesus Christ as Savior.

Now, first off, verse 9 there, what does it say?

It says, the true light which gives light to everyone, okay, everyone, was was coming into the world.

It's coming into the world.

Now, now when we see there that Jesus gives light to everyone, it's kind of gets you thinking a little bit.

Well, listen, we know that it can't mean that Jesus Christ saves, literally saves every single person who's ever lived.

Because obviously, not every single person puts their faith in Jesus Christ.

Right?

A lot of people hate Christ.

A lot of people hate Jesus.

A lot of people feel maybe very kind of indifferent towards him.

And so sometimes, though, some people would read a verse like this and be like, oh, well, Jesus saves everybody.

So I guess at the end of the day, it doesn't matter what we believe.

And at the end of the day, God's going to kind of scoop everybody up, regardless of what faith you believe and where you're at and what you're all about.

And so we end up kind of thinking in some ways, maybe this is kind of preaching universalism.

Wrong.

Okay, it's not what it, it's not what it's teaching.

We need to understand verses like this in their context.

We need to understand it in light of the context of overall scripture.

And I think a great way for us to understand this verse here is in light of Romans chapter 1.

Romans 1 · chapter mention

Now we're gonna get this up on the screen for you, and uh on purpose.

We tried to cram it all in there on one screen for you, okay, because we're gonna refer back to it.

So you can leave this up for a couple of minutes, all right.

This is what it says.

Follow along.

It says, For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth.

For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has what?

Shown it to them.

For his invisible attributes, namely his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived ever since the creation of the world in the things that have been made.

So they are without excuse.

For although they knew God, okay, meaning there that they knew about him, or they they were aware of his existence, okay, for although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened.

They were darkened.

Well, this teaches us that God has revealed the reality of his existence to every single person he's created.

He's made it clear through what?

Well, this tells us he's made it clear through his creation.

Through his creation.

So when when you and I, we see a beautiful sunrise.

I've driven to work a couple of times this week and thought, wow, this is amazing, this sunrise.

I saw this crazy, you know, partial.

Rainbow that was just like a spike kind of thing.

I don't know if you noticed that earlier this week as well.

And I'm like, wow, that's incredible.

It makes me automatically think of my creator and what he has made.

Or anytime that we see, you know, the wonder of a child being born, it's essentially God speaking to us of his existence.

Okay, creation screams of a creator.

You know, so many of us wanna, you know, want to look at creation, and so many people, the world looks at that and thinks that it all just kind of happened randomly.

And it all happened over like a gazillion years or whatever, and it all sort of morphed to the point where we've gotten to where we are now.

And I would say there, that takes more faith to believe that.

Right?

Over time, things break down, they don't get better.

When we look at creation, it takes actually less faith to believe that there is a being that created it.

Right?

God made it plain to us, the verse says.

What's the word?

Clearly perceived.

Clearly perceived ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made.

And then a really, really big verse.

So they are without excuse.

They're without excuse.

Listen, these are these are devastatingly heavy verses.

Right?

We don't read this and just kind of happy, go lucky, go on and move on to the next thing.

No, these are heavy.

At the end of the day, every single person who's who's walked God's green earth knows deep down that guess what?

There is a God somewhere within our soul, we know that.

Because Jesus, our verse says, gives light to who?

Everyone.

He gives light to every single person.

He's he's wired all of us, his creation, to know that he is real.

And because we know that that all of that, deep down, guess what it means?

It means that we are responsible for our sin.

And we are responsible for our response to the reality of God's existence.

It says here that we are without excuse.

What else does Romans 1 tell us here?

Well, it tells us here that many people suppress the truth.

We push it down, we ignore it, we toss it into a corner room somewhere, we turn off the lights, we close the door, and we lock it, we suppress the truth about him, and and we willfully choose to live in the blindness of our darkened hearts.

You know, I've said it before, I said it last week, I've already kind of alluded to it uh already this morning, but again, Christmas is not a light and fluffy story about, you know, uh a cute baby, you know, some barnyard animals gathering, huddling and keeping warm, and a little fire, and you know, a bunch of lame precious moments, angels and their diapers, right?

It's not about all of those things at all.

It's the reality that God is telling all of us listen, you guys are dead meat.

You guys are dead without me.

If I don't do something about this, death is where you are headed and is gonna be painful.

It is gonna be awful, eternal suffering, torment, all of it is all you have coming unless I step in here.

And so so Christmas is God saying, I'm gonna do something about it.

I'm gonna go, I'm gonna come to you because I love you and because I can, because I am mighty to save.

That is why he came.

Now, if the if the average person's rejection of of Christ isn't bad enough, uh just look at verse 11 here.

Verse 11 says, He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him.

This, of course, is referring to uh God's chosen people in the Old Testament, the the Jews.

Okay, they of all people should have been should have been ready and and and able to see and and and welcome the the Messiah to welcome Jesus with open arms and all of that.

I mean, I mean they had the law that was continually pointing to their need, and and that they had the prophets who were you know spelling it out and saying very clearly that the Savior is gonna, he's gonna be like this, and there's all this you know, messianic verses and and prophetic literature that they had.

They had all these promises, and yet they, his own people, it says, did not receive him.

What does it go to tell you?

It goes to show us that we're just so blind, right?

We're so blind in our heart.

We have dark hearts.

I mean, I mean, the scriptures could not be any more clear about this.

Okay, our natural reactions, our inclination, all of us, is to reject God and to reject his son, whom he sent.

And yet, at the same time, and I I can't even put it all together in my head, but at the same time, we are responsible for that rejection.

We really are.

And so what do we do, right?

What does mankind need?

Well, we need the true light.

We need the light.

We need a supernatural act of uh of God's love and his mercy and his grace to to land on us, to fall upon us, and and to change us and transform us, to to open up our our our blind eyes and and and soften our hard hearts and to overcome our pride and overcome our selfishness and stubbornness and and our rebellion and the rejection of our Maker.

We need Him to do all of things, to step in and save.

That is exactly what we need.

And listen, I know that as we read these words and as we talk about these things this morning and as we study all of this, I can only imagine that so many of us in this room, myself included, our hearts ache inside us.

You know, as we picture loved ones, people that we know dearly, who we know are living in this state of rejecting Jesus.

And they're rejecting the Lord, and they may be completely unaware of all of that, and they've never even heard of Jesus before, or they've never been to a church, and they've never heard the gospel, or maybe they have and they've heard it a million times and they know better, and yet they're willfully disobeying and rejecting, you know, in even a more outrageous and more, you know, blunt kind of way.

And so I, you know, I'm kind of sensing even in this moment here, as we're talking about all of these things, and we're gonna be spending time with our friends and our family over the holidays and and those who do not know Jesus Christ, I think it would be really appropriate.

Listen, the sermon's not over yet, but I think it would be really appropriate for us to just kind of pause here and pray and ask the Lord to move, ask the Lord to save.

And so as I pray, I would really encourage you, just kind of join me in your heart and in your spirit and do, you know, whatever you think you need to do.

If you need to get on your knees, turn around on your chair, and and just, you know, along with me as I'm praying, you know the names, you know the faces, you know the hearts, you know the people, right?

You just you just gotta name those people, you know, to yourself, in your spirit, in your heart as I pray.

Let's pray, Lord.

Lord God, these are these are heavy verses, Lord, as we've said.

God, and we understand that so many people and so many people that we know and love, and it might be co-workers, it might be the person who lives across the street, it might be the family that we see when we drop our kids off at school.

It could be uh a parent, it could be a child.

Lord, we all know people who at this point have rejected Jesus Christ as Savior.

And Father, we just humbly kind of put ourselves before you right now, Lord, and and cry out, Lord, would you move, Lord, would you save, Lord?

So many of us are gonna see these people in in the coming hours even, in the coming days and week.

And Lord, I pray that you would open up opportunities for us to share the gospel, Lord.

I pray that you would open up opportunities to shine the light of Jesus Christ as as we're supposed to, Lord.

Would you give us boldness to do this as your church, Lord?

Would we evangelize, Lord?

Would we not cower?

Would we not hang back in fear?

And Lord, would we understand, Lord, that in this place of rejection that so many people are in, Lord, would we recognize that it is you that changes the heart?

Lord, we cannot do it.

We cannot manipulate, we cannot force it, we cannot make it happen on our own, Lord.

It is you.

And to recognize that is a good thing.

And so, Lord, we throw ourselves at your mercy and pray that by your spirit, by your power, you would save.

And so, God, you know all the people that are coming to mind as our church prays, Lord.

And so, God, would you do a work?

Would you use this church, Lord, to carry out your mission to make disciples, Lord?

And we know that disciple making starts, of course, with salvation.

And so, would you do it?

God, we bring all of these prayers to you.

Lord, I pray that you would give us peace, that you would give us even joy in the midst of the ache that we feel, the burden that we feel, Lord, would that ache and that burden drive us to our knees even more in prayer, God?

We thank you for the privilege that it is to pray for loved ones and to pray for the lost.

And so, Lord, the result of all of that lies in your hands.

And so, God, at the end of the day, we will trust you with all of that, and we will love you.

We pray this all in Jesus' name.

Amen.

Amen.

Now you can probably see here that all of this is really driving us towards this final thing here, third thing.

Okay, the Christmas story is that is that Jesus came as the true light, achieving for us what we couldn't.

Okay, what we couldn't.

Verse 12.

Check that verse out here.

Okay, you want to talk transitions again.

Here we go.

Here's another one.

The word but is a signal to us that he's about to say something different here.

But to all who did receive him, all right, to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God.

Awesome, right?

Awesome.

We've been talking about that in Galatians.

They who are born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.

But of God.

And do you see here how it is it is God's grace alone that saves us?

Right?

He achieves for us in terms of salvation what we couldn't.

It says here that He, right, He gave us the right to become children of God.

It says that we're born not of blood, meaning that we're not born again because you know we happened, you know, to kind of fluke out and and be born into the right family or the right bloodline or something like that, or because we happen to be of the you know uh a correct you know ethnicity or or something you know like that.

Not at all.

Okay, well what else does it say?

It says, nor of the will of the flesh.

Okay, we're not born again because you know we all happen to have the you know just just the right amount of desire within us that that somehow made salvation attainable for us and and achievable.

If you just want it hard enough, you know, just go get it, right?

That's that's not what this is saying here.

That's that's not it.

Okay, what else does it say?

No, it says, nor of the will of man.

Okay, so so there is no man-made system, okay, that that that was that we've ever constructed that has ever or will ever be adequate enough for us to plug ourselves into, and somehow it spits us out as saved, and somehow you know brings us closer to our maker and to our God.

So no no tower of Babel, right?

No tower of uh of Babel at all, no, no religious system or church that we can go to, nor no seminary degree that we can achieve, then none of that can cause us to be born again.

No, John says that we become children of God, not through any of these things, but of God.

But of God.

That would be an amazing three verse, three words there for you to highlight in your copy of God's word.

Listen, we do not earn it, we do not deserve it.

Jesus, as the true light, achieves for us what we could not.

So, what's your response when you hear all of that?

What's your response when you hear that, wow, God, God does it all.

I'm merely a recipient of salvation.

Right?

What's your heart reaction to all of that?

Well, I've got three things for us here, three responses.

It's gonna be on the screen.

When you think that, when you realize that God saves you and you contribute absolutely nothing to that, okay, what's your response?

Here's the first one.

First one is humility.

Okay, really simply, our heart reaction when we realize that God does all the saving and our contribution is a big fat zero, it should shatter our pride.

You know, it should stop us from thinking that wow, I'm really something special because I'm saved, because I'm a Christ follower, because I'm plugged into a church, and it should stop us from ever looking down on anybody else and thinking, wow, if that person could only figure out what I've figured out.

Right?

There's no pride that should enter into it whatsoever with any of that.

Because we have done nothing.

I I I have referred to it like this before.

The only thing that we do, so you want to know one thing that we do?

We bring our sin to the table.

That's it.

Okay, that's your work.

That's your effort, that's my effort too.

Nothing to brag about.

Right?

We are helpless to save ourselves.

Our response, first and foremost, should be humility.

Humility.

Here's the second one.

Gratitude.

Gratitude.

When you've been brought to the place where you realize that God saves you and that He does the work, and all of that rests in Him, we should be humbled and then we should be grateful.

We should be grateful.

Thank you, Lord, for what you've done.

Thank you for how you have you have chosen me.

You have you have rescued me.

Why did you choose me?

Well, simply because God is love.

It's not because we had any merit, you know, in ourselves.

You know, our our gratitude, our thanksgiving.

It should be genuine genuine, it should be authentic, it should be true appreciation bubbling up from within us as we come before the gospel and we realize what Jesus has done and that we have done nothing to earn it.

Gratitude, gratitude is one last one here.

This is a big one.

Love.

Love.

John wrote three more epistles later in the New Testament, and in 1 John chapter 4, verse 9, this is what he says.

1 John 4:9

He says, We love him because yeah, I hear some of you are finishing it, because he first loved us.

We love him because he first loved us.

Our response to the love of our Savior should be to love him.

Right?

And our love will manifest itself in all kinds of different ways.

Another scripture talks about our love manifests its ways in the sense that, in the sense that we we are driven to obey him, right?

We obey him.

You don't love the Lord if you claim to be a Christ follower, but you don't actually follow what he commands.

Right?

A little news flashery, you don't love him and you probably don't even know him.

Right?

We we love him because he first loved us.

Our love for him should in some ways, you know, be an emotional, but again, this bubbling from the heart, you know, experience where we're like passionate about him and we're we're passionate about following him forever.

Right?

Our when we think about what Christ has done, and when we think about our salvation has been secured and accomplished for us through Jesus, that's not something we should just think through in like a cerebral head knowledge type way, where we kind of I've got the verses all lined up, and I understand that you know Christ went to a cross and then he came down, and I could I could probably get that correct on a on a test.

It's not about that, right?

It's it's about understanding that your heart being changed and about the emotional experience of all of that as well.

Not emotionalism, where it's like a rack in tears and we we can never pull it together or anything like that.

But there should be emotions, and at times there there should be tears, and there should be, you know, this mixture of humility and gratitude and and love.

We should love the Lord, we should love his people, we should love the lost, we should love the church, we should love the mission.

Where do we go from here?

We're gonna sing.

We're gonna sing.

We're gonna respond.

And that's how we are gonna express our gratitude, we're gonna express our humility, we are going to express our love right now.

As John comes, we're gonna sing another song here.

Uh, and our response to Jesus being the light, Jesus being the light, the true light of salvation for you and I.

I'm gonna pray.

We're gonna stand, we're gonna give glory to the Lord.