EVENING SERMON FOR 8/18/2024 2:01 PM
My Worship Time Focus: PT-4 “The
Nature of God”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: 1 John 1:5
Message of the
verse: “5 This
is the message we have heard from Him and announce to you, that God is Light,
and in Him there is no darkness at all.”
What I have decided to do as I look at this verse is
to quote from a sermon that John MacArthur gave in this section in 2002. The important thing that I am trying to talk
about is that God is Light. I know that
in the past that I looked at this subject, perhaps when I was studying the
Gospel of John and remember that this is a very important truth for us to
understand and that is why I chose to quote from this sermon mentioned
above. It will take us a number of days to look at it as I do not want
to put so much on these SD’s that will take a long time to read and may
discourage people from reading it. Let’s
begin today to look at the first part of this sermon.
“God is light. Jesus Christ is the very image of
the invisible God. It is through Him that the very light of God is conveyed to
us in the gospel. Philippians also, chapter 2, verse 15, says that we appear in
the world as light. We appear in the world as lights. Backing up yet again to
Ephesians chapter 5 and verse 8, Paul writes, “You were formerly darkness but
now you are light in the Lord.” Peter, getting on the same bandwagon, as it
were, in 1 Peter 2:9 says, “God has
called us out of darkness into His marvelous light.” Jesus says in Matthew 5:14, “You are the light of the world.”
“God is light, Jesus Christ is light, and we who
come to Christ share in that light. Now, that demonstrates the relationship of light but doesn’t define
what it is. What is it? Listen to Psalm 36:9. The psalmist writes, “For with you is the fountain of
life; in your light, we see light.” Now, just think about that for a moment.
With you is the fountain of life. In your light, we see light. That is a Hebrew
parallelism. Those are two statements saying the same thing. You are the fountain of life. In
your light, we see light.
“What that verse does is equate light with what? Life. That equates
light with life. It’s only because of God that we have life. It’s only because
of His light that we see light. Life and light are linked in Psalm 36, verse 9.
Life and light are linked. And right there, you have the first way to
understand the concept that God is light. God is light in the sense that God is
life. As light emanates from its source, life emanates from its source.
“To show you this, I want to take you back to
John’s gospel, chapter 1 - John’s gospel, chapter 1. This is one of those
wonderful foundational truths that’s going to enrich your understanding of
Scripture every time you come across these ideas. In John 1, “In the beginning
was the Word,” that’s Jesus Christ, “The Word was with God, the Word was God,
He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being by Him, and apart
from Him, nothing came into being that has come into being.” Why? Verse 4, “In Him was
life” - and listen to this - “and the life was the light.”
“You see it? There you have John defining life as
light, light as life. And verse 5, “The light shines in the darkness, and the
darkness did not comprehend it.” That life was the light of men; the eternal
Word. The One who created everything, the One who made everything, apart from
Him, nothing came into being that has come into being. He is clearly the source
of life. Whoever is the Creator is the source of life. God created ex nihilo – out of nothing –
everything that exists and therefore demonstrates that He is the source of
life.
“And Jesus Himself, being God, is the Creator. All things were
made by Him and for Him. He is the source of life. Verse 4: In Him was life,
and the life is the light. Light
equals life - light equals life. Men would not live if God hadn’t
given them life. There is no other source for life other than God. That’s true
physically, that’s what he’s saying here. All things came into being by Him.
He’s talking about creation here. In Him was life, all that lives received
their life from Him - and including mankind - and life is that light.
8/18/2024 11:02 PM
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