Walking In The Light

Inspirational Messages - Sermon preached at House of Praise Home Church

Kuils River

Title: Walking in the Light

Introduction

1. In line with our topic of this year i.e. walking with God, I would like to talk to you this morning about walking in the Light.

2. Right at the end I would also like to say something about the celebration in the within the context of my message this morning.

Background

Please bear a little with me because we need to take it slow.

• I want us to go back a little in our own lives this morning and go back to what we refer to as our new birth.

Our Previous State

1. Before we came to God, our lives were void of Truth.
2. We were dead in our sins.
3. The wrath of God rested on us.
4. We could not please God in anyway or shape.
5. None of our good deeds mattered.
6. By virtue of who we were by nature, it was impossible for us to please God. Adam the sinner as our Father.
8. We had no way back to God or to make peace with God.

• From God’s perspective our lives were in chaos. We might not have agreed at the time but that was God’s assessment of us.
• Our condition was not very different to that of the earth at the time of creation before God said, ‘Let there be Light’.
• In the great love of God and while we were still in this condition God said to each of us at different times and in different circumstances, let there be Light!
• He gave us the ability to see the Light.

John 1:3-9 (New King James Version)

3 All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made.

4 In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. 5 And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it. 6 There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. 7 This man came for a witness, to bear witness of the Light, that all through him might believe.

8 He was not that Light, but was sent to bear witness of that Light. 9 That was the true Light which gives light to every man coming into the world.

Process Of New Birth – First Light

• So we saw the Light of Jesus. Some wrestled with it and some immediately accepted, but eventually we were all translated from the Kingdom of darkness into the Kingdom of Light.
• The Light that we saw, was in reality a revelation of Jesus Christ as our Saviour. We were convicted of our sins and saw the need for a Saviour.
• The Light came to us, by revelation and the source of that revelation was the Word of God. The Bible calls it the incorruptible seed. From this incorruptible seed we were born anew when we put our faith in Christ.
• I have just given a brief summary of the new-birth process.

Results Of New Birth – More Light And Revelation

• We have>great relief at being forgiven and having peace with God. But often we miss the fact that we have in reality become something completely new, even though we call it a new birth.
• As we walk in the light that we received initially we start seeing this Truth as well.

At this birth we became something that we were not before. I want to emphasize this point here. Focus on the big divided between what we were and what we have become. I hope that your spirit will receive this.

2 Corinthians 5:17

17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.

• First and Last Adam – we previously belonged to old creation man, but now we are part of God’s new creation in Jesus Christ. Read Romans 5:12-20 and 1 Cor. 15
• We have become a completely new type of man in Christ Jesus
• We belong to a new race
• The old man is truly dead from the perspective that we are something completely new.
• The old man was buried with Christ and as new being we are risen with Christ.
• We now have the ability to please God
• We now have the ability to receive the things of God.
• While we previously had Adam as our father we but now cry out to our Father God: ABBA!
• We are something special. This is not a thing to be proud of but rather something to marvel at and be moved to humility and thanksgiving.
• No other man no matter how good and moral can be what we are in Christ
• God Himself has birthed us, it was not our doing.

Difficulty In Believing

• When you are one of millions of Christians I suppose it become difficult for us to see the significance of this. We live in a supposed Christian country and there are Christians all around. Our culture is filled with Christian influence.
• But we should not allow this to prevent us from seeing what we truly have become.
• We should meditate on these Truths, it is vital that we understand the new nature that God has given us.
• In fact we share His nature. We have Christ in us through the Holy Spirit. Truly we have become like God in nature.

Colossians 3:3 (Amplified Bible)

For [as far as this world is concerned] you have died, and your [new, real] life is hidden with Christ in God.

And Yet...

• When we sing praises and worship God – there is a longing in us – Deep is calling out to deep.
• That call was never there before. That longing was not present before.

So What Is The Point Of This Longing?

• God is preparing our hearts to receive more Light

EVEN MORE LIGHT – CHALLENGING LIGHT – NOW WALK IN IT

1 John 1:5-7 (New King James Version)

5 This is the message which we have heard from Him and declare to you, that God is light and in Him is no darkness at all.

6 If we say that we have fellowship with Him, and walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth.

7 But if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin.

God Now Says You Have Received The Light. Now Walk In This Light With Me! You Have My Nature In You. My Life Is In You!

• To a man not born again, this is an impossible word. But to us these words hold the possibility of fellowship with God himself.
• Awesome possibilities await those that dare to believe what this passage says.

There are 2 aspects here, fellowship with God and fellowship with each other. True fellowship as God intends for it to be.

Change Gear - God's Revelation Came Over Time

• God’s revelation to man obviously did not come all at once.
• It came over centuries and even millennia.
• So the Jews were awaiting their Messiah.
• They had the Scriptures and from that had drawn their expectations.
• Their leaders at the time had added their own interpretation etc. So they had their expectations set in a certain way.

Jesus' Life - Walking In The Light.

Against this background I would like us to contemplate the life of Jesus for a while.

Let’s see how He walked in the Light.

• I think that we are often so focused on his death and resurrection that the significance of His life passes us. I am in no way taking away anything from the cross of suffering by saying this.
• We will come back to the suffering again in a moment.

So here He comes and

• makes whine,
• speaks to prostitutes,
• eats with the tax collectors,
• picks his disciples not from the learnt, but from amongst the common people.
• He tells the people that they should become like little children etc.

Remember He was walking in the Light!

• From the Jewish leader’s perspective this is no Messiah and yet he performs miracles and His words, cut their hearts.
• He mocks their righteousness that they had spent there lives working at.

He Is Carefree

• We see that He is completely relaxed with sinners and only really gets angry and the religious establishment of the day. This was certainly not the revelation from God that they had expected.
• It is clear that nothing gets to Him and that He is full of joy.
• We can say that He lead a carefree life.

Why He Died

• The point I really want to make is that Jesus did not only suffer.
• He lead a full and carefree life up to His death.
• And let us remember that He died so that we could become what He is. So that we can become His brother and sisters, sharing in his nature.

True Followers

• So if we are truly followers of Christ it stands to reason that the same carefree/childlike character should be formed in us. The same joy that He had.
• This is in spite of our earthly circumstances.

So what was the source of Jesus’ joy? John 15:10-11 (New King James Version)

10 If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love, just as I have kept My Father’s commandments and abide in His love.

11 “These things I have spoken to you, that My joy may remain in you, and that your joy may be full.

• It was His obedience to the Father.
• Scripture says that He was obedient to death, because of the joy that was set before Him.
• So we see that the reward of obedience is joy.
• We don’t try to be full of joy, but rather we become obedient, and the reward is joy.
• The joy of having unbroken fellowship with the Father.
• One could also say that obedience leads to unbroken fellowship with the Father, that results in joy.

This raises an interesting question.

Lost Joy

• So often today when we have lost our joy, we say that we are suffering for our faith. It more likely that we are suffering for our sins/attitudes etc.
• Why do we often not experience joy when we are of the opinion that we are doing the will of God?
• The Truth is that often we are doing things that are based on our own ideas, notions, perceptions but have nothing to do with God.
• Unconfessed sin!

Take Self Less Serious

• The more we become like Jesus the less serious we will take ourselves, the less conscious we will be of status and opinions of others, because we will only have one goal and that is to please our Father.
• While these other things have a hold on us we will not experience the full measure of joy, that comes with unbroken fellowship with God.

Impossible

You might say to me that it is impossible to become like Jesus, my answer is you already are like Jesus. You may be disobedient to the revelation, but you already have His nature. You may choose to not walk in this Light.

The impossible part has already been done!

Need To Make Choices

• When Jesus came into this world, He had the Life and Light of God in Him, but He still needed to be obedient through every phase of His journey on the earth.
• When He came into the world, He had the full potential in Him to save the world, but to be the Messiah in reality he had to walk in complete obedience, one sinless moment to the next.

Same Apply To Us

• It is no different for us. To fulfill God’s plan for our own lives we also need His fellowship
• We need to walk in the LIGHT as He did.

Be Who You Truly Are

• You know how we always in general conversation say that we should be who we are. From experience we know that it is always the best to do that. If we don’t we are forced into pretense, masks etc. and we become very uncomfortable.
• When we are doing the will of God, it will produce joy in us, simply because we are being True to who we really are by nature. We are what we are.
• We are acting according to our true nature, we are no longer pretending to be sinners that cannot have fellowship with God.

Process - Be Realistic

The road to walking in the full Light is a long and windy road. There will be times of struggle and frustration, but here is a list some of the things that God will build into your life little by little as we learn to Walk in the Light. The most important part in all this is to believe that it is possible to walk in unbroken fellowship with God. The impossible part has already been done.

James 1:4 (Amplified Bible)

4But let endurance and steadfastness and patience have full play and do a thorough work, so that you may be [people] perfectly and fully developed [with no defects], lacking in nothing.

• During these years we have learnt to discern His voice
• We learn how discern the source of emotions and thoughts
• We learn to trust God and not ourselves
• We learn the difference between our plans and God’s, We become less confident of our own understanding
• We learn about humility
• Serving others in love
• We learn to esteem others higher than ourselves
• We accept that we are not God’s gift to the world
• We have always said that we live by grace – only now we actually believe it
• We have come to see the value of fellowship
• We have come to appreciate and enjoy the gifting of others
• We have learnt not to compete
• We love people that we previously avoided
• We are willing to do the simplest thing
• We are willing to listen
• We have had to change our position many times
• We have become flexible
• We learn to relax with God
• We appreciate God’s patience with us
• We sacrifice to God without our ego getting a kick out of it
• We are honest about ourselves – we admit our sins before God
• We learn to accept criticism
• And the list goes on …

CELEBRATION

Did you notice how much joy the celebration of last weekend produced?

We should not miss what God taught us through that.

While we were preparing for the celebration with the sole purpose of being a blessing to God and our guests, we were acting like true sons and daughters of the most High.

And the joy was there for all to see and experience. Let us not stop there SONS and DAUGHTERS of the Most High God.

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