God's Light | Ps. Keith Pittman

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If you have your Bibles, I would love for you to join me in the gospel of Matthew, chapter number two.

We're gonna read a couple of passages there.

I'm looking at verses one and two, and then we're gonna jump down to verses nine through eleven.

I'm reading from the CSV translation for those who are following along on their digital Bibles.

If you don't have a Bible, let us know.

We would love to gift you with one, but um also we'll have the scriptures coming up on the screen as a support.

While you're turning there, I want to briefly give us um some context just so we can kind of immerse ourselves in this this Christmas moment.

I want us to imagine for a moment that that that Mary and and Joseph have been traveling roughly between 70 to 90 miles to get to Bethlehem, so they can present themselves so that they can pay taxes.

And this is a very long, arduous journey.

It takes about 10 days on foot in the way that they were traveling, and they arrive at a place where there's no room for them.

And it's in this place that of where animals are, a place that is deemed as unclean, a place where there's a lot of discomfort, but it's in this place that our Savior has chosen to be born.

Jesus is born and he's wrapped in a manger in his cold outside environment, and it's a very humbling reminder that for the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords, who could have been literally born anywhere, he chose to enter into this world in the posture of humility.

Picking up here at verse number one in Matthew 2, our tradition has been during the course of this series, uh, has been to read it all together as a family.

And so I want to continue in that tradition.

So in account of three, I want us to read verses one and two, um, and then we'll jump down to verses nine through eleven.

So at three, let's all read this together.

One, two, and three.

After Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of King Herod, wise men from the east arrived in Jerusalem, saying, Where is he who has been born king of the Jews?

For we saw his star at its rising and have come to worship him.

These wise men, these magis, as they're referred to, are not necessarily followers of Yahweh.

These are just men who look to stars in astronomy and astrology to try to get a sense of things that are happening in the world.

They recognize an anomaly takes place when they see a star that rises, and just from their scientific minds, they know that that doesn't happen by accident.

They were able to cross-reference it with um Old Testament text to see that there was going to be a star that would emerge out of nowhere, and they knew that that would be the birth of the king.

They go to Herod, who is the current king of the Jews, and he's hoping and expecting that that maybe he was born in a palace, maybe he would be filled with joy.

Um, but instead of being met with joy and excitement, they encountered a very narcissistic, unhealthy, fearful king who was only concerned with protecting his dominion.

Undeterred, the wise men continued on to Bethlehem, still following the star until it led them to Jesus.

And at verse number nine, we see their reaction.

So on account of three, let's read verses nine through eleven together.

One, two, three.

After hearing the king, they went on their way.

And there it was, the star that they had seen at its rising.

It led them until it came and stopped above the place where the child was.

When they saw the star, they were overwhelmed with joy.

Entering the house, they saw the child with Mary, his mother, and falling to their knees, they worshipped him.

They opened their treasures and presented him with gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh.

You know, I love how these wise men who were secular scientists were still led in their pursuit of truth, and how that pursuit led them to Jesus, and they had only one response that is kneel and to surrender.

I believe that same thing should be true of us who proclaim that Jesus is Lord.

So today I want to spend a couple of moments just talking to us about a fundamental principle around this Christmas season, and I've entitled today's message, God's Light.

Let's pray and let's see what it is that God wants to speak to us today.

Lord, we're so thankful for you.

We are we are overwhelmed, we are undone by your presence and what you've made a decision to do well over 2,000 years ago to enter into the timeline of man and to present us with a savior, a light, a savior of the world, so that we can have unbroken fellowship with you.

God, it's from this place of gratitude that we also silence our mind and our hearts with an expectation that you're going to speak to us and stir our hearts and our spirits in a way that will motivate us in the same way that the wise men were motivated to kneel and to surrender.

So, God, we just ask over the next few moments that you give us open eyes that we can see you and only you, open ears to hear your truth, and open hearts to receive everything that you have for us.

It's in Jesus' name of faithful church says, Amen.

Amen and amen.

I've been doing a lot of preliminary, very surface level of reflection and um research, and and I and I've came to a question that I want to pose to the community.

You you don't have to necessarily answer, but I do want us to think about the question that I'm going to pose to us because I think it's a very meaningful question.

And here it is.

Are you guys ready for it?

Come on, talk to me, 1030.

Y'all ready for it?

Okay, okay, here's a question.

What do a romantic comedy children and scholars and theologians all have in common?

I said I didn't want to answer, but I thought somebody would have an answer.

They all are trying to figure out what the purpose of Christmas is.

All of them.

If you think about a romantic comedy that's definitely geared around this time of year, the whole pondering is what is the meaning of Christmas?

Let me give you a little bit of a backdrop of to what I'm talking about.

Imagine this for a moment.

And you're saying, Keith, I didn't watch any romantic comedies.

It's okay, I'm gonna summarize all of them for you right now in the next minute.

Imagine for a moment, a hardworking young lady who lives in the big city.

But she's from a small town.

And her career domination has led her to get away from her family, and really going home at Christmas time is an incredible inconvenience.

But somehow something happens that leads her to go back to this small town.

It could be good old-fashioned mom guilt, or it could be a crisis of some sort that has compelled her to come back.

Naturally, she comes back, and when she's there, she's very reluctant and doesn't want to be engaged too much, but but somehow she runs into an old childhood friend, possibly, or it could be someone, and and this person wears a lot of flannel shirts.

Um and somehow this this very blue-collar, hard-working man who doesn't care about the world, doesn't even have a doesn't even have a smartphone, begins to engage her into what it means to have meaningful connections with people.

He often mocks her because of her distraction by her phones and things like that.

Simultaneously, though, she is engaged to a very wealthy man back in a big city who couldn't make it on the trip with her.

So this so this incredibly wealthy man is saying, like, hey, when are you gonna get back?

We got all these wedding plans, because the wedding is always in motion somehow.

But she also finds herself being drawn by the simplicity of what's happening in the small town by which she left many years ago.

And then crisis strikes.

Something happens that needs the town to all rally together to save Christmas.

Somebody gets sick.

The lady who makes the hot cocoa.

And so somebody's gotta step in and serve the hot cocoa because it's not gonna serve itself.

But in serving, there's a moment when I recognize that this is what life is all about.

It's about simplicity.

So she tells her very wealthy fiancé to get to step in.

She then moves now to the small town and she's married to this young strapping man with the flannel shirts.

End scene.

Maybe you've seen that film before or some version of it.

I was just watching um How the Grinch stole Christmas, and I remember this moment where Cindy Lou Who is looking at the Grinch and she's like, what is Christmas all about?

as she's watching all the commercialism take place, people losing their minds over spending all the money, and she's just she's just grasping for straws, trying to understand what Christmas is really all about.

And then we have the scholars and theologians who now, even to this day, are debating what is Christmas all about?

When did it start?

Why does it start?

Why do we participate in it?

Should a Christian engage in it at all?

We see in common ground where all of these individuals have the same thing where they're trying to understand what is the meaning of Christian, of Christmas.

And I suspect that depending on your background, your upbringing, your perspective, your experiences, we could all probably provide different answers as to what some of our traditions were and some of our experiences that are and some of our perspective as it relates to what Christmas is really all about.

But but I want to take us down a quick timeline of where it comes from, but more importantly, what we're supposed to do with it.

Christmas by itself is actually a very redemptive holiday.

Because at that time, when when there were a lot of pagan festivals that were taking place, Christians didn't have anything to rally around that they could kind of link their faith to.

So the early church said, let us identify a day where we can celebrate the birth of Jesus because we're looking at all these pagan belief systems, celebrating their varying gods, and we need to have something that pulls us all together.

They selected December 25th because it was a part of the winter solstice, which was the longest and coldest night on the calendar.

So the metaphor was meant to be that on the coldest and darkest night of our lives, Jesus is present.

It was meant to be very redemptive in nature, and then we began to integrate different aspects to it.

They said, let's bring in trees because trees are meant to be a reflection of the tree of life that's made available to us because of the finished work of Christ on the cross.

Then there was like, okay, well, let us let us also bring in lights because we know that Jesus is the light of the world.

And hey, let's bring in some gifts so that we can have opportunities to be kind and generous to one another, but also to be reminded of when the wise men presented their gifts to Jesus, but also how we, as recipients of this gift, have been given the greatest gift in the world.

And we can't forget the star that goes on the top of the tree because that's meant to be symbolic of the very light that leads us to Christ.

Christmas, as we know it, was meant to be very redemptive in nature, and then we incorporated Advent and all these other incredible elements that now makes a holiday that may have had roots in other belief systems redeemed and it allows us to have something that we can rally around, and that is celebrating the birth of Jesus, the birth of the light of the world.

It's a beautiful moment that maybe for all of us, as we're pondering what is the reason for all of this, that we can anchor ourselves in this truth, that we as followers of Christ, while we may engage in an exchanging of gifts and all the other beautiful traditions that are there, at its core, Christmas for us is the celebration of the birth of Jesus.

And I have a couple of very simple but hopefully provocative thoughts that I think can anchor us to why we celebrate this.

Here's the first thing that I want us to write down: Jesus is the light that pierces the darkness.

And that's something worth celebrating.

Let me give us a little bit of context so we can understand why this is such a big deal for us.

The Bible tells us in Matthew chapter number two that the wise men saw a star emerge in the sky.

Scientifically, they knew it wasn't possible for a star to just show up, but they they knew that this must be a moment, a divine moment that was leading and compelling them to God.

It was a celestial event.

It was God's announcement that a light has broken into darkness.

But it gets a little bit deeper from a biblical perspective.

From the very beginning, God has always used light as a central component that draws people to Him.

Let's rewind and look at Genesis chapter 1.

Genesis 1 · chapter mention

The Bible tells us that in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth, and the earth was without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep.

But we get to verse number three.

And the Bible says that God says, Let there be light.

Let's look at this for a moment.

Genesis chapter 1, verse 1 and 2 was explaining a dark, chaotic world that lacked structure, that lacked any order.

Genesis 1:1

But then God said, Let there be light, and order began to commence.

This was not meant to be something that was serving simply as a literal birth of the sun because the sun hadn't been created.

But what it was is God taking inventory of the chaos of the world and sending a light to bring order to it.

This is the light that we have all experienced at some point.

If we can think about our lives, maybe there's a moment where we can say that my life was without form and void.

It lacked purpose, it lacked death.

I just kind of was living, I was existing.

But there was a moment when God looked at you and said, But let there be light.

And the illumination of Christ inside of our lives began to bring things into order.

Jesus is indeed that light.

Isaiah prophesies about it in chapter 9, verse number 2, where it says, People are walking in darkness, but they have seen this very great light.

Even the Bible tells us in the Gospel of John, chapter 8, where Jesus tells us at verse number 12, I am the light of the world.

John 8 · chapter mention

And anyone who follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.

This wasn't a metaphor, but this was a missional statement of Jesus saying that wherever there is darkness, as long as my light is present, you will have the peace and hope that you need.

Because the beautiful thing about darkness is darkness isn't a substance, it's just the absence of light.

So what God is communicating to us, no matter what shadows the enemy is trying to shade into your life, as long as we are connected to the source, that we know that we have nothing to be afraid of.

It's the very nature of God.

I remember when I first moved to Florida many, many years ago, and I was living in Jacksonville, and my family and I, we had to prepare for our first hurricane.

And I remember my colleagues when I was working at the school district telling me, like, are you prepared?

Are you ready?

And I'm like, I don't know.

I'm used to just snow days, but I didn't know what to anticipate.

So we got all the ingredients that we're supposed to have in preparation for the storm, which was inclusive of water and all these other elements.

But then one of the things that we were told to have is that you have to make sure that you have batteries and you need to have a flashlight.

Now, I didn't think it was going to be that big of a deal.

I know my home very well.

I have it memorized, I know exactly how to navigate.

But when the first storm hit and the lights went out, even though I am very familiar with the terrain, all of a sudden I felt lost.

Now, all of a sudden, as I'm walking around, I'm bumping into things that I've walked around literally for years, but the absence of light has caused confusion to come.

We were able to scramble and find the flashlights, and instantly, the moment that we were able to find light, something that once was chaotic and uncertain began to bring peace because we could now see.

I think that many of us, we're walking around familiar territory, but we're not walking around it with the light of God.

And we're bumping into things that we shouldn't be bumping into because maybe we're not being guided by the proper source.

But when God says, let there be light, it's literally an invitation for us to give permission for God's life to shine in our lives.

What are the areas that we've closed the blinds on God's glory, and that's why we're stumbling in the darkness?

What God is inviting us to do in these moments is let there be light in every area of your life, because where there is light, there is hope.

Where there is light, there is direction.

Where there is the light, there is peace.

Darkness and sin and brokenness cannot match the light that is found in Christ.

I saw this quote from C.S.

Lewis that I thought was very meaningful when he says this.

He says, I believe in Jesus the way that I believe in the sunrise.

Not just because I can see it, but because of it, I can see everything else so clearly.

That we can see and experience the sun, but the sun also helps us to see everything that's in front of us.

That's how it is for the follower of Christ.

I believe in Jesus because not only does he illuminate my life, but he also illuminates my path.

Here's the second thing I want to share with us.

Jesus is the light that guides our path.

The wise men didn't just admire this light, but they began to follow it.

They didn't just visit it on occasions and make reference to it, but when they saw this light in the sky, they made decisions to begin to follow that light.

They allowed themselves to be led by the light that was found, leading them ultimately to Christ.

Psalms 119, 105 tells us that your word is a lamp unto my feet and a light on my path.

This verse is a, is it paints a vivid picture of God's light and his guiding presence in moments of uncertainty, illuminating both our next step and the great distance that still lays ahead.

In a world that's overflowing with distractions, Jesus' light provides clarity and gives us peace and hope.

I remember when we moved into our home here in Orlando and our grandchildren that stayed with us for the first time.

And the way that our house is set up is that the guest rooms are kind of on one side of the house, and Megan and I are on the other side, and there's like a uh a living room kitchen thing that's in the middle.

So we we spend time with the family, we we go to the park, we do all the things, and we make cookies, we make hot chocolate, and when I say we, I'm talking about Megan, but I was there giving moral support for all of these things.

I was there.

But after we put the kids to bed and it's a it's a nice quiet night, and we begin to find ourselves drifting off and going to sleep, at about two in the morning, we just hear this bellowing sound of, I have to go to the bathroom, just piercing through the night.

The loudest, most just like, and at the time I didn't understand what it was.

And Megan's like, Did you hear that?

And I'm like, Yeah, why don't you go check it out?

Somebody's gotta live to tell the story.

Um, she went in and she went and found that my granddaughter had been in the room.

She needed to use the restroom, but because when she opened the door, it was complete darkness, she didn't know where to go, she didn't even know where she was, and so she stood there for hours before she finally couldn't take it anymore and just yelled out, I need to go to the bathroom.

Can someone come and help me?

From that moment forward, we now leave a light on in the kitchen.

Because we want to make sure that whenever we have guests that come to our home, it's very comforting to know that if I wake up in the dark moment, I am not disoriented because I can't see where I am.

This is the role that Jesus plays in our lives.

But the sad reality of it is that for many of us, we we have not engaged the source long enough and we now stay locked in a room, being completely burdened and left uncomfortable because we haven't found the humility to simply say, God, I need your help to get to my next step.

God, I'm I'm standing in this room and I'm struggling and I'm I'm riddled with fear and anxiety and depression and I don't know what to do with it, but we stay there in silence.

But I think if we can take the wisdom of a five-year-old child at a time and simply say, God, I need your help.

I need some relief and I need your light to guide me.

What the Bible refines us of is that Jesus is the light that guides our path.

Jesus declares that he is the light of the world.

And anyone that follows him will never walk in darkness again.

Maybe for some of us we're unsure about some next steps.

Maybe some things in our lives are leading us to a place of confusion or worse, we're finding ourselves going in circles.

But today I want to encourage us that Jesus is the way.

He is the light, he is the path that is illuminated to help us with our next step.

If you're feeling uncertain or stuck today, know this that Jesus' light is for you.

It's coming us, it's calling us out of fear, it's calling us out of confusion, he's showing us that there indeed is a better way.

His light isn't dim and it isn't distance, but it is near and it's available if we're willing to let him guide us to a place of peace and purpose.

I came across this quote and I thought it was very meaningful, and I want to share it with us.

But it says this: it says, Never be afraid to trust an unknown future to a known God.

There may be some things that we're unsure of, but you know what we are sure of?

Is that Jesus is on the throne and that God is ordering our steps, and that as long as we can stay close enough to Him and allow His light to illuminate our path, He's going to lead us to a place of safety.

Can we get a good amen to that?

Here's the third and final point I want to share with us.

Jesus is the light that we share with the world.

His light is something that we're commissioned and compelled, and even have the conviction to share with the world.

Just a couple of days ago, I went to our neighborhood publics, and and as I was walking around the store and picking up a couple of items in preparation for our Christmas dinner and some things that we're going to be preparing, I saw one of the young ladies that I always interact with.

My wife and her have an amazing relationship.

She works there, and so I'm like, okay, I'll get in her line and I'll just have a small conversation with her.

When I get in the line, there's a gentleman that's in front of me.

And and for this lady, she she's uh she's a Muslim, so she has a hijab on her head and she's their incredibly sweet spirit.

And as the man is finishing his transaction and she hands him the receipt.

She says to him, Happy holidays.

He snatches the receipt out of her hand and he says, You mean Merry Christmas?

And you could tell that she's used to these interactions, sadly.

And she said, Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to offend.

And he said, Well, I am offended.

Jesus is the reason for the season.

We need to keep Christ and Christmas.

And he storms off.

So I step up and I'm like, man, I'm so sorry for that.

And she's she was kind of unbothered.

Like, she was so unbothered that it bothered me.

Like, why aren't you more mad?

Like, you've been around people that are like, Did you hear what they just said?

Like, we need, like, you're trying to rally them up, but they're like, no, she had a lot of peace.

So we finished the transaction, everything is good.

And so as we are walking outside, wouldn't you have it that this gentleman is parked directly next to me?

And his car looked like what you would imagine his car would look like.

Bumper stickers all over the place with conflicting messages, really, really bad theological bumper stickers that somehow idolized America in weird ways.

Like he just had everything you can imagine.

And as I stood next to him and I was putting my stuff in the car, and he could see that when he made the statement, I looked at him, and then he said, Hey man, we just got to keep Christ and Christmas.

Man, we we you recognize how bad this world has gotten.

We we've taken him out of schools, we we've taken him out of our places of work, and no wonder we find ourselves in a mess of him.

We're just, we just need to keep Christ in Christmas.

And ordinarily, man, I'm not the type of dude that typically engages in those types of discourses.

I'm very much like a man, just like, let me just live my life, I'm gonna go on my path and and be on my own.

But that day I would I had time.

And so I said, man, I said, I hear what you're saying.

I said, and I I understand the principle of keeping Christ in Christmas, but if I could be honest with you, I'm more interested in keeping Christ in Christian.

And he seemed a little taken back from it, and I could think that he probably just didn't have the intellectual capacity to understand what I was saying, so I ran the circle again and I ran it back on him.

I said, So, what I'm saying is, there is nothing that you just did that made Christ attractive to anyone.

I wonder what it is about the modern day Christian that has taken their offense at a world that Jesus said isn't going to reflect my values.

Why are we surprised at this?

We will literally go into things that were created by the world and be surprised they're not talking about Jesus.

And to me, it's confounding to me.

And so our way of being bold for Christ is saying keep Christ in Christmas and going on Facebook rants and attacking them people because they don't look like us, they don't believe like us.

And I'm saying to myself, at what part of the Great Commission did you just completely choose to ignore?

When Jesus said, Let your light so shine that people will see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven, there is nothing about what I've often seen that glorifies God at all.

But it certainly does glorify ideology, it certainly does glorify things that I don't believe God is connected to.

I believe that the light that God makes available to us is one that's meant to invite people into the saving knowledge of Jesus Christ.

Here's my final thought for this.

And I want y'all to hear my heart.

You can't bully people into loving God.

You can quote all you want, you can post all you want, you can declare all you want, and that will not lead a single person closer to Jesus.

But you know what I think would?

Being kind.

Being loving.

You know the fruit of the spirit that Paul talks about?

If we could literally embody those things, you know what I've seen in my life is where people are saying, You have so much peace, even in the midst of chaos, there's something about you that creates a conversation for me to say, Oh, it's not about me, but let me tell you about the Lord that I serve.

The Bible tells us in Luke chapter number two that there were these shepherds who were out in the field in the dark of night on the night that Jesus was born, and the angel appeared before them.

And when the angel appeared before them and said, Listen, I've got some incredible news for you.

I know that you were shepherds, you're you're not politicians, you're not powerful, you don't have any perceived influence, but God thought so much of those people who would have been the outcast that he sent them a special message to say, You gotta go and check this Jesus guy out.

You gotta go check it out.

He didn't go into Jerusalem, he didn't go to the kings, he didn't go to the rich, he went to these poor people that would have been isolated from the message of the gospel and said, I need you to be the first ones to hear this message that the king has been born.

The shepherds responded to the gentle invitation, and when they went into Bethlehem, the Bible says that they saw Jesus, they saw Mary, and their lives were marked as a result of it.

The Bible declares that when they left, they went back, going everywhere that they could to tell the message of Jesus.

You guys will not believe what we saw.

We looked into the eyes of the Savior, and you know what we saw looking back with us?

Love.

Everywhere they went, they told the story of God's love.

And scripture says that people were confounded and amazed at the declaration of these men sharing the good news of Jesus.

Sometimes I believe that all of our academic and technological advances, we've made things so complicated that if we could just rewind time and go back to the simpler moments of like, hey, I don't have all the answers, but I want to tell you about this man named Jesus who changed my life.

I've looked into his eyes, and what I saw looking back at me was oceans of love.

I would love to invite you to meet him.

I believe that's what it means to share the light that God makes available to us.

We're gonna enter into a moment of worship.

And what we want you to do is we want you to stand in this moment as a family and as a community.

You'll see that we have given you a program that you can read through.

We want you to light your candles in just a moment after I pray for us.

But I want this to be a family moment where we all can come together and worship together because Jesus is the light of the world.

And we're called to allow that light to shine in every area of our lives.

We're called to let that light lead our path, but we're also called to share that light in every environment that God calls us to go into.

So we want you to read along, we want you to sing along, we want us to lean into this moment as a family as we declare that Jesus is God's light.

Let me pray for us.

Lord, we thank you for the presence of Jesus.

We thank you for the present of Jesus, and we thank you for your light.

So, God, as we sing some songs of worship and honor, I pray that you fill this space with your presence, reminding us of your faithfulness, of your goodness, and allowing us to keep our eyes on your light.

In Jesus' name.

Let's turn on our lights, let's stand to our feet, and let us worship together.

Thank you for joining us to learn more about Celebration Orlando, a church devoted to reaching the lost, equipping the found, and helping the hurting.

Follow us on social media using the handle at celebrationorl or visit our website, celebrationorl.org.