First United Methodist Church of Avon Park
Walking in the Light
Tuesday, 21 October 2008
for those who asked for the text or may have missed it,
WALKING IN THE LIGHT First of all I would like to thank all of you for coming here this morning and choosing the First United Methodist Church of Avon Park as you place of worship. This, after all, is the worship service, where we take the time to worship our Lord and our God. This is the time we give of ourselves back to Him who gives so much to us. Moreover, this is Laity Sunday, where more members of our congregation have an opportunity through service to facilitate the worship of our Lord and his son Jesus Christ. As we heard from our Church Council Chairman Wally Randall this morning, the scripture comes from the first Epistle of John -- a letter to the churches in Ephesus, to help strengthern the believeres there. In this portion of the Scripture, John declares to us that; "...God is light, in him there is no darkness at all. If we claim to have fellowship with him yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live by the 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, His son, purifies us from all sin. What are the properties of light? One, light is infinite it can be reflected but it cannot be stopped. The sunlight that shines through our windows travels 93 million miles to get here. Some of the stars we see in the havens, no longer exist yet we still see their light. At night this room will be dark but we can light a candle or flip a switch and bring light into the darkness. However we cannot bring darkness into light. The only way we live in darkness is to shut out the light. Light can be reflected or it can be absorbed. Every ray of light contains all the colors in the world. When sunlight shines on a plants the plant absorbs the red light and reflects the blue and green lights. So it is with our Lord, he is infinite, the light of his glory can onlly be reflected or absorbed. The light of our Lord contains everything we need and when we allow his light in us we not only absorb that which we need but God's light is so abuntant that we cannot help but reflect his light to others. And Jesus? The son of God? Matthew in his account tells us that after telling the adultress to "Go...and sin no more," in the temple court He Himself tells us "I am the light of the world.-- whoever follows me will never walk in darkness but will have the light of life." But what does that all mean? All we have to do is look at the nature of light and darkness and we immediately can see can view a clear path to what we need to do and where we need to go -- just as flipping on the switch in the living room can keep us from bumping our shins on the coffee table, or falling over a chair, allowing the Holy Spirit to light us from within can keep us from making bad decisions that may cause pain and heartache for others as well as ourselves. Isn't that why Christ came? As it is recounted in John 3:19, "that the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. For every one who does evil hates the light, and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed. But he who does what is true comes to the light, that it may be clearly seen that his deeds have been wrought in God. In the Sixth Chapter of Matthew (v.22) Jesus Himself tells us "The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are good, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eyes are bad your whole body will be full of darkness... There is an old Indian story about the grandfather who tells his grandson about the two wolves that are constantly fighting within him, a white wolf and a black wolfe. "Which one will win?' asks the boy -- The one you feed the most, anwers the grandfather. Jesus tells us much the same thing -- "No man can serve two masters. Either he will love the one and hate the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money. Which brings me to the scripture that was advertised for this Sunday Matthew 22: 15-22 which reads; 15 Then the Pharisees went and took counsel how to entangle him in his talk. 16 And they sent their disciples to him, along with the Hero'di-ans, saying, "Teacher, we know that you are true, and teach the way of God truthfully, and care for no man; for you do not regard the position of men. 17 Tell us, then, what you think. Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar, or not?" 18 But Jesus, aware of their malice, said, "Why put me to the test, you hypocrites? 19 Show me the money for the tax." And they brought him a coin. 20 And Jesus said to them, "Whose likeness and inscription is this?" 21 They said, "Caesar's." Then he said to them, "Render therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's." 22 When they heard it, they marveled; and they left him and went away. When I saw that I knew I had to say something about it -- and it fits seamlessly into today's topic. When the Pharasees first start this, Jesus calls them on it -- "Is this a trick question?" he asks, then asks for the Denarius. He points to Caesar's image -- a graven image, and tells them to give the graven image to the self-appointed, make believe god and give that which is made by God in his own image, back to God Himself. Later, Paul queries the Corinthinans posing this question, "What fellowship has light with darkness? What accord has Christ with the devil? Or what has a believer in common with an unbeliever?" Instead, he makes the case that "We are the temple of the living God; as God said, "I will live in them and move among them, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. Therefore come out from them, and be separate from them, says the Lord, Now, in recent weeks and months God obviously has been moving amongs the members of this church -- groups and indviduals have been relentless in giving back to God through service. The cleaning that has gone on Saturday after Saturday, the teaching of youth in Sunday school, the outreach in our TGIF parties for these kids across the street -- most of whom are unchurched, the unending work that the ladies continue to do on the Second Blessing store, the Italian Dinner scheduled for Friday which I hope will serve as an outreach, be well attended, and for which my wife has tickets on sale now. These are just a few of the ways Gods light has been reflected and refracted throughout the chuch body here. As Christians WE are to be the light of the world. "A city on the hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand --and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, we are to let our light shine before men that they may see our good deeds -- but not praise us, but praise our Father who is in Heaven. But our light does not come from us, it comes from within us, our light is a reflection of God's light through the teachings of his Son Christ Jesus. And how do we let our light shine? By making certain our batteries are charged. Through the reading of the word, by the feeding of the good wolf. Simply through picking up the instruction book and following the rules. Paul put it best in his letter to the Romans when he said that "faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God." It is up to us to let our light shine by making the good confession as to where our good works come from and to exactly whom should go the glory. Pastor Gary addressed this last week, when he talked about how much we get out of the worship service. It's like a hug, you cannot get one, without giving one. We cannot outgive God, and it is by our dedicated, devoted worship that we "charge our batteries" and "polish our mirrors" that allows the love of God to shine through us so that we not only can walk in the light, but provide the means that others can walk in the light. And how do we get this light? By giving it all, all we are, all we have giving it all over to God through our Lord and Savior Christ Jesus -- and once we have done that, but then daily reading of the instruction book -- and prayer that we not only may understand the words, but to put them into action... |
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