Finding Light in the Dark: Moving Toward Christ

• The Identity of Jesus [00:25:11 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor introduces the series on Jesus's 'I am' statements, specifically focusing on 'I am the light of the world' within the context of the Feast of Booths.
• The Feast of Booths (Tabernacles) [00:29:21 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor explains the historical and religious significance of the festival, where Jews lived in temporary shelters to remember God's provision and guidance in the wilderness.
• Divine Presence as Light [00:30:41 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor connects the pillar of fire from Exodus to the festival's massive temple lights, arguing that Jesus identified himself as that literal divine presence.
• The Identity of Jesus as the Light of the World [00:33:17 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor explains Jesus' declaration 'I am the light of the world' within the context of the Feast of Tabernacles, noting that Jesus chose the final day when torches were extinguished to highlight his role as the true divine light after 400 years of silence.
• The Nature of Biblical Faith [00:41:39 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor argues that true faith is not merely intellectual agreement but an action-oriented trust, using the analogy of sitting on a chair to illustrate that one must believe in Jesus' identity to actually follow him.
• Personal and Corporate Darkness [00:37:08 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor connects the historical darkness of Israel to personal struggles, sharing a story about a strained relationship with his brother and inviting the congregation to identify their own 'dark places' where God seems absent.
• Testimony of Josh [00:45:23 ▶️ 📄]
  > A community member named Josh shares his testimony of addiction, family trauma, and relapse, illustrating the 'darkness' that Jesus enters into, serving as a practical example of the sermon's theme.
• Admitting Darkness [00:53:59 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor argues that one must first acknowledge and admit the existence of spiritual darkness or sin, citing 1 John 1:6, to stop lying to oneself.
• Exposing Darkness to Light [00:56:42 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor uses an analogy of mold growing in the dark to explain that exposing sin to God and others (fellowship) allows the 'cleansing' property of light to work.
• Moving in the Dark [01:00:34 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor emphasizes taking a 'tiny step' of action toward God (like reading the Bible) even when the outcome is not yet visible, citing Josh's story as the primary example.
• Walking in the Light [01:00:34 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor argues that believers must actively move ('walk') in the light even when they feel they are in darkness, emphasizing action over feeling.
• Exposure and Confession [01:00:20 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor encourages exposing sin or struggle ('gross stuff') to allow light to cleanse it, preventing internal rot.
• Divine Sovereignty and Human Action [01:02:06 ▶️ 📄]
  > Using Proverbs 16:9, the pastor contrasts human planning with God establishing steps, urging the congregation to trust God's guidance even when their own plans fail.
• Progressive Illumination [01:03:41 ▶️ 📄]
  > Citing Proverbs 4:18, the pastor describes the Christian life as a path that shines brighter and brighter, moving from dawn to full daylight, rather than an instant fix.
• Christ as the Light [01:04:35 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor connects Jesus' 'I Am' statements to the theme of light, asserting that Jesus is the light of the world who defeats darkness.

• Sermon Illustration [00:25:30 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor shares a personal anecdote about his initial skepticism of the 'museum' theme for the sermon series, admitting he usually rushes through museums, but came to appreciate how museums preserve life-giving things, just as Jesus's statements do.
• Sermon Illustration [00:26:51 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor describes attending a drone show after a Reds game, noting the novelty of coordinated drones creating shapes in the sky as a modern form of light.
• Sermon Illustration [00:27:20 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor describes the atmosphere of the church building, noting that it is kept dark intentionally so people feel safe and not on display, sharing that he used to cry in the back row because he was glad the lights were out.
• Sermon Illustration [00:32:19 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor describes the visual spectacle of the Feast of Booths, imagining massive pillars of light (likened to 'four or five of me stacked on top of each other') lighting the temple courts and the entire city of Jerusalem for a week, as there was no electricity.
• Sermon Illustration [00:37:47 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor shares a personal anecdote about a strained, years-long estrangement with his older brother, describing it as a 'dark place' where communication has broken down completely, mirroring the spiritual darkness of Israel before Jesus' arrival.
• Sermon Illustration [00:45:23 ▶️ 📄]
  > Josh, a church member, recounts his journey from atheism and addiction following his brother's death, through a relapse involving domestic violence and assault charges, to his current state in a drug and alcohol program, illustrating the depth of personal darkness.
• Sermon Illustration [00:54:52 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor shares a personal anecdote about realizing he had fallen into a subtle 'darkness' of hopelessness regarding missed professional writing opportunities, which he exposed by writing down a list of his disappointments, causing some to 'dissolve' or seem silly.
• Sermon Illustration [00:57:06 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor recounts an eighth-grade science project where he grew mold on bread in a sealed bag to illustrate how 'yucky stuff' grows in the dark, contrasting it with the cleansing properties of light.
• Sermon Illustration [01:01:02 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor references a story about a man named Josh who took a tiny step by picking up a Bible and reading it, even though he didn't know what he was reading, illustrating that small moves toward God invite light.
• Sermon Illustration [01:01:56 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor shares a personal anecdote about reading Proverbs 16:9 ('The heart of a man plans his way, but the Lord establishes his steps') in a daily reading app, deciding to memorize it as a declaration of trust in God's guidance despite his own darkness.

• Pastoral Charge [00:44:36 ▶️ 📄]
  > To take a step toward Jesus in faith despite being in a state of spiritual darkness or uncertainty.
• Pastoral Charge [01:01:25 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor invites the congregation to reflect on and identify a specific small step they can take toward God based on the belief that Jesus offers them life.
• Pastoral Charge [01:06:13 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor leads a prayer asking God for help to believe and for specific ideas on how to make a move of trust this week.

[00:00:00] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_05]
[00:00:00] Hey, welcome to Crossroads. My name is Arturo and I'm Jen and summer is officially here. I got to host the Crossroads Ignite Women's Conference last weekend and then I jumped in the car and drove to the beach with my family and I'm already back. Hey, that's amazing. I've been back. I've been on the couch all summer so far watching USA dominate Paraguay 4 to 1. I saw Nixon 5 and I got a kitten yesterday. Yes, it has been an eventful summer. A kitten. And you know here we're in the middle of a series called the Jesus Exhibit where we're looking at the seven times Jesus

[00:00:29] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_03]
[00:00:29] had made statements about himself yeah and these are identity statements of jesus saying who he is which maybe you are all in on that maybe you're skeptical maybe you're at the beach on vacation and someone just turned church on no matter where you are we're really glad that you're here yeah

[00:00:44] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_05]
[00:00:44] and hey we're gonna start this time off with some worship and so the invitation here is for you to sing along or just read the words regardless of what you do bring your authentic self to this

[00:00:54] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_10]
[00:00:54] Peace upon grace.
[00:01:10] What seems impossible is possible for you.

[00:09:53] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_08]
[00:09:53] What seems unbreakable is where you're breaking through because nothing is over.
[00:09:58] So you say it's over.
[00:09:59] Those aren't words I just hope are true.
[00:10:04] Crazy, but those are words I've actually seen come true in my life.
[00:10:08] I've seen friends be set free from addiction that it looked impossible for them to get free from.
[00:10:13] I've seen hope well up in my heart when I've lost people I loved.
[00:10:18] I've seen myself be able to get freedom from bitterness I've seen friends set free from bitterness and move towards forgiveness all because the power in Jesus all because of the way of Jesus and when we say his name it's saying his
[00:10:37] full presence his ways and everything that comes with it and I've seen it we're about to sing a song that just talks over and over again about the power of the name of jesus and what jesus actually said about himself which we've been talking about
[00:10:54] for several weeks now and so it's not our idea it's not the songwriter's idea this idea comes right from jesus of the power in his name and it comes right from scripture and i just want to
[00:11:08] read it for you a part of where this comes from is philippians chapter 2 verse 9 through 11 says therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name so that
[00:11:21] at the name of Jesus every knee should bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father there is no name like the

[00:11:38] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_10]
[00:11:38] name of jesus who when we speak it we speak all of his power and all of his love there's just something about you love that this song reminds me of that life is hard other things other than

[00:17:38] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_09]
[00:17:38] you other than your name for all of us in this room and myself included wherever we are what's ever in front of us whether it's good bad ugly beautiful or everything in between we call on
[00:17:59] your name and we turn to you be given all the glory because of who you are because we love you it's good morning thank you for singing with us i'm erica if we don't know each other do me a
[00:18:23] favor turn to somebody that you don't know and tell them how glad you are that they're here

[00:18:27] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_01]
[00:18:27] in november 2024 thousands of us stepped into something bigger than ourselves we committed to give above and beyond our regular giving because we want to see an awakening in our land One of the most powerful signs that people are coming to know Jesus is the choice to be baptized.
[00:19:06] And since the 10X push began, we have seen a lot of baptisms.
[00:19:11] God is changing lives, not someday, right now.
[00:19:16] On the weekends, surrounded by friends, family, and neighbors, people are stepping into new life.
[00:19:22] Experiencing the power of the Holy Spirit at camps and revival, People of all ages are saying yes to Jesus for the very first time, leaving behind who they were and stepping into who God is calling them to be.
[00:19:36] On trips, far from home, outside of comfort zones, all around the world, God is meeting people in powerful, personal ways.
[00:19:44] And like our Crossroads Anywhere family in Bolivia, they are not waiting.
[00:19:49] We're not waiting for someone else.
[00:19:51] We're not waiting for a better time.
[00:19:52] We're pushing forward faithfully.
[00:19:55] Every number is a name, and every name has a story.
[00:19:59] A story known fully and loved completely by God.

[00:20:08] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_05]
[00:20:08] Hey, it is increíble to look back and see what God has done through our church over the last year.
[00:20:13] And a special shout out to our Anywhere folks in Bolivia, where 16 people got baptized.
[00:20:18] Hey, Bolivia, los vemos, los amamos, y estamos emocionados a ver lo que Dios va a seguir obrando ahí en Bolivia.
[00:20:25] Sigan adelante.

[00:20:26] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_03]
[00:20:26] If you didn't catch it in the video, it said 3,236 people have made the decision since 2024 when we started the 10X commitment to get baptized. Those numbers are people with names and real stories. Those are people whose lives have changed because of Jesus, and it is worth

[00:20:45] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_05]
[00:20:45] celebrating. Hey, baptism is all about openly declaring that you are all in on Jesus, and you've maybe accepted Jesus, but you haven't been baptized. Man, this might be time for you to consider the next step. And so the next step is baptism. And August 2nd, at any of our sites,
[00:21:02] you can get baptized. If you're interested, if you want to sign up, or you're just asking, is that right for me right now? Hey, learn more and sign up at crossroads.net slash baptism.

[00:21:11] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_03]
[00:21:11] That's right. August 2nd, if you live near any of our sites, we'll be doing baptisms. And if you're a part of our Anywhere community, you can make the decision to get baptized at any time.
[00:21:20] Recently, Janice, for example, she lives in South Carolina, and she got baptized in the Indian Rocks Beach in Florida.

[00:21:27] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_11]
[00:21:27] Wow.

[00:21:27] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_03]
[00:21:27] She was vacationing there, and we have some people in our Anywhere community who live in Florida, and they drove over, they met her there, and they baptized her in the ocean.

[00:21:37] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_11]
[00:21:37] Wow.

[00:21:37] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_03]
[00:21:37] I know.
[00:21:38] Baptism is so important, and we want to help you take that next step.
[00:21:41] No matter where you are in the world, we'd do anything to help you get baptized.

[00:21:44] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_05]
[00:21:44] Hey, and this update is not just about baptism.
[00:21:47] It's also a reminder that our church a while ago went on what we call a 10X journey.
[00:21:51] This 10X journey was about giving above and beyond.

[00:21:55] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_03]
[00:21:55] Yeah.
[00:21:55] And if you consider yourself a part of Crossroads, then this next part is for you.
[00:21:59] Aside from 10X Giving, Crossroads is also a place where we practice a regular spiritual discipline of giving.
[00:22:06] Everything we do here happens because ordinary people choose to sacrifice financially.

[00:22:11] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_05]
[00:22:11] Yeah.
[00:22:11] And so I'm one of those ordinary people.
[00:22:14] And when I trust God with my money and I give him space and say, you can have all of me and everything that's mine, then he always shows up.

[00:22:21] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_03]
[00:22:21] How it looks practically for me and our family is my husband works on commission.
[00:22:26] So every time a paycheck comes in, we give 10% back to God to our local church.
[00:22:31] For us, it's a way of saying, God, everything that we have comes from you.
[00:22:35] And we are going to trust you to provide for our family.
[00:22:37] And over the years, we have seen his faithfulness.
[00:22:40] So you can learn more at crossroads.net slash give or also on our Crossroads Anywhere app.

[00:22:44] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_05]
[00:22:44] Hey, we've been in a series called the Jesus Exhibit.
[00:22:46] And we're taking a look at the things Jesus says about himself.
[00:22:49] Jesus had these seven iconic statements, and today we're looking at when Jesus says, I am the light of the world.

[00:22:56] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_03]
[00:22:56] Yeah, Allie Patterson is one of our teaching pastors and here to help us understand what that means and what that looks like.
[00:23:02] So thank you for joining us.
[00:23:04] We're glad you're here.

[00:23:05] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_00]
[00:23:05] Where are we in the Bible?
[00:23:07] We're in the New Testament, in the gospel, according to John.
[00:23:11] This is a firsthand biography of Jesus by one of his closest friends.
[00:23:16] In it, John records seven iconic I am statements that Jesus made.
[00:23:22] Seven metaphors, seven self-portraits of the living God.
[00:23:27] This week, Jesus says, I am the light of the world.
[00:23:31] Here's how it goes in the book of John, chapters 7 and 8.
[00:23:36] Now the Jews' feast of booths was at hand.
[00:23:39] So his brothers said to him, leave here and go to Judea, that your disciples also may see the works you are doing.
[00:23:47] For no one works in secret if he seeks to be known openly.
[00:23:51] If you do these things, show yourself to the world.
[00:23:55] Jesus said to them, You go up to the feast.
[00:23:58] I am not going up to this feast, for my time has not yet fully come.
[00:24:02] But after his brothers had gone up to the feast, then he also went up, not publicly, but in private.
[00:24:09] The Jews were looking for him at the feast and saying, Where is he?
[00:24:13] And there was much muttering about him among the people.
[00:24:16] while some said he is a good man others said no he is leading the people astray yet for fear of the jews no one spoke openly of him about the middle of the feast jesus went up into the temple
[00:24:31] and began teaching on the last day of the feast the great day jesus stood up and cried out if anyone thirsts let him come to me and drink again jesus spoke to them saying i am the light of the
[00:24:43] world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.

[00:24:58] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_04]
[00:24:58] Hey everyone, I am Allie and I'm one of the teaching pastors here at Crossroads if you're joining us new this weekend. And we have been getting to know Jesus in these things that he said about himself, these seven statements. And if you haven't noticed, we're doing it in the
[00:25:11] setting of a museum. Now, I'm going to just be totally honest with you. When the creative team brought this museum idea for what we're, you know, creatively going to be in for this series, I thought, uh, okay, head scratch. I just paused and went, guys, I'm the kind of person that jogs
[00:25:30] a museum in about 30 minutes and then hits the gift shop on the way out. It just wasn't completely clicking for me. And I don't know if that's you, but I do. I go through the rooms. I'm like,
[00:25:40] amazing, beautiful, wow, done, like I'm out. So I can tell there's some more people here that feel that way about museums. But the idea was actually what the rest of you have figured out is that
[00:25:54] museums preserve things that are life-giving, that are worth coming back to, considering and receiving again and again and again. And that's exactly what these statements that Jesus said about himself are for us. So the one we're going to be looking at today is I am the light of the
[00:26:13] world. So let me pray for us that we can receive what is in that name for us today. Lord, be with us here. Help us to hear your word clearly and to be able to somehow receive this truth again
[00:26:26] in our life. It's in Jesus' deep, good, mighty name that I pray. Amen. Well, light is a funny thing because it can take all different forms. I mean, if you think about this as a metaphor, it could
[00:26:38] mean, I don't know, a hundred different things. I was downtown after the Reds game, ready to watch the Friday fireworks a couple of days ago. And I also got treated to a new form of light I didn't
[00:26:51] know existed. Did you guys know there's drone shows? Who's seen a drone show? Like coordinated, choreographed hundreds of drones in the sky, making shapes and doing all kinds of choreography.
[00:27:03] It was amazing. I didn't even know that that existed until Friday night. I was just there for the fireworks, which are historically my favorite form of light. But light can take all these different forms. We actually think about light a lot here at Crossroads. If you are gathered
[00:27:20] in one of our buildings, in one of our spaces today, and you're in our community, you're probably used to it being pretty dark. We do that on purpose because we want Crossroads to feel like a place
[00:27:33] that you can come and seek God at your own pace, where you don't feel like you're on display, where people aren't staring at you, they don't have expectations of you. You can just feel safe
[00:27:42] receiving from God in this place. If you're anything like me, you probably, maybe some of you spent the first five times you came here in the back row crying. That's what I did. I was glad
[00:27:51] the lights were out. But this is what makes Jesus's words so interesting, right? So weird.
[00:28:01] service, same setting, same people, totally different reality, totally different reality.
[00:28:08] Some of you are like, okay, that's my neighbor. That's my friend. I didn't even know they were here. And some of you are like, I mean, seriously, have mercy on these people. You can turn the
[00:28:19] lights back out. But some of you are like, no, no, no. I was good the other way. This is not what I want. And we do, we think about the reality that light creates all the time. That's what makes
[00:28:34] Jesus's words so very interesting because we need to dig into the actual meaning that he meant with the word light, with this thing that he called himself. And to do that, we need more than just the
[00:28:45] verse where it appeared, but I'm going to start there. John chapter 8 verse 12 says this, when Jesus spoke again to the people, he said, I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me
[00:28:58] will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life. Now, we can understand some really good things from just that verse, but if we go back a chapter in the book of John, we get the
[00:29:10] bigger context where Jesus was saying these words. It was in John chapter 7 that we learned, and you heard that Jesus was in the city of Jerusalem at a festival. It was called the Feast of Booths
[00:29:21] or the Feast of Tabernacles. And this was an annual festival in the life of the Jewish people.
[00:29:28] And what they did is they gathered to remember a period of time just after Israel was delivered out of slavery in Egypt many generations before, where God himself led them through the wilderness for 40 years. And the whole idea of this Feast of Booths or Feast of Tabernacles, same thing,
[00:29:47] is that they would live in temporary shelters because this was essentially an entire generation in their nation's history where they were homeless. They were living in temporary dwellings, and it was God who sustained them during that time. So they would actually leave their
[00:30:03] permanent houses and live in booths or tabernacles while the festival was going on in remembrance of this God who had delivered them and then sustained them while they were homeless wanderers in the wilderness of a desert for 40 years. And so that's essentially what was
[00:30:22] going on, but not just that. It was also a celebration of how they remembered experiencing God during that time. Like in what form exactly did they experience God? Because he was there, He was leading and guiding, and that's what they were celebrating. And here is how they experienced
[00:30:41] God straight from the book of Exodus recorded during this time in the wilderness. It says, by day the Lord went ahead of them in a pillar of cloud to guide them on their way, and by night
[00:30:53] in a pillar of fire to give them light so they could travel by day or night. Neither the pillar of cloud by day nor the pillar of fire by night left its place in front of the people. So think
[00:31:09] about that. This is the celebration that Jesus says this in. Think about what is actually being experienced. When Israel was homeless, who was the light? When the sun was beating overhead and they needed shelter from the heat, who was filtering that light? When it was pitch black
[00:31:32] and they needed to move somewhere in the dark, who was the light? This festival that Jesus was celebrating, he knew that they were celebrating God as that light, not as a metaphor for it, not as the God who brought it, but as the presence of God himself. The Feast of Booths
[00:31:57] remembered what it felt like to experience the presence of God as light itself. In fact, the key visual feature, had you been in Jerusalem at the time, would have been these massive pillars of light all around the temple courts. Like, and I'm talking massive, you know, there's
[00:32:19] these, these are kind of, I mean, renditions of what would have been experienced. And they're probably four or five of me stacked on top of each other. And a number of them all over the
[00:32:30] temple courts, lighting not just the temple, not just for the Jewish people, but lighting the city all around them for a solid week. Now, I know that you know this, but I feel like I have
[00:32:43] to say it out loud. There was no electricity in the city. So think about that. An entire week of light was what they were experiencing during this festival. How unusual. A reminder of the God whose
[00:33:00] glory, whose presence appeared to them as light. Imagine the stories they would tell. Imagine the remembrances that would have come from their ancestors. He was essentially saying, the God you remember, the God you're celebrating, the one who appeared as light, the one who guided
[00:33:17] and filtered and was constant and lit up the darkness. I'm him. That's me. This declaration, I am the light of the world, was a declaration that was really big in the middle of a festival
[00:33:34] that they were very clear what he was saying. Jesus was saying, I am the one that you remember.
[00:33:42] I am the one that you celebrate right here before you as a man named Jesus.
[00:33:49] Now, I've got to tell you, as a teacher, I look at that setting and I'm like, brilliant, amazing, torches, fire, light everywhere.
[00:33:58] What better setting could there have been to announce himself, to declare his identity to a city, by the way, that had been talking about him?
[00:34:08] His brothers wanted him to say who he was.
[00:34:11] the Pharisees had already decided he's from Satan. We need to get rid of him. The people, they were mumbling about who is this? Who's this guy? Is he good? Is he bad? You know, it makes it clear that that's the context. That's what's happening in the festival.
[00:34:24] And he steps up and he declares himself in this way. And I just think, man, brilliant. Jesus was not just God. He was also an awesome teacher. You know, what a perfect moment, except that's
[00:34:37] that's actually not what happened. Because in John 7, 37, if you keep reading the chapter right before this happens, you learn that this was the last day of that feast. That's what it tells us. And interestingly, on the last day of that feast, something very unusual takes place.
[00:34:58] In the nation of Israel at that time, there was one final day of the feast where they would extinguish all the torches of light where everything would go dark. It was in the moment of darkness that Jesus stepped up and announced himself as the light of the world. He actually
[00:35:25] chose the day of this feast where they were actually acknowledging the current reality of their nation. It had been 400 years since God had appeared to any of them in any form. Generation after generation had gone by, not a prophet was speaking. No appearance of God in any form. No
[00:35:48] light at all. All they were doing was remembering the God that could be light, the God that had been light, the God they hoped would be light. And then on the final day of the feast, they recognized
[00:36:01] their current reality, which was he just wasn't. And this is the moment. After a week of fiery torches lighting up the city in celebration of the God of light, Jesus waits for the moment of
[00:36:21] darkness. The moment where they recognize where they actually were. And he got up in front of the extinguished torches and he said, I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness. If anything, the light wasn't the object lesson, the darkness was. And he stepped
[00:36:43] into that darkness and declared himself God when they were going to have the hardest time receiving it. When they were wrestling with the fact that God hadn't shown up, that God left them in the
[00:36:56] dark, that he hadn't sent his word or his prophet or anything else that looked like his glory or his light to His people for hundreds of years. I'll bet each of us has some kind of place like that
[00:37:08] in our life, the place that you kind of believe in theory that God could be light there. Maybe you've experienced in the past that He was actually light there, and for whatever reason, He's just not right now. Maybe it's been months. Maybe it's been years. Maybe you can look back
[00:37:29] in your family tree, and you can see that kind of darkness has been present over and over for generations, like the Jewish people would have been acknowledging on that day. I was thinking about one of those places in my life. It's been going on for a really long time, and I promise
[00:37:47] you, I'm driving here this morning, and I'm like, how do I even put this into the right words?
[00:37:53] It's that kind of place. It's a relationship with one of my brothers. I don't talk about my brothers for some different reasons. This one of them I have an extremely strained relationship with. And even on my way here, I'm thinking, how do I explain this? You can only understand if you
[00:38:14] have one of these relationships in your life where like the darkness kind of crept in as kids, like before you even really knew and dysfunctional things happened and patterns happened and then absence, total absence for many years. We now live on different sides of the world. We live in
[00:38:33] different countries and we don't understand each other and we can't connect at all. And it feels like every interaction for year after year after year was just walking into a wall in the middle of the dark. And finally, our last communication, he called me a name I can't say out loud and then
[00:38:50] insulted my faith, my family, my work, and I just went, I'm done. I'm done. If you have a place like that, one that you don't have an answer for, you can't wrap it up. I don't even know what to say.
[00:39:09] It just is what it is right now. That's the kind of place that Jesus stepped into for the nation of Israel. That's the kind of darkness. That's the persistent and personal darkness that they were wrestling with on this last day of the feast. Where are the lights out for you like that? Maybe
[00:39:28] it feels a little hopeless, like I was just describing, like how in the world?
[00:39:34] How do you go back now? How do you rewind this? How do you put the toothpaste back in the tube?
[00:39:41] Maybe yours is a little bit different. You're disoriented, but I know that you've probably stopped praying about it. It's that place where you don't really even talk about it anymore, because it just is. And I want you to imagine that place. And I want you to imagine Jesus walking up
[00:40:02] to you and he's referencing that place in your life, that relationship, that issue, that kind of darkness. And he points right at it, right for you, right in your face. And he says, I'm the light
[00:40:15] of the world. There's life waiting for you there. I know how that feels to me. It feels a little crazy? Would you laugh? Would you walk away from him? Would you take him seriously? Would you be
[00:40:36] angry? Would you say, what took you so long? I don't know. What would your reaction be, honestly, to that comment about that place? That's how it felt when he said this. I am the light of the
[00:40:51] world. The God that after 400 years in slavery showed up and rescued you and led you out through the wilderness. The God that after 400 years of darkness in Israel has shown up before you saying,
[00:41:05] if you'll follow me, you won't walk in darkness. Jesus picked the moment, the place, the thing, the time, the people who would have had the hardest time receiving this. When you're in the dark like
[00:41:22] that, the question really quickly becomes really simple. Do you believe? Do you believe? Because here's what we don't do. If we don't believe, we don't follow. If we don't believe, we don't move.
[00:41:39] If we don't believe, we don't act. And what did Jesus say? Let me read these words again. He said, I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness. Whoever follows me.
[00:41:54] John 20, 31 tells us that John, the apostle that wrote this gospel, he wrote the entire gospel with this question in mind. Do you believe? I wish every book of the Bible had a verse like
[00:42:09] John 20, 31. Here's what he says. But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing, you may have life in his name. John says,
[00:42:24] these, what does he mean, these are written? His whole gospel is seven miracles that validate these seven statements that Jesus made about himself. That's the whole organization of the book of John. And he said, I picked these. I picked these statements and these associated
[00:42:43] miracles so that you would wrestle with the question, do you believe? Because if you don't, you're not going to follow. The picture of faith in the Bible is a little bit more like this chair.
[00:43:00] Like, if I don't believe this chair is going to hold me, there's no chance I'm going to sit on it, right? This is the picture of biblical faith. It's not that we believe in our minds that that
[00:43:13] thing is the truth. I think we can, most of us, get there. Jesus is the light of the world.
[00:43:18] okay, sounds good. Son of God, thumbs up, you know. We might mentally agree with that statement, but we're not going to sit on the stool unless we actually believe. John knew, I think, that everyone would eventually have to wrestle with this question, who is this guy? And do I actually
[00:43:47] believe him? It's the same question the crowds had that day. Who are you? Do I believe you?
[00:43:54] They were split on it. The Pharisees had come to an answer. They did not believe him. His own brothers were wrestling with like, who exactly are you here? You're going to need to say something
[00:44:04] so that we can figure out whether we believe you. And the same question is actually embedded in John 8, 21, when Jesus says the words, if you follow me, those who follow me, there's a question embedded
[00:44:20] in there because we don't follow what we don't believe. We won't move. We might say we agree, but we're not going to actually do anything if we don't actually believe him. So let me say this
[00:44:36] another way. Will you take a step toward Jesus when you're still completely in the dark? That's the question that this verse poses to us. And it's also, interestingly, a part of a story that I want
[00:44:55] to share with you. And this is a pretty amazing story. It's a guy in our community. As a matter of fact, I just worked with him last week. He was running sound at the Ignite conference for me. I
[00:45:05] wish I had seen in depth his story before last weekend, but when I saw it this week, I thought this is amazing. And it is intense, it's raw, and it's also filled with hope. Meet Josh.

[00:45:23] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_07]
[00:45:23] My brother, my older brother died.
[00:45:28] He was 17, I was 13.
[00:45:30] And that's when my understanding of God, that there was no God.
[00:45:35] Or if there was a God, he was just not to be trusted.
[00:45:40] When I was making music, I didn't think as much.
[00:45:43] I didn't like spending time with myself.
[00:45:45] People around me who love me are like, I think you're drinking too much.
[00:45:48] And I would just kind of avoid those people.
[00:45:52] And at this point, the more I was drinking, the less I had to keep quieting any thought of God, any thought of a moral compass.
[00:46:01] And I hated thinking about my behavior.
[00:46:04] I was consumed with darkness.
[00:46:09] And then I met my current wife.
[00:46:11] I was sober almost a year when I met her.
[00:46:14] And that was like the first time I started to feel somewhat hopeful and happy.
[00:46:19] A guy I used to tour with calls me.
[00:46:21] My wife was like, you said that touring and traveling was a struggle.
[00:46:26] I'm like, it's perfectly fine. I'm good.
[00:46:29] But as soon as they sent me my flight details, I started plotting.
[00:46:32] I can drink as long as I'm not around her.
[00:46:35] I can drink as long as I'm not, I can't hurt people if I'm not drinking in front of them.
[00:46:42] That led to a full-blown relapse to where my wife, for the very first time, saw me drinking.
[00:46:53] It's like she finally got to see that part of me that I had been hiding.
[00:46:59] She's like, okay, I don't want you intoxicated around the kids.
[00:47:03] That was the day that I took my work knife and cut my wrist.
[00:47:08] So when I got back from the hospital, it was like, you have assault charges on police.
[00:47:12] It's a felony.
[00:47:13] And I'm like, what?
[00:47:15] Felonies are for, like, bad people.
[00:47:17] I found out that charges were filed against me for assaulting police as they were putting, as the firefighters were putting a tourniquet on my arm.
[00:47:26] I wasn't even happy I woke up.
[00:47:30] I woke up and immediately just started thinking about how shamed I was, what fantasized about I just need to get into a place where I could go back to drinking inside of a hotel room by myself.
[00:47:42] It'll all be fine.
[00:47:43] My wife was like, you have to go into a rehab.
[00:47:46] If you don't go into a rehab, we just can't.
[00:47:49] This can't be. You're killing yourself.
[00:47:51] I was supposed to go into treatment on March 8th.
[00:47:54] So March 7th, I came home, and I was like, I'm just going to have one last hoorah of drinking.
[00:48:01] I blacked out, and then I woke up in jail again.
[00:48:04] I was pissed, because I'm supposed to be at rehab.
[00:48:09] Now I have another disorderly conduct, and then they told me that I had assaulted my wife.

[00:48:17] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_06]
[00:48:17] And that was like the...
[00:48:22] I didn't care if I hurt myself.
[00:48:29] I didn't care if I died, but to know that I hurt her.

[00:48:37] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_07]
[00:48:37] So I was in jail.
[00:48:39] I pled guilty to domestic violence.
[00:48:43] They put me in another drug and alcohol program.
[00:48:45] During that time I was in that program, I went to trial for the assault on police.
[00:48:49] So then they sent me to prison.
[00:48:52] The time in jail, into prison, I started reading the Bible for the first time.
[00:48:58] I wasn't reading for any other reason other than to know Him.
[00:49:02] why did you make me if all I was gonna do is become nothing I started listening and I started hearing God speak to me and I wasn't afraid I still had shame but I didn't feel shame I am and I had peace for the first time since I was a
[00:49:29] kid I left prison went to a halfway house which is way worse in prison we We were all out back, and this guy walked up and came up and he had a water bottle full of vodka.
[00:49:43] He was like, here, bro, you want a drink?
[00:49:45] And I said, no, I'm good.
[00:49:47] Even though I wanted, my whole body was like, no, this is yours.
[00:49:51] I was like, no, I'm good.
[00:49:52] And then I went to bed, and I woke up the next day.
[00:49:56] The self-sabotage voice was gone.
[00:50:00] The voice of, but look what you've done.
[00:50:03] Look at all the destruction that you've created your entire, it's gone.
[00:50:07] I trusted him just by refusing what my body wanted.
[00:50:12] And my marriage has been healed from that time.
[00:50:17] I have peace because I'm not fighting anymore.
[00:50:19] And it's great.
[00:50:20] I love waking up every day.
[00:50:23] I love going to sleep every day.
[00:50:24] And I no longer have an obsession.
[00:50:26] My obsession is just looking around me and realizing what God has blessed me with.
[00:50:35] I do sound at Eastside Crossroads.
[00:50:37] that passion, my love for sound that I had came back to life. Now I get to do what I've always

[00:50:43] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_04]
[00:50:43] loved. There was darkness, but now there's light. Great story, right? When I listened to Josh's story, you know what I saw was it was the moment. It was the same moment. It was the moment where
[00:51:06] he was totally in the dark and he reached out for God. Before he could see anything, before he knew anything about where his life would go, he was in prison. And I don't want you to miss it because
[00:51:19] it's so critically important that we understand this. He reached out at the darkest moment and all he said, he said it really simply, I read the Bible. That's it. He took his question to God. Why
[00:51:33] did you make me if it was going to be like this? I promise you, when he closed his Bible, the first time he read it, nothing felt any different. But do you know something? The human eye can only take
[00:51:44] in 0.0035% of the full light spectrum. It's like nothing. What if the same is true spiritually?
[00:51:56] What if one day God brings him back to that moment and he says, you know, when you did that, the light just exploded around you. You know, when you reached out for me in the dark,
[00:52:07] I was already there. All the light was already there. You just couldn't see it yet. He reached out in the dark, and he took one tiny step with God. And I promise you, on the moment he did it,
[00:52:23] it didn't feel like much of anything. And yet, when you hear him tell his story, that's the turning point that's the turning point and I just wonder if Jesus will point at that one day and go everything changed there every single thing changed so I want to take you
[00:52:41] through these three kind of I don't calling them steps is way too organized these three ideas that I think allow us to reach out to God in the dark and they're actually written also by the apostle
[00:52:54] John in one of his letters. He wrote the Gospel of John, and he also wrote these three little letters way in the back of your Bible, 1 John, 2 John, 3 John. So these come from the first chapter
[00:53:04] of 1 John. And he again talks about God as light, and he says a little bit more about how you come out of the darkness. And that's what I want to spend a few minutes talking about for the rest
[00:53:17] of our time. It says, this is the message we have heard from him and that we proclaim to you, that God is light and in him there is no darkness at all. If we say we have fellowship with him
[00:53:30] while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice 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
[00:53:42] cleanses us from all sin. The first thing implicit in these words is that we have to admit the darkness. We have to be able to say there is a place of darkness. He says if we're walking,
[00:53:59] what are his words? If we say we have fellowship with God while we walk in darkness, we're lying.
[00:54:06] We're lying to ourselves at the very least. So the question for Jesus, the very first question is, will you show me where the lights have gone out? A lot of us already know. A lot of us are thinking
[00:54:20] about a situation or a darkness in our life and we have been for the last 15 minutes. But the question is, where have the lights gone out? If something comes to mind, don't rush past it. I had
[00:54:35] one of these recently because it was almost like my eyes had adjusted to this darkness slowly and I didn't even really realize, oh, I'm kind of walking in this darkness. I didn't really even realize it until I put it in these terms. You know, preach a message about something and see
[00:54:52] what you find out. It's interesting. God will show you all kinds of interesting things. So here's one of mine. I realized like about a year ago, there were a couple of writing opportunities that I really wanted. I love to write. And they didn't happen. And I just felt like a couple of
[00:55:09] professional opportunities kept getting wiped away. And the thing out here, you know, I know what I'm doing today. And then the thing that's out here that I thought, oh, I'm kind of looking at that into the future, it began to get blurred. It just wasn't very clear anymore. And I was pretty
[00:55:28] disappointed, but you know, you just keep moving. Life happens, whatever. But I didn't realize until recently that I had taken on a sense of like hopelessness or something about that. And that I had somehow begun to walk in this agreement that maybe God just doesn't have any more plans for me.
[00:55:51] Subtle, right? Like this little darkness that I just started to agree with. Like, I guess not.
[00:56:00] Okay, cool, I guess. And I just started to take on this sense of like, I can't quite muster up the same energy. And over the last week, God has pointed out, you know, you started to walk in
[00:56:17] darkness there. You know, you started to believe something and then just, you just kept believing it. You just kept walking in it. That's not what I say. That's darkness. You're walking in it.
[00:56:28] Sometimes it's really subtle like that. And we just begin to move in it. So ask him, is there a place? And we have to admit it because the second thing we have to do is also on purpose, wherever
[00:56:42] that place is, we're going to expose it. John's words are, 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, cleanses us.
[00:56:55] It cleanses us. We can not only connect with other people about it, we have fellowship with one another. If we expose it in the light, we can talk about it, and it also begins to cleanse us.
[00:57:06] light, I don't know if you know this, has a cleansing property. I learned this in, I don't know, like eighth grade science class or something, like yucky stuff grows in the dark. That's about what I took away from eighth grade science. We had to grow mold in our desk, little piece of bread,
[00:57:23] sprinkle it with a little moisture, seal up the bag, put it in our desk. And actually, bummer for me, that project revealed that I'm allergic to mold. Really stung for me. But I got the point. I got the point. There's really gross stuff that grows in the dark, things you don't
[00:57:40] want. Bacteria and mold and germs and all the things that you're not looking for. And also, that's what happens to us spiritually as well. So when we take this place and we expose it, and we expose it to Jesus, we expose it to other people, then light begins to do its work. Actual
[00:57:58] light, like in the real physical, natural realm, it boosts immunity and mood. It kills bacteria.
[00:58:03] it begins to have cleansing properties. And that's exactly what John is implying, that there's a light that comes in that begins to cleanse. Psalm 139, my favorite personal psalm, highly recommend, has a line in it that says darkness is as light to him, to God. He's not
[00:58:25] having trouble seeing, we are. He doesn't not see through your darkness, you don't. And so when we expose it, we begin to see things. I did this with my particular little spot that he was exposing to
[00:58:39] me just this last Monday morning. I'm telling you, he'll do it. You know, you admit a darkness and he will meet you in that place. I just got this idea. I wasn't thinking about it in these terms
[00:58:53] at all. I just got this idea that I should write down all the opportunities that I was thinking of that had either passed me by or I'd been disappointed to miss or I'd failed to, you know,
[00:59:06] to be able to do or whatever. Just make that list. And I was like, oh, that sounds terrible.
[00:59:12] That's definitely not how anybody wants to spend their time. Write down the list of all the things you missed out on or failed on. That sounds great, you know. But I made the list on Monday morning
[00:59:26] because they're all rolling around in there anyway. And later I realized, oh, I did this.
[00:59:34] I exposed it. When I had to put it into words, I had to put it into words. I had to actually say what was bouncing around in the dark, growing mold on it. So I made this list and a few of them,
[00:59:47] honestly, they just almost like dissolved in my hands. I was like, oh, that, now that I'm trying to say that, I guess that really wasn't that thing. And now that I'm trying to put that one
[00:59:58] into words, I guess that one actually kind of sounds a little silly. I'm not even sure it belongs on the list. And some of them just dropped away. There's a few of them I'm still wrestling
[01:00:07] with, but there was an exposure that took place that kind of cleansed some of the gross stuff that when we leave it inside, it just rots. So wherever this place is in your life, I would
[01:00:20] encourage you, say it out loud, tell somebody else, put it on a piece of paper, whatever it looks like to expose that place, expose it. Because then light can begin to do its job. And the last thing
[01:00:34] John says pretty clearly here is if we walk, the third thing is we actually have to move. We have to walk in the light. What is one tiny step that you could take from that place? Not when it gets
[01:00:49] better, not when it gets cleaned up, not when you feel good about it, but like when you're still completely in the dark about it. Just a tiny step. What did Josh do in the story? He just picked up
[01:01:02] a Bible and read it. Most people who do that, they don't even know what they're reading. I don't know what his history is with the Bible, but I actually remember a moment in my life when I did that. It's
[01:01:13] just a little move, just a little move toward God. And I'm wondering if the light doesn't start to shine in a way that we just can't fully see yet. We have to move in the dark. So let me ask
[01:01:25] you what might you do from that place if you actually believed that Jesus had life for you there? What would you behave like? Maybe turn that into one tiny little step. This week mine was tiny
[01:01:43] and I do mean tiny. That's okay. Just taking little steps out of the dark here. So I'm reading in our Bible in a year plan inside the Crossroads app and we were in the book of Proverbs earlier this
[01:01:56] last week. And so I'm just reading the daily reading, not, again, not thinking about this, but God will break light in wherever He can. And here's the proverb that I read.
[01:02:06] The heart of a man plans his way, but the Lord establishes his steps. I stopped on that one.
[01:02:14] You know, you're, if you've ever read the book of Proverbs, you know, it's like, and a lot of them aren't even connected to the one before, so your eyes can kind of glaze over a little bit. Oh, interesting, wise, yes, good. And I just sort of stopped on that one, and I went,
[01:02:27] oh, that's mine. So I decided that's what I'm going to do. I'm going to tell God, I'm trying to believe you, so I'm going to memorize this. And anytime I feel that sense of like, maybe you
[01:02:39] don't have anything left for me, I'm going to say, the heart of a man plans his way, but the Lord establishes his steps. I believe that you're establishing my steps. I know that my heart
[01:02:50] wants some things, but you're the one that's planning the steps ahead of me. It's just my tiny little acknowledgement, tiny little acknowledgement that I want to try to step out of the darkness that I had been living in. So what is it for you? What's the one
[01:03:08] tiny move? Is it Josh's? Read the Bible again? Is it mine? Is it a phone call you need to make?
[01:03:16] Is it an invitation you need to make? Is it a prayer you need to say? What is the move while you're still in the dark. That's the thing. But the Bible says something amazing. It's what Josh's
[01:03:30] story is. It says something amazing is going to happen, that light does start to break in, whether we can fully take it in or not. One of my favorite Proverbs is this, Proverbs 4, 18, says,
[01:03:41] The path of the righteous is like the light of dawn, which shines brighter and brighter until the full light of day. Proverbs, the wisdom of Proverbs says there's going to be a moment when the dawn breaks. And guess what? You keep moving, you keep following, then your life, your path,
[01:04:01] your story, it will get brighter and brighter and brighter and brighter until you're standing in the full light of day. Now, this isn't a promise of timing. It's not a promise of specific action. It is just a guarantee of what happens in the heavenly realms when you begin to
[01:04:21] move toward Jesus while you're still in the dark. It says the light breaks in and your path will get brighter and brighter until the full light of day. John started his gospel with some really
[01:04:35] interesting words. You know, not all of these I am statements have to do with light, only this one.
[01:04:40] when Jesus says, I am the light of the world. But this is so important, so important. He starts and ends his gospel with this idea. His first chapter, it says the light shines in the darkness and the
[01:04:54] darkness has not overcome it. Let me just fast forward to the end. The darkness doesn't win.
[01:05:00] The light beats it every time, every single time. You make a move in the dark, he's bringing the light in, and your life is going to get brighter. You're the one that gets the better story because
[01:05:12] He's the one that beats any kind of darkness every day of the week, full beauty, full exposure, full truth, full grace, and one day you get to walk into a city that is described in the book
[01:05:27] of Revelation for the rest of eternity. It says the city has no need of sun or moon to shine on it For the glory of God gives it light and its lamp is the lamb. The same God, the one who showed up
[01:05:40] as a fire in the dark, in the desert, the one who guided and provided over and over and over again is the same one whose glory will light your life for all of eternity. And Jesus is the lamb,
[01:05:54] the lamp, the son of God, the Messiah, the light of the world who beats every single kind of darkness. Let me pray for yours. Lord, we are desperately trying to believe you. We want to
[01:06:13] believe that you are the light of the world. Help us to sit on the stool. Help us to actually move like that's true. We want to believe you. Will you help us believe? We believe. Help us believe. Lord,
[01:06:27] Would you put ideas in our minds and hearts this week of how we can make a move that shows we trust your word.
[01:06:36] You are the light of the world.
[01:06:38] It's in your name that I pray.
[01:06:40] Amen.

[01:06:41] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_05]
[01:06:41] Hey, Jesus didn't just claim to bring light.
[01:06:44] He claimed to be the light that is able to penetrate through any darkness.
[01:06:48] And so the question really is, where do we need his light right now?
[01:06:52] I mean, what feels uncertain, hidden, broken, hopeless?
[01:06:56] Hey, don't leave that place in the dark.
[01:06:59] Bring it to Him.

[01:07:00] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_03]
[01:07:00] Yes, absolutely.
[01:07:01] We actually have people at crossroads.net who will pray for you.
[01:07:04] You can chat in with us and someone will love to pray for you.
[01:07:07] And also today at 1130, if you're a part of our Anywhere community, you would have gotten a text from 301 301 this week and an email with a link to Zoom.
[01:07:15] At 1130 today, our Anywhere team is going to be on there.
[01:07:18] And we just want to pray for people.
[01:07:19] We know that Ignite, the conference, stirred up some things in people.
[01:07:23] last weekend we had our prayer experience online and at sites and God is moving and speaking to us and we want to help you whether you're processing that or pray for you in that process. So if you're
[01:07:36] like, what are you talking about? I want prayer. You can go online at crosses.net. You can also text anywhere to 301-301 and we'll make sure that in the future you're up to date on opportunities
[01:07:45] for our Anywhere community to meet up online. That is texting anywhere to 301-301 and we hope you have a great rest of your week.