Greater Than | Part One | Pastor Brodie Kalamen

Thank you for listening to the Kelowna Christian Center podcast.

Our desire is that today's message will be fresh and encouraging to you.

For more information on KTC and how to connect, visit us at case.net.

You know what I love about this stage being up for Lion King Jr.

that's coming up pretty quick.

Is that uh people who usually sat on the wings are now having to sit in the center, and we totally disrupted people's space today.

And that's good.

That's good.

It's really good.

It's good to rub shoulders with everybody and uh find that space because we are that family.

Well, we're gonna jump right into it this morning.

Uh starting from John 1 John chapter 1.

1 John 1 · chapter mention

Uh, we do have.

Do you have a journal with you?

Do you have a I have one in my bag?

Does someone have a journal they can just pass me?

This just came out today.

This is a journal, uh, a scripture journal that we're encouraging everyone to follow along with us together as a church.

I know that March is oftentimes it's a it's a break time, it's a spring break, uh, and people are generally traveling.

You can take this with you in the lobby today.

You're gonna have uh there are stacks of them available at different locations.

Take one, put your name on it, and uh follow along with us.

It's uh a study of the scripture on 1 John.

And uh it's a very easy process.

We use the soap process, scripture, observation, application, and prayer, where we go through like a portion of the scripture, look at an observation in that scripture, bring it to your small group, bring it to your connect groups, bring it to uh to your devotions as a family.

I know my daughter loves uh using these books just to do her own Bible study.

Use it because I've found that people, when they look at the scripture, the scripture speaks back to them.

It's the word of God speaking back to you as an individual.

And I find that oftentimes what I see in the scripture may be slightly uh like slightly different than what Natalie, my wife, sees, or my daughter sees, or what others see.

And it's this the the same word, but it's God speaking to us differently.

And it's life and it's breath to us, it washes us, it cleans us, it revives us.

And so we're encouraging the church to get in the word.

Get in the word.

If you don't bring your Bible on Sundays, we have an uh on our KCC app, we have a Bible uh available for you on the app.

You can just go into our KCC app if you've got your phone with you, and you can follow along on uh the Bible app there as well.

We want us to be uh working together, uh, going through the scripture.

So before you leave today, pick up 1 John.

We're gonna so we're gonna jump right into 1 John today, starting in verse 5, and it starts off like this.

It says, Light and darkness, sin and forgiveness.

This is the message we've heard from him and declare to you.

So this is the message.

We heard from him, declare to you that what?

This is the message that would you say this with me?

God is light.

God is light, and in him there is no darkness at all.

If we claim to have fellowship with him and yet walk in darkness, we lie and do not live in our truth.

But if we walk in the light as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another.

And the blood of Jesus' Son purifies us from all sin.

If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.

If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive our sins and for and purify us from all unrighteousness.

If we claim we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar, and his word is not in us.

Chapter 2.

My dear children, I write this to you so that you will not sin.

But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ, the righteous one.

He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for our sins, but also for the sins of the world.

Our series this month is called Greater Than, and today I want to talk to you about the fact that light is greater than darkness.

Amen?

Life can do light can do more for us because light in God, God being light, can do more in us than darkness.

So let's pray.

Father, we thank you this morning for your presence with us.

We thank you, Lord, that you're doing great and awesome things in the world.

You're doing great and awesome things in our families and in our church.

I thank you, Father, that we aren't alone in this journey, that you're here with us, and that your desire for us is to fellowship and connect with us on a on a personal level.

And today, Lord, we open up our hearts to you.

Allow your word to speak to us by your Holy Spirit.

In Jesus' name, amen.

Amen.

The other day I was uh on my way to the gym.

I didn't want to admit that, but I was.

Uh, and like any other day in March, uh it I was excited for spring and I was driving through the snow.

How many of you had to shovel your driveway still this month?

And uh traffic had slowed right down.

I was looking at traffic and it was all backed up, and I didn't know why it was all backed up.

I came up to the light, and then at that corner at Dilworth, I realized at Dilworth there that all the lights were off, and I looked at different locations and and I thought, man, is this relegated to this one intersection, but it wasn't.

And uh I thought this is this is a problem, you know, when the lights go out.

The lights were out.

So I pulled into the gym and I I didn't think much about it.

I thought maybe it was just a traffic issue.

And when I pulled into the gym, I I come in through the front doors, and it's really bright in the first little bit of the lobby, and I look in and all the music was off, the fans were off, everything was quiet, and it was dark.

It was dark in that room.

And I I kind of laughed.

All the the people who do all the check-ins at the front counter were just opening the door.

They were just having a good time.

They're saying, you know, the lights are out, you know.

And then I started as I I listened, I could hear that there were people in the back of the room still lifting weights.

And I could hear weights coming off of the machine.

I could hear that clink clink, and I could hear a thunk.

And then I thought, what's going on with that guy back there?

Like, you're not, you could be pinned under these weights and you'd never know it until the lights came on.

And then there's some guy going, help, help, help, you know, like I thought, what's going on?

And I could see more guys were working on it.

I could see that they were, they were holding their flashlights out to actually like see where they like they really wanted to get that pump on.

They were like, yeah, I'm not, I'm not gonna leave.

I I thought, well, they're in there, and I saw some emergency lighting that had come on, kicked in from the generator.

I walked into the back room.

There are guys who are shaving with the in the change room with their flashlight phones.

I don't know how you do that, but it's like holding one, and I thought, these guys, after a while, I noticed that that people became accustomed to living in the dark.

They became comfortable in the darkness.

They became comfortable in a place to actually just like, all right, the lights are off.

I'm just gonna continue in light in my workout.

I'm gonna continue doing what I'm doing.

And as soon as the power kicked, the power was out for about 30 minutes, but as soon as the power kicked in, everyone started cheering.

You could look around, you could see where guys were actually still in the gym.

And they cheered that the power had come on.

People chose to be in the dark, they chose the darkness to continue to live in.

And I was, as I was I was thinking about, I thought, man, this metaphor really, really relates to this message today.

Because there was a light that came to the world, but the people, the world refused it and loved darkness instead.

And they loved the darkness because the darkness conceals, but light reveals.

And it was okay for them to be on their own in the back where no one was watching.

But when the lights came on, man, the world looked different at this point.

The world looks different when the lights are up.

So the sermon today, this message that John is wanting to say, he says, this is the message, and this is the message I want the world to know.

And he was talking to Jewish people at this time, and he said, I want you to know God is light.

God is light.

This is a powerful message.

Now, for us, we see light really every day.

We we just it's it's on demand.

It's push a button and the lights come on.

And we're used to having the convenience of light.

But let's just consider what really light is.

Number one, light is powerful.

Do you know that light is powerful?

That it is uh it is like we were talking about this the other day, and and we don't really quite understand it, and even scientists are trying to say it's almost indescribable because light is a wave, it's it's not static, it's energy, it's always moving, and it's super, super, super fast.

In a vacuum, light moves at 186,000 miles per second per second.

I can see you're all in awe of that.

186,000 miles per second.

Let's put it in a in a term that like when if you were driving a car in miles per hour, it's moving at 166 million miles per hour.

That means in one second you go around the earth seven and a half times.

It is so fast that it actually has its own scale of measurement.

From the moon, like light, I know the light doesn't emit, or the moon doesn't emit light, but from light to deflect off the moon to us on earth takes 1.3 seconds.

From the sun to get to the earth takes four and a half minutes.

That's how how how far away that sun is.

And then the far the closest star beyond the sun is four and a half years it takes light to get from that star to here.

Light is powerful, light is is quick.

Light is like a suddenly, in a moment, light can happen.

I I love thinking about this because the scripture talks about God, and when God enters an environment, and when God enters a space, all of a sudden, the Bible uses this term, suddenly something happened.

Suddenly, God came on the scene and things changed.

Suddenly, the room was filled with the presence of God and things, things started to change.

Do you know that you might be going through a situation in your life right now, and God is powerful enough that the suddenly of God is bigger than your situation and your circumstance?

In a moment of time, God is light.

God is powerful enough, God is power more powerful enough to manage and to manage the situation that you're in.

And so, in a moment of time, God is power.

Some of you wonder how powerful God is?

He is not slow, he is not fixed, he is light, he's fast, he's not only powerful, he's pure.

God is pure.

There's a purity that happens in light.

Light in the Bible always refers to righteousness, goodness.

Light is referred to as a purity.

And when you even the the Bible talks about our enemy, Satan, and he said, and they talk about Satan as that the he's the ruler of darkness, and he's uh the father of lies.

But there's a purity in light.

Light brings truth.

The light comes into our hearts and it reveals the truth of who we are, the truth of what we've become.

And where the darkness wants to conceal, light comes in to reveal.

And so when you when you approach God, he's revealing things to you, he's not concealing things from you.

The Bible says that there is not any good thing that God actually keeps back from us, but he gives us, he's the father of light, he's the giver of every good and perfect gift.

It comes from him.

That is purity, joy, peace, goodness.

How many of you are glad you have that?

Love.

These are the things that come to us because God is pure, the light is pure.

There's another purpose of light.

Is that the purpose of light, or there's another uh purpose behind light?

And that do you know that we can't see other than light coming into our retina, and then when it comes into our retina, then we see.

It's like light brings sight.

And it's light that brings sight, it gives way to sight.

Without without the light, we can't see.

So and the interesting thing is the scripture, like we look at the scripture and we say, well, you know, sometimes it's better to live in darkness.

I don't think so.

But the lie, and there's always a lie that accompanies truth, and the lie of the world is if you love, like if you keep in the darkness, you're you're safer.

But if you allow the light of God to make you vulnerable and to open and to open you up to the to God scanning all the parts about you, all your flaws, and how many of you have flaws?

How many of you have like little errors and blemishes and faults that we like to hide from everyone else, but the reality is it's there?

That we have really two selves.

We have the self that we truly are, and then we have our projected self.

And our projected self is like the the Instagram self.

Everything's good in life, everything looks a certain way, but it's not reality, and it's the light of God that comes in and says, Listen, there's pure, there's a purpose for my light.

My light is to expose all the faults and flaws and blemishes so that I can repair you and bring you to a place of purpose.

And so there's a new life that accompanies light.

There's a new life that comes with light.

Um light enters a situation, that situation changes.

Uh, people think it's, oh, you know what?

It's it's better.

Should I be vulnerable?

Should I live in the darkness?

The Bible says, in the beginning, God created heaven and earth.

And the earth was empty, and the earth was without form.

And the earth was, and darkness covered the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the water.

And God said, Let there be light.

And there was light.

And God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from darkness.

All of creation follows light.

All of creation is formed because of light, from this space of light.

And light, God is light.

When there was darkness, God just entered the scene and he brought with him who he was, which was light.

So the first thing God did when he came onto the scene and to the earth, he said, Let there be light.

And he just presenhed.

That presence of himself is actually the light of the world.

And so when we look at light and we consider light, we we see it from the perspective that God, yes, he is light.

And in verse 7, it says, if you walk in the light as he is in the light, then we have fellowship with one another.

And this is where John is getting down to the crux of the challenge here.

He's saying, He's saying to the Hebrew people, to the Jewish people, he says, God wants to have fellowship with you.

God wants to connect personally with you.

But if you're if he's going to connect personally with you, then you have to realize who he is, and who he is is actually light.

So if you're going to connect with God, you're going to connect with the source of light.

And so he wants you and I to walk in this same light.

So where is this light and where is this darkness?

Fact is, if we want fellowship with God, we need to come out of darkness and come into light.

So who am I in this actual equation?

Who am I?

If God is light, then who am I?

I am, and this is where people perhaps don't like it when we actually talk this talk because it becomes real to who we are.

The fact is that God, if God is light, then who are we?

We are dark.

And we are dark.

And we are full of darkness.

Without the light of God in us, without God in us, we live in darkness.

And so John is saying this, he says, you are full of darkness.

And it comes from a place where, you know, where we may say, as a Christian, we may say, or or as someone who doesn't even know God yet, you might say, listen, Pastor Brody, I have a lot of problems.

And I would say you've got a wrong perspective there.

You don't have a lot of problems.

You are a problem.

Because think of this, the a lot, think of this doctrinally here.

It's like you don't sin to become a sinner.

You're a sinner first, therefore you sin.

We were born into this place of darkness.

David said it in the Old Testament.

He said, even in sin, surely, he said, um, he says, surely I was sinful at birth.

In sin, since the moment my mother conceived me, I I knew sin from birth.

There's no light in me.

I am dark.

I have to realize that.

Like I have to recognize that's my position.

That when without Christ, I am in darkness.

And no matter what I can do, uh, in my own ability, I can't recreate something that I'm not.

I it's just my nature.

It's my uh it's because of this original sin.

And John talks about this.

He says, if anyone says that they're in, they they have light, but they're in sin, then they actually, if you claim to be without sin, you actually deceive yourself.

You're deceiving yourself because the fact is that we actually have sin.

So I know that until you know who God is, you won't fully know who you are.

And when you know who God is, you know, as soon as you see light, you see darkness here.

And so the first thing we have to realize is that I have an identity problem.

It's not a behavior problem.

Sin isn't this behavior problem.

The things I did, boy, when I was like eight years old, I finally made this choice, and this choice led me to a sin, and from that point on now I'm a sinner.

Or I was in 13 or there was a January back in 2000 that I was at this place and I sinned.

No, it's not a behavior problem.

It's an identity problem.

I was born into it.

Romans says it this way all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.

For all have sinned and fallen short.

So that means Mother Teresa, Billy Graham, David Calluman, Carleen Calluman, Wilf and Debbie Fry, my mother and father-in-law.

Yes, you're not absolved from that.

Daphne Green or and uh she's not here.

Daphne's pretty good.

Andrew Green.

We're in this place where we realize that we've all sinned and we're all broken and we all need a restart.

We need a new beginning.

And so we have to realize first where we are before we can be found.

And I we have to first come to that conclusion in our own lives that yes, without God I'm in darkness.

My life is in darkness and I need the light.

All of us come to a place in our lives and we have to say you know I'm in this place and how how do I how do I move out?

How do I get free?

The other day we got a we got some tickets given to us to go to the Rockets game and we're like yes this is great and grabbed the whole family and I had my six year old with me and he was holding my hand at one point and we're walking through the corridor you know just working our way around the arena and I left him for a second.

And just for a second he's quite small and I'm looking around and I'm just I'm thinking oh no I've lost I have two more and I was like ah whatever that's why you have three and I said but I was like oh you know not again and I see him there and I'm looking for him and and I'm thinking man he's lost like for that moment I thought where did he go and at that point in time he he had been looking for me but he didn't know where I was I didn't know where he was I couldn't even help him find me because I didn't know where he was at first we he was lost I was lost in being able to even help him find help so how do we get out of this place where our life in darkness is just in a place of lostness so the Bible talks about a gateway how do you find light and the gateway to finding light is through confession the gateway into light is through confession and and I'll tell you this today nothing good grows in the dark like the only stuff that grows in the dark are things like mold and problems that are related to to elements of the dark you you you don't want anything that grows in the dark you want things that grow in the light and the scripture says this if we confess our sin he's faithful and just to for and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness and if we claim we have not sinned we make him out to be a liar and his word is not in us there's a place where we live in our life where we need to actually open up our heart and actually confess to God.

Now what is confession confession has a lot of different perspectives and and uh has a lot of different um understandings perceptions from different people but confession is simply this it's announcing who it's announcing an agreement between you and God.

And it's me virtually in this state coming to God and saying God I am dark and God you are light and God I have faults and I have blemishes and I need help and God you are the one who can help and save me.

And it's this confession it's not like Pastor Brody I'm gonna I got to talk to you after service and it's like I got to get through this big long laundry list of like things I did that were right and wrong and no confession to me is literally saying okay recognizing I am a sinner and I need help and you can help me like it's recognizing our position and saying God you're I need you I need you in my life and I need you and the Bible says if we do that then he'll allow that light will come into our heart and bring life into our life we'll have power we'll have purity we'll have purpose and it's because of that confession that we open up our heart and say yes to God it's not that laundry listing January was not a good month.

Let me start from the first it was this and then this and then this it's not it's not that detail it's just saying yes to God.

Yes to you God yes to my inability and it's saying I don't want to walk in the dark anymore and I'm not gonna try and make big moves in the dark I want the light on in my life and I want to live my life in the light so that I'm not stumbling around in darkness because the lie is I'll be okay in the dark.

And the fact is when the lights come on wow isn't it beautiful when the lights come on and you can see the way we're supposed to see so live in the light live in the light make that move of confession and saying yes to God sometimes people say well Brody you just uh you make that you choose you choose the light because you're afraid of the dark no I choose the light because it's a better way it's a better way in my life I want to live in that light let me show you chapter two here as we close it says this my dear children and so let's just my dear KCC my dear Kelowna Christian center I write this to you so that you won't sin isn't that wonderful like get an idea of how great God is so that you don't sin.

But how many of you are thankful for the but if you do how many of you have yes am I in good company here today but if you do sin if anybody does sin we have an advocate his name is Jesus Christ he's a righteous one he's a pure one and he is the atoning sacrifice for our sin.

That means that the penalty God the Father was happy with putting the weight of sin on Jesus and Jesus became that sacrifice for me he became an atonement atoning sacrifice for me and so now we can live and we can enjoy this life and not just me but everyone the sins of the whole world are covered through Jesus Christ.

Isn't that a wonderful message light is greater than darkness.

Amen I just want to take a moment here if if you're saying with me right now today and you're saying Pastor Brody I want power I want that purity in my life I want that purpose in my life then today might be your day and I just want to lead you in a prayer of confession a prayer that acknowledges your state and says and and invites Jesus to bring the light into your heart so would you just bow your heads with me at this point in time with every head bowed and every eye closed I just want you to take a moment and if you're recognizing today that you're a sinner that you've got darkness in you and that you've been hesitant at actually moving forward into into a greater place of light and you've actually had that hesitation you haven't given yourself 100% to actually having fellowship with God and saying Lord I I give you everything I just want you to just recognize that today in your own heart recognize that today in your life and then realize what Christ did for you he became light for you because you couldn't make it in your own he actually created in you a new heart and a new spirit he gave you a new opportunity he brought light into your life and if that's you this morning I just want to pray a prayer with you I'm gonna invite the the whole of our our group here today to pray this prayer together and to invite Jesus the light into your life so pray this together with me heavenly father today is my day of new beginning I want to know you and I want to be known by you I believe that Jesus is the Son of God and that he is the savior of the world I give you my life from this day forward I choose to follow you I confess that I am a sinner and I'm full of darkness and I invite the light into my heart I choose today you and a new beginning I turn from my sin and I trust in you amen amen with every head bowed and every eye closed if you prayed this prayer today I'm just gonna this is just between you and me if you prayed this prayer and no one's watching no one's looking out at you but if you prayed this prayer today for the first time I just want to allow you to make that statement and to acknowledge the fact that you accepted Jesus and you accepted the light into your life today and would you just raise your hand really high if anyone is in this room I see that hand I see that hand anyone else in this room for the first time today you said I I want that light in my life I want that purpose I want that that call I see that hand on the right my right I want purity in my life I want power in my life amen amen thank you Lord for those who made that decision today we honor you we bless you today create a new heart and a new spirit in Jesus' name amen would you give the Lord a hand and just celebrate him today amen thank you Lord for the light amen Pastor Brian