Come To The Light

Well, we have we've spent our entire summer talking about something we've called the most important conversation in history.

We've been exploring this conversation Jesus had over 2,000 years ago with a man named Nicodemus.

We find it in John chapter 3 of the Bible.

John 3 · chapter mention

It's this one conversation where Jesus lays out exactly who he is, exactly who God the Father is, and he explains his purpose.

And he explains what really motivates God, what really speaks to God's heart.

And if we want to know who God really is, and we want to understand God as best we can, if we want to get God, we need to get what Jesus talks about in this conversation.

Because you see, this conversation has changed and shaped the way humanity has seen God, like no other conversation before.

So we've spent our time this summer just going piece by piece, letting Jesus take us wherever he wants to take us in the conversation, and just stopping where he is and examining it, exploring it together.

And so today we we get to the end of the conversation.

Today we get to see how Jesus decides to finish the conversation, how Jesus closes.

And you can learn a lot about someone if you pay attention to the way that they end things.

Like I'm kind of immature, I'm sort of like a 12-year-old stuck in a man's body, if this is a man's body.

And so I have a really hard time ending serious conversations on a serious note.

I don't know why, but I have to really fight hard not to say some stupid joke in a really, really bad moment because it might be a really serious situation and everyone's really like intense and everyone's focused, and then I just say something dumb to be funny because I don't know what to do in those situations.

I'm just I get awkward, and when I get awkward, I talk and I like to make jokes, and then I just regret it.

So if you learn how I finish conversations, you'll learn that I'm I'm just immature.

We learn a lot about Jesus when we look at how Jesus decides to end, how Jesus decides to close so many conversations that he has.

And the truth is he decides to close this one with Nicodemus the same way he closes many with a calling.

He decides to call Nicodemus, and then all of us by extension, he decides to call them out of something and into something else.

Jesus calls every single one of us to a different life.

To be a Jesus follower, to be a Christian, it means to live differently.

To live a different life, a better life than the life that we might choose for ourselves, definitely a better life than the life the world will tell us we can have.

We see Jesus time and time again call people into something new, into something better.

So last week we we got to this moment in the conversation where Jesus really challenges Nicodemus.

He challenges everyone.

He says that God sent his son into the world not to judge the world, but to save the world through him.

He says there's no judgment, zero.

Some translations say condemnation against anyone who believes in him, but anyone who does not believe in him has already been judged for not believing in God's one and only Son.

Today we get to this next part.

We get to the call that he makes after the challenge.

He says the judgment is based on this fact.

God's light came into the world.

But people love the darkness more than the light, for their actions were evil.

All who do evil hate the light, and they refuse to go near it for fear their sins will be exposed.

But those who do what is right come to the light.

So others can see they are doing what God wants, what God desires.

Jesus ends his conversation with Nicodemus, with humanity, really, because this conversation's been talked about for thousands of years.

He says, look, step out of the darkness and come into the light.

Come to the light.

Don't be afraid of the light of God.

Get over that fear of exposure and just step into the light that is me, that is Jesus.

That's the call that He makes.

Come to the light.

He's very important for us to remember that God loves us and accepts us exactly as we are.

Every single one of us that's here, no matter where you're at, God loves you today, He accepts you today, and that's amazing when I think about the fact that my God loves me exactly as I am, I don't love me exactly as I am.

But God does.

And we've got to make sure we always think on that because we're a church and we're gonna have to fight the pull of religion, and religion doesn't accept anyone exactly the way they are.

That's why religion gets so obsessed with changing the outside, regardless of what's going on inside.

We can't be like that.

But not only does God love us and accept us as we are, God wants to change us.

He makes that so clear all throughout scripture.

He wants to change us, he wants to make us into something new.

So in Ezekiel 36, 26, he says, I will give you a new heart.

I'll put a new spirit in you.

He said, I want you to be new.

I think you need a new heart, a new spirit to be the new person that I've created you to be.

2 Corinthians 5.17 says that anyone who belongs to Jesus is a new creation, has been made new, that the old life goes away, it's gone, and a new life has begun.

A new life begins in us when we come into a relationship with Jesus.

So, yes, God accepts us exactly as we are, but but he doesn't seem content to leave us there.

He wants more for us than we might want for ourselves.

He desires greater things for you than you would ever choose for yourself.

He wants you to be a new person.

And so he calls you out of something and into something new.

We see it happen time and time again in Jesus' interactions with people.

Maybe the most famous is this interaction he has with a woman who is brought before Jesus.

She's brought before Jesus to be judged because she happens to have been caught in the act of adultery.

And at that point in time, if you were caught in the act of adultery, you could be killed, you could be stoned to death.

And so these religious men, they catch her and they bring her before Jesus.

Ironically, they don't bring the man they must have caught in adultery before Jesus, just the woman.

And, you know, super quick rabbit trail, I promise, we'll get right back to where we are.

Forgive me, quick aside.

It's funny.

There has never been a person on earth that elevated women the way that Jesus did.

And he's the ultimate pioneer when it comes to that.

And he lived at a time when women weren't valued at all.

And I've always found it strange because I'm a pastor and I work in the church world, and yet I see so many, so many people, and strangely enough, they're usually men, who are passionate that women shouldn't be allowed to be in leadership in church or teach or speak on a stage.

Like a woman can teach there, but she can't teach here.

And it's so funny because when you think about this idea that a woman can't preach, if you boil the message of Jesus down, if you really want to boil the gospel down to its core, it's that he's risen, right?

That's the gospel mention.

He is risen, Jesus is alive.

He should be dead, but he's alive.

That's what gives him the credibility that carries us through today.

And the very first person that Jesus entrusted the message of him being risen to was a woman.

Very first person.

The very first person that ever walked into a room and said, Jesus is alive, Jesus is risen, was a woman.

And he chose that.

So Jesus seemed to be perfectly okay with trusting women to deliver his message.

And yeah, you can pick a verse here and there from the Bible, and really you can pick a verse here and there from the Bible and make it say whatever you want it to say.

You can turn God's love into something oppressive.

And you can take a verse here and a verse there and say, see, women shouldn't, whatever, but when you do that, you don't stand with Jesus.

And I love the fact, I love the fact that as a church we have so many incredible women in leadership roles here.

I love the fact that we have Elon on our teaching team.

And every single time Elon speaks, a man will email me.

Angry.

And I always just say, great news, there is a church not three miles away that, and I'm not talking about any specific church.

I'm not talking about any specific church, I'm just saying I don't, this is, yeah, we're gonna keep Elon.

Um because I I want to stand with Jesus always.

Alright, so this woman, she's brought, she's brought before Jesus.

She's thrown at his feet.

She must have been so ashamed and so scared, honestly, because she is she's facing death.

And we find out that the men really don't care at all about this woman or really what she's done.

They're just using her to trap Jesus.

And so here's what happens.

We read about in John chapter 8.

John 8 · chapter mention

It says they were trying to trap him into saying something they could use against him, but Jesus stooped down and he wrote in the dust with his finger.

And they kept demanding an answer, so he stood up again.

He said, All right, but let the one who has never sinned throw the first stone.

And then he stooped down again and he wrote in the dust.

And one of the things I cannot wait to ask God is what Jesus wrote in the dust.

I've always wanted to know that.

What were you writing?

Was it cartoon characters?

Were you drawing?

Some people think that maybe he was writing some things down that reflected these men's hearts, which fits.

But I bet it was cool.

When the accusers heard this, they slipped away one by one, beginning with the oldest, until only Jesus was left in the middle of the crowd with the woman.

And then Jesus stood up again and he said to the woman, Where are your accusers?

Didn't even one of them condemn you?

No, Lord, she said.

And Jesus said, Neither do I.

It's a beautiful moment.

It shows us, it shows us the heart of God.

The Bible says that Jesus is the perfect reflection of God.

So if we want to know what God's like, we just look at Jesus and we see the heart of God here.

What an incredible example of Jesus loving and accepting us exactly as we are.

Now, this is one of the most famous stories of Jesus.

People teach on this all the time, but what's interesting is when it's taught about it, it almost always ends here.

It ends with the men walking away and Jesus standing with there and saying, Hey, I accept you, I don't condemn you.

But but that's not actually where the story ends.

There's this one other line, this one other thing that Jesus says that almost always gets left out.

But when when you add it back in, it changes the story dramatically.

Neither do I, Jesus says, but then he adds one more line: go and sin no more.

So Jesus rescues this woman.

He leads with love.

And by the way, the church often gets off track when the church forgets you have to lead with love.

Because if you don't lead with love, if you don't love people and stand with people and fight for people and hurt for people, then you have no right to tell them to change.

But when we lead with love, we earn the right to challenge, we earn the right to call.

And Jesus leads with love for this woman, and it's passionate and it's incredible.

But then he says, Look, I have something better for you.

He calls her out of her darkness and into the light.

He says, Don't stay where you are.

I love you where you are.

I saved you where you are, but don't stay here.

Come, go, leave this life.

She came to Jesus, and all she had was a label.

She was called a sinner and an adulteress, maybe a prostitute.

She came with a label, but she left with a calling.

A calling to be more than she ever thought she could be.

Because when we have an encounter with Jesus, he always calls us into a different life, into a better life.

That's what Jesus is doing at the end of this conversation with Nicodemus, this conversation we've been in all summer.

We'll go back to it in John 3, verse 19.

John 3:19

God's light came into the world, and that light is Jesus.

But people love the darkness more than the light, for their actions were evil.

All who do evil hate the light, they refuse to go near it for fear that their sins will be exposed.

But those who do what is right, what do they do?

They come to the light.

So others can see that they're doing what God wants.

Come to the light.

That's the call that Jesus gives each and every one of us today.

Light and dark are pretty cliched metaphors for good and evil, right?

Especially at this point in history, like we've all seen Star Wars.

We know dark side bad, light side good.

I don't know if it was as cliched when Jesus talked about this, you know, a couple thousand years ago, but we all we all get the metaphor, right?

We don't have to go into great detail about what is dark and what is light.

We get it.

In fact, when we're first born, when we're young, we see the world very much in terms of dark and light.

We very much agree with God's perspective.

Like when God creates the world in Genesis chapter 1, the first pages of the Bible, one of the first things he does is he creates light.

Genesis 1 · chapter mention

We see it in Genesis 1 3.

I mean, it's right there at the very beginning.

It says, Then God said, Let there be light, and there was light.

But then look what he does next.

And God saw that the light was good.

That the light was good.

And so he separated the light from the darkness.

So God makes light, and then immediately he looks at the light and he looks at the dark and he says, You two don't belong together.

You two are not meant to coexist, so I'm gonna separate the light from the dark.

And when we're young, when we're we're kids, we we get that.

We agree with God.

We don't think light and dark belong together at all.

In fact, we don't think dark should even exist.

We're terrified of the dark.

We just want light all the time.

Like my kids, they hate the dark because they know the dark means bedtime.

And my children hate bedtime with a passion that doesn't make any sense to an adult because I love bedtime.

I especially love their bedtime because the hour and a half that exists between their bedtime and my bedtime is all Megan and I have to keep us sane.

That's all we've got.

That's it.

Some of you with parents, you know what I'm talking about.

With kids, you know what I'm talking about, right?

So I love bedtime, but they don't.

My son, he's six.

We have put Liam to bed every night for six years.

Every single night.

And yet, when I tell him it's time to go to bed, it's like he's hearing about the concept of bedtime for the very first time.

And he can't process it.

He just goes, What do you mean it's bedtime?

Like, oh, and he freaks out a little bit, but see, for six years he's fought this battle and he's lost every day.

So he's kind of given up on the fight.

He complains, he doesn't like it, he makes that clear, and then he just sort of puts his head down into feet and just goes up the stairs.

Now my daughter's two.

So she hasn't she hasn't given up the fight quite yet.

There's something in my two-year-old daughter that still believes that if she screams loud enough and throws herself on the ground with enough intensity that I'm just gonna go, you know what?

You're right, no bedtime.

No bedtime.

I changed my mind.

And so every night is just it's a battle with my daughter, and we will put her to bed, and she will get out of bed five to twenty times every night.

I mean, there are there are there are days where where I'll be downstairs in our basement hanging out with my wife, kids are in bed, this is our hour, this is all we've got.

And then I'll hear those footsteps for like the eighth time coming down the stairs, and I'm like, I oh Holy Spirit.

Fill me with and see, it's really hard for me with Lily because Liam, he always fought me the same way, it was just head-on.

Just scream, just yell.

Lily, she started to figure out that she's got some some sway with me.

She's the girl, and so she can like bat her eyes and she can act all pitiful, and it it does, it does affect me.

It's hard, it's like kryptonite.

I feel weak.

And so she started this thing this summer where she she says this this phrase.

She stretches my name out.

I'm dad to her.

She says, but but dad.

It's real long, like dad, d-a-y-a-d, dad.

And then she'll follow that up with something, a lot of things.

But dad, I'm hungry.

But dad, I'm thirsty.

But dad, I I I I gotta go potty.

But dad, I want kiss.

And that one.

That one.

Like the first time I'm like, oh, okay, okay, I'll give you a kiss.

But then like the 10th time I'm like, there, go to bed.

You know?

Come on.

This summer, though, this summer's been especially hard because you know, we have daylight savings.

And so in the summer, when it's her bedtime, it's still light outside.

And I'm not letting her stay up till 10 p.m.

I'm not doing it.

Can't do it.

And so, so I'll put her to bed, and this summer it's been, but dad, it's not dark.

And she has a point.

And it's really hard to explain the concept of daylight saving schedules to two-year-olds.

But she has a point.

She understands at two years old that light, light is the time when we we do stuff, dark is the time when we sleep.

Sleeping is not meant for the daytime, it's meant for the nighttime.

She separates in her mind light and dark, and she understands that certain things belong in one and not the other.

When we're young, we're like that.

As we get older, that becomes a little less defined.

Right?

Like you'll never hear a five-year-old say, I'm kind of a night owl.

A really, I'm more of a night person.

No, no, little kids see one glimmer of sunlight in the morning.

Those of you with kids or who've had little kids, you know this, or if you've been a little kid and you can remember that, you know this too.

You see one glimmer of sunlight, you're like, sweet, the nighttime is over, time to do stuff.

And as adults, we see one glimmer of sunlight, we're like, no, no, go away.

Because I don't want to do anything right now.

It changes.

It changes.

We don't we don't define our lives by by light and dark the way we used to.

But it doesn't just change when it comes to that literal light and darkness.

It also changes when it comes to that metaphoric light and darkness that Jesus is talking about that we all understand.

When we're young, we just see things in terms of good or bad.

As we get older, it's a little less clear, it's a little more complicated to us.

We make it complicated, we make it a lot more complicated than it really is most times.

But all of a sudden, we start looking at the world and we look at our lives and our behaviors and we say, well, it's not, it's not good, but it's not bad.

It's this is not the best.

This decision for my life, it's definitely not the best, but I can think of a whole lot worse.

We start looking at life through those lenses, and it feels so much more complicated.

And because of that confusion that comes from the complication, we end up choosing dark.

We might not call it dark, we might call it a gray area or something like that, but but we end up choosing darkness.

We might justify it, we might deny it, but we do.

I mean, Jesus, he says as much.

He says, Look, people, people choose the darkness over the light all the time.

So much so that they get so so used to the dark that the light is offensive to them, that the light is something that's jarring to them, like a person that is sleeping in a dark room and you go turn the light on, and that person, if you're asleep, that person is a jerk, right?

Why would you do that?

And Jesus says, that's kind of like what my light is like to the world, that the world's become so accustomed to the dark because it just chooses dark all the time, that my light, it's something the world just can't handle at first.

And I wish I wish I could tell you that me just being a Christian and giving my life to Jesus has has removed all the dark from my life.

See, I got saved when I was 10, and I didn't come to Jesus in this epic moment of repentance.

I was 10.

I wasn't like, I'm so sorry for what I've done.

I mean, I stayed up later than I was supposed to a few times.

I definitely lied to my parents, I ate a few extra cookies, things like that.

But I was 10.

Most of my biggest regrets, I'll be honest, all of my biggest regrets have come from that point on.

It's always been one of the greatest sources of confusion, of confusion in my life.

And struggle to wonder why, why, if I have the light of Jesus in my life, why, why, if I know Jesus and believe in him and have given my life to him, why do I still choose the dark?

I mean, I've battled that in my life, and it's caused so much confusion and so much doubt.

I've asked that question, why?

Why can't I get over this?

Why can't I stop this behavior?

Why do I keep going to the same thing to cope?

I hate this, but I can't shake it.

I know this isn't light, I know this isn't what what God wants for me, but I keep going to it.

Why?

Why, if I have the light of Jesus in my life, do I keep choosing the dark?

Because if I'm gonna be honest with you, if God, if God came to me and He said, Hey Justin, you've got to put your actions, your behaviors, your thoughts into one of two categories, dark or light, I'd have a pretty full dark category.

Now it would be a category completely covered and overwhelmed by the love and grace of God, which is awesome.

But I have wasted so much time, so many years of my life stumbling around in the dark.

Because I've chosen the dark.

You know, I I try to be really open with you guys.

Um and, you know, it's funny, I've had certain things that I've shared with y'all.

If you're new here, that doesn't count for you, but you know, you'll get there.

Uh and and I I love I love our church, especially, especially for the love that exists here and for the genuine honesty that happens in this place.

Because I've gotten to share things about my life that I never heard a pastor share ever.

And it's it's awkward and it's it's hard.

Sometimes I'll share things, you know, that are small, sometimes I'll share things big, like like I've shared with you guys before.

I think I've done this pretty recently, but it may have been a long time, I don't really remember.

But I know I've shared before that for over ten years I had an addiction to pornography.

I've been five years walking in freedom from that addiction, but even though it's been over five.

Years and I've talked about it before, it still feels really awkward to say that on this stage.

I bet it feels awkward for you to hear it.

Because that's not the image you you probably have of a pastor.

But you know what?

I just I believe this with a lot of passion.

If churches and church leaders would would just quit caring about image management and value honesty and vulnerability above all, the reputation of the church would be completely different.

I believe that.

And so and so I so I've talked about that before.

I got introduced to pornography in the third grade.

I was a third grade kid hanging out at a friend's house, and there it was, and what's crazy is I wasn't a Christian yet.

We didn't go to church.

We didn't start going to church until I was about to be a fourth grader, and I was mad because I had to get up early on Sunday mornings, miss cartoons, wear dress pants.

It was awful.

It was not the experience that our kids here have.

But it's so funny because as a third grader, not a Christian, no knowledge of Jesus in my life yet, I knew that was bad.

I hadn't even had to talk or anything like that.

My parents hadn't hadn't talked to me about any of that kind of stuff, but I knew it was wrong.

It wasn't like I said, hey mom, look what I found.

I mean, I knew hide this.

That was my reaction.

This is bad, this is dark, hide it.

So that's what I did for years.

I continued in that behavior and I hid it.

It wasn't until I got older that I started trying to rationalize it and say, well, you know, I mean, it's it's not good, it's definitely bad, but you know, it's it's not as bad as certain things, and and you know, I messed it all up later in life, but as a young kid, I knew it was bad.

I knew it wasn't good.

It was dark, and so I hid it.

And I hid it for years and for years and for years, and the older I got and the more entrenched I got in that addiction, the harder I had to work to hide it.

And the harder I worked to hide it, the more shame and the more guilt that I lived with.

I felt like a hypocrite.

I felt like a fake.

I hated myself.

I hated myself.

I hated myself, especially when I got involved in ministry.

I hated myself.

And the reality is I shouldn't have.

I should have should have allowed God's grace to overwhelm my heart, but but sin, sin it's just it's messy and it's ugly and it's dark and it has this pull.

And so I just hit it and I hit it and I hit it.

And here's what I tried to do.

I I wanted to be free of it, I hated it, but I tried to defeat my darkness in the dark.

I tried to battle my darkness in the dark, and guess what?

That doesn't work.

Because you can't defeat darkness with darkness.

The only way you defeat darkness is with light.

And by the way, whenever darkness encounters light, light always wins.

Always.

Every single time.

But I was terrified of my darkness coming to the light.

For the same reason Jesus mentioned, I was afraid of being exposed.

It's really interesting when you think about it.

When we're kids, we're afraid of the dark because we're terrified of what we can't see.

But as adults, we often become afraid of the light because we're terrified of what we can't hide.

And I spent so many years hiding and losing a battle that I desperately wanted to win.

And the only thing, the only thing I can point to, and I have guys talk to me and say, hey, I'm in this and help me with this, the only thing I can point to that was was the turning point in that in that darkness in my life was when I brought what was dark into the light of Jesus, when I was willing to bring it into the light and get over that fear of exposure.

Because here's the truth light does not expose darkness.

That's not what happens.

You don't go to your house and turn a light on and go, oh, now I can see where all the darkness is.

No, you turn the light on, and what happens?

The darkness goes away.

In Ephesians chapter 5.

Ephesians 5 · chapter mention

The Bible says it this way: all things become visible when they are exposed by the light.

And there's that exposure word that we look at and go, ooh, I don't want my stuff exposed.

For everything that becomes visible is light.

For this reason it says, awake sleeper and rise from the dead.

Christ will shine on you.

Light does not expose darkness, light destroys darkness.

You know, Jesus, he's the light of the world.

Jesus is the light.

He said as much in John chapter 8, verse 12, Jesus spoke again and said, I'm the light of the world.

John 8:12

He who follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.

Jesus, Jesus is light.

And when Jesus walked this earth, he came into contact with a lot of dark things.

Like people came to Jesus who were demon-possessed.

And you may not believe that, that might be hard for you to rationalize.

I believe it fully, but even if someone just thinks they're possessed by a demon, that's pretty dark.

And when Jesus would encounter a person possessed by a demon, pretty much the darkest thing you can imagine, there wasn't a fight.

There wasn't a battle.

It wasn't like the demon came at Jesus and they wrestled around on the ground.

There wasn't an arm wrestling contest or anything like that.

They didn't even play rock, paper, scissors.

Whenever the demon would encounter Jesus, the demon would just freak out, fall on the ground, and beg for mercy.

The demon would just say, Jesus, Son of God, have mercy on me.

Please, please don't cast me away.

Please don't destroy me.

Because darkness is terrified of light.

I want you to understand this morning that Satan may have, he may have a hold on you with guilt and with shame.

He may keep you bound to some behavior or some attitude or some state of being that has you feeling guilty.

And it's not always as obvious as addiction.

It might be depression, it might be anxiety, it might be a deep anger that you have, that might even be justified anger, but that anger causes your life to be dark, and no joy can enter your heart.

It might just be something small, but it eats at you, and you know it's darkness, but you're afraid of bringing it to the light, you're afraid of anyone finding out.

But I want you to understand this morning that Satan himself is terrified of the light of Jesus.

Terrified.

And if we could be people that had the courage to be vulnerable, if we could be people that had the bravery to step into the light and not be afraid of exposure.

The darkness that's in our lives, it would go away, it would vanish.

Maybe not overnight, but it would go away because darkness cannot hold up to light.

It doesn't work that way.

And God, He He loves you, He accepts you exactly as you are, and He did not create you as a vessel for darkness.

He wants to shine on you.

Can you think about that?

Like the light of Christ shining on you.

That means that God loves you so much, that His opinion of you is so high that He wants to shine a spotlight on your life.

That He wants to shine a light onto you, and He wants to tell the world that person is mine, that's my child, that's my daughter, that's my son.

They belong to me, and I love them and I'm proud of them, and I want the world to see them.

He wants to shine that light on you, but but the darkness in us will often cause us to sort of step out of the light and go, Oh, I don't know.

I don't know if I want to be in the light because I'm afraid that who I am will be exposed.

But see, that's not how light works.

And if you'll bring your darkness to the light, God will turn your darkness in the light.

That's why there are people who used to battle addiction and now they lead people out of addiction.

That's why there's people who used to be stuck in depression and now they'll talk to people who are depressed and they'll say, Look, you have hope.

Because my darkness has become light.

Now I have joy.

And I want to help you with that.

Whatever you're stuck in, wouldn't you love to take whatever it is that eats at you and help someone else escape it?

I know you would.

And that will happen if you will let the light of Jesus shine on your darkness.

And we're a church.

Last time I checked.

And it's not because we're registered with the state and federal government as a nonprofit organization.

That's not what a church is, that's an institution.

We're a family of people.

And I want to say this I know that oftentimes the place where it's the hardest to be real is church.

And it shouldn't be that way.

Because you might feel like you have to fake it Monday through Saturday.

You might feel like you have to fake it at work when someone says, How are you doing?

You say, I'm great.

I'm fine, but you don't have to fake it here.

Please don't.

And it happens so often.

Like, I'll be with people sometimes and we'll be praying, and there'll be a bunch of Christians, and someone will say, Hey, anyone need anything?

Anyone need us to pray for them?

And everyone's like, Nope.

I don't need God's help at all.

I'm doing so awesome.

I'm just I'm killing it this week.

I'm good.

Because we're we're kind of afraid.

We're afraid of opening up and being vulnerable because we live in a world that is fake.

Our world is fake.

Like half the people that have profile pictures on Facebook, you meet them in real life, you're like, that what?

You don't look like that.

Right?

Like when you take a picture in this light and at this angle and in this, you know, and then you filter it through whatever filter program you have, like, you don't look like that.

We live in this fake world and we crave something real.

But we can't experience something real if we're brave, if we're not brave enough to be vulnerable.

And I want you to understand this morning that there are people here that you can go to that are safe and you can say, Look, I need help with this, and they will help you.

You go to our prayer team, by the way, you can walk in that room, and I'm telling you, I wish some people would have this experience this morning.

Maybe you're feeling a stirring and you need to do this, where you walk in that room and you say, I, and you just spill it all out, and you just speak out what you've been hiding for all this time, what you've been dealing with on your own in the dark, and you will experience a freedom and a joy when what is in the dark is brought into the light, and you'll win.

Because you need to understand this morning that you were made to win.

Satan, he loses.

The dark always loses when it's brought to the light.

And see, it all starts with a step.

It all starts with a step.

Because you know, here's the thing, I I got rid of that darkness in my life.

And this is the annoying thing about darkness, is there's just more of it.

It wasn't like I got rid of that and I'm just like, oh, cool, I'm 100% great now.

Now other stuff's popping up.

I'm like, oh, what the heck?

When is it gonna end?

Like I have this weird thing that I do that I've started to realize.

I believe some days that no one is as stressed in the world as me.

You ever deal with that?

This last week, Megan had a stressful day.

And so she started telling me about her stress on the phone, and I just was like, I shut her off.

And it was basically like me saying, no, no, no, you don't get to be stressed.

I'm stressed.

Okay?

Let me let me tell you about stress.

Let me let me tell you what should stress you out.

And I start talking about all my stuff and how she shouldn't be stressed, and I basically just controlled her, tried to, you can't control Megan though.

Um doesn't work that way.

And I basically just said, no, no, no, me, me, me, me, me.

I have this weird victim thinking mentality sometimes where I walk around and believe that no one has it as bad as me.

And it's wrong, and it's just darkness.

Now I gotta deal with that darkness.

I hate it.

But you know how I'm gonna deal with that darkness the same way I dealt with the last bit of darkness.

You just bring it into the light.

I was so afraid, guys, I just want you to know this.

I was so afraid of one person finding out about my dark secret.

Now I stand on a stage and I tell thousands of people about it.

My mom listens to this podcast.

And you know, I I don't, I'm not an exhibitionist, and I'm like, hey, but you didn't think I've lived real life.

Like, I don't have any tattoos I need to show you.

But but here's what I've found.

We believe that Satan is a lot more powerful than he is, and you may call it Satan, you may just call it something else, but Satan's Satan.

And so Satan used to say and whisper in my ear all the time, what would happen if they found out?

What would happen if they knew?

And if he does that to me now, if Satan comes to me and he says, Hey, what would happen if they knew?

I just go, I just I told him just now.

Told all of them.

And he's just like, well.

Right?

Like some of them are probably judging you, and some of you might be.

I don't think so though.

I love y'all.

I love that this is a place where I can be vulnerable.

Here's the deal.

If I can be vulnerable here, right here in front of all you guys, you can be vulnerable to the person you love.

You can be vulnerable to your spouse, you can be you can be vulnerable to your friends, you can be vulnerable to someone here at the church that wants to help you, that wants to counsel you.

You can be vulnerable.

You can be vulnerable to God, that's for sure.

Like you don't you don't have to hide anything from him, he already knows.

But there's power when you just speak and pray and say, God, here's here's me.

Here's my darkness.

Fix it.

He will love you and walk through that with you.

And I have looked at the clock and I do know what time it is.

And we are gonna wrap up right now.

Sum it all up.

Dark, bad, light, good.

Right?

We get that?

We good?

Okay.

It makes more sense to be a child afraid of the dark than a grown person afraid of the light.

So don't be afraid of the light this morning.

Stop fighting in the dark.

You will not win there.

But if you will bring all of you into the light of Jesus, his light will extinguish whatever darkness you have.

Because it's not nearly as powerful as you think it is.

It's not nearly as massive as you think it is.

And in the light of Jesus, your darkness will be exposed for the puny, insignificant, and weak thing that it is compared to the power of the God who loves you.

So let's be people who step into the light.

Pray with me this morning.

Jesus, thank you so much for being our light.

Thank you so much for giving us a church where we can come to you and we can just be exactly the way we are.

We don't have to pretend, we don't have to fake it, we don't have to act like everything's good, we don't have to act like we have zero darkness to deal with.

Thank you for giving us a place to be honest with you and honest with ourselves and honest with each other.

And Lord, I pray right now that you would stir in our hearts the desire to be people who come to the light.

Not just once, not just with one decision to follow you, Jesus.

And if there's someone here that doesn't know you, I pray that they they step into your light for the first time today, that they give their life to you.

And they just pray that right now, because that's all it takes, Lord.

But I pray that for every single one of us that we we step into your light every single day.

That we get over our fear of exposure and realize that you don't want to expose us.

You want to wrap your arms around us, you want to love us, you want to carry us to where we cannot go.

And we need you, Jesus, and we need that.

We are your church.

We want to live in your light.

We love you.

Amen.