September 12, 1999 - LESSON: Ephesians 5:8-9, NRSV

SERMON TITLE: You Light Up My Life

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INTRODUCTION:

1. Where do you live?
1. I know that you have a home
1. A roof and four walls
2. Decorated to your taste and limitations of the pocketbook.
3. You may have some of the toys that we all desire and have fun with in our loves.
2. But where do you live?
1. I know that the home has a street address
2. Where do you live is not referring to the place where you physically reside.

MAIN BODY:

1. There is another important place in which we live.
1. (Isaiah 9:2 NRSV) The people who walked in darkness...--those who lived in a land of deep darkness
1. What is the darkness.
2. Is it an absence of the light of the sun?
3. Perhaps these people are living in a dark cave.
2. Darkness may be understood in different ways.
1. The darkness of a person who can see, but cannot read
2. The darkness of a person who has ears but cannot hear
3. The darkness of a mind blinded by prejudice
4. The darkness of an individual who longing for what cannot be, rejects what will be.

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3. We stand in a corridor that has two doors.
1. Through one there is darkness
1. The darkness of doubt
2. The darkness of fear
3. The darkness of anxiety
4. The darkness of ignorance
5. The darkness of misunderstanding
6. The darkness of confusion
7. The darkness of discontent
8. The darkness of criticism
9. The darkness of insecurity
10. The darkness of self-contempt
2. Ask yourself what life might be like if we lived it in perpetual darkness.
2. The miraculous comes in a moment when the light shines.
1. There is alight which shines in the darkness and reduces or eliminates it.
2. The Light of Jesus Christ, (John 1:1-5, 9-13, NRSV)
1. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God.
2. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being.
3. What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people.
4. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it....
5. The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world.
6. He was in the world, and the world came into being through him; yet the world did not know him.
7. He came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him.
8. But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God (the Light), who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God.

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3. Jesus Christ is light-glory=grace and truth.
1. What a difficult time he has communicating grace and truth.
2. He chose 11 disciples, Judas was not chosen, and attempted to teach them by word and example.
3. Right from the beginning, it was a difficult task
1. Philip finds Nathanael
2. Nathanael's response is significant.
3. (John 1:43-46 NRSV)
1. The next day Jesus decided to go to Galilee. He found Philip and said to him, "Follow me."
2. Now Philip was from Bethsaida, the city of Andrew and Peter.
3. Philip found Nathanael and said to him, "We have found him about whom Moses in the law and also the prophets wrote, Jesus son of Joseph from Nazareth."
4. Nathanael said to him, "Can anything good come out of Nazareth?"
5. Philip said to him, "Come and see."
4. Nathanael went to see and he saw the light.
5. It changed his life
4. But even then there were difficulties.
1. The disciples quarreled.
2. They sought personal power and position.
3. They wanted to overthrow the oppressive Roman regime
4. Even as the light was shining on them, they were in darkness
5. Their darkness is dramatically revealed in their rejection and abandonment of Jesus.
1. They do not immediately believe in the reports of his physical resurrection
2. Reality, in the physical presence of the resurrected Jesus finally overcomes their unbelief

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6. But it takes a period of fearful hiding from the authorities to give them time to come to shared conclusions about the light and its purpose for them and for the world.
7. It takes a Pentecost, the out-pouring of the Holy spirit, to provide them with the impetuousness to finally achieve at least part of Jesus' vision for them.
8. There is still, even years later, some darkness.
1. Peter's inconsistency
2. (Galatians 2:11-14 NRSV)
1. But when Cephas came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he stood self-condemned; for until certain people came from James, he used to eat with the Gentiles.
2. But after they came, he drew back and kept himself separate for fear of the circumcision faction.
3. And the other Jews joined him in this hypocrisy, so that even Barnabas was led astray by their hypocrisy.
4. But when I saw that they were not acting consistently with the truth of the gospel, I said to Cephas before them all, "If you, though a Jew, live like a Gentile and not like a Jew, how can you compel the Gentiles to live like Jews?"
5. They were able to overcome their differences and become gracious light and truth.
3. So here we are
1. It is much like the response of many people in today's world.
2. Light always overcomes darkness.
3. Doubt gives way to the confident expectations of faith
1. Doubt in God is replaced by trust
2. Doubt in one's self is replaced with self-assurance
3. Doubt of others is replaced by confidence

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4. Fear is released so that we can live with courage
5. Courage is not the absence of fear, but the ability to live with it and keep it under control.
4. Ask yourself what life might be like if we lived it in perpetual darkness.
1. No one really want to live in the dark.
2. But perhaps a person might not realize that he or she is living in the dark.
3. Our lesson for today, Ephesians 5:8-9, reminds us that
1. Verse 8 For once you were darkness, but now in the Lord you are light. Live as children of light--
2. Verse 9 for the fruit of the light is found in all that is good and right and true.
1. It is not bad or wrong or false.
2. These are not the characteristics of light but of the darkness.

CONCLUSION:

1. We are to be light to the darkness of the world.
1. We are to provide a contrasting lifestyle to that which promotes the darkness instead of light.
2. (Matthew 5:14-16 NRSV)
1. "You are the light of the world. A city built on a hill cannot be hid. No one after lighting a lamp puts it under the bushel basket, but on the lampstand, and it gives light to all in the house.
2. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.

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3. The only way that we can become light is to accept the light of the One who lights up our lives.
4. Back in the near distant past, Debbie Boone had a great hit with the vocal, "You Light Up My Life."
5. The lyric reads:
   

   So many nights, I'd sit by my window,
   Waiting for someone to sing me his song.
   So many dreams, I kept deep inside me,
   Alone in the dark, but now you've come along.

   And you light up my life,
   You give me hope, to carry on.
   You light up my days
   And fill my nights with song.

   Rollin' at sea, adrift on the waters
   Could it be finally, I'm turning for home
   Finally a chance to say, "Hey, I Love You"
   Never again to be all alone.

   And you light up my life,
   You give me hope, to carry on.
   You light up my days
   And fill my nights with song.

   You, You light up my life
   You give me hope to carry on
   You light up my days
   And fill my nights with song
   It can't be wrong, when it feels so right
   'Cause you, you light up my life.
    

2. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness cannot overcome it.
1. Light is more powerful than darkness
2. Light is always victorious
3. With Jesus Christ, we can be people of light.

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