EVENING SERMON FOR 8/22/2024 10:48 PM
My Worship Time Focus: PT-8 “The
Nature of God”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: 1 John 1:5
Message of the
verse: 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.
“Now, I want to just mention one other thing that
I think will help you. We now understand that when we talk about God as light, we’re talking about life,
God as the source of life. But there are a couple of things that we want to
attach to that. I think they can be easily understood throughout Scripture.
There are some properties of God’s life that are important to understand. To
say that God is life is a general statement, but let’s get more specific. When
you look at Scripture you will often find light associated with two things. First of all, it is associated
with truth, and secondly, it is associated with virtue.
“When you read through the Scripture, you will
find that light often indicates truth, there’s an intellectual side to it, a
knowledge side. And on the other hand, you will find that light often speaks of
moral conduct. And to show you that - because I think you need to fill up
your concept of light - God as light obviously has those two properties of
being absolutely true and absolutely pure. God’s life is true and holy.
“And it’s an editing process right here in my mind
as I stand here to decide how many verses I want to show you. But, for example,
here’s just a familiar statement, “Thy Word is a lamp to my feet and a light to
my path.” That looks at Scripture as light that is true. Proverbs 6:23, “The commandment is a lamp and the teaching is light.” So
there’s an intellectual aspect to this light. The light of God, the life of
God, is inextricably linked to, characterized by truth. That’s very important
to recognize. You can’t even talk about the light of the gospel without talking
about the truth of the gospel. You can’t talk about the Word of God as light
without talking about its truthfulness.
“Psalm 119:130, “The unfolding of thy words gives light.” So that the
life of God is characterized by the truth, it features the truth. Very often,
as I said, you’ll read the Scripture and you’ll come across passages of
Scripture in which light refers to the truth. otherwise dark minds. But you’ll
also find - and I won’t take the time to go through all kinds of
Scriptures on this because our time is nearly gone - light also appears in
Scripture in a moral sense. It appears as holiness, virtue, righteousness.
“For example, in Isaiah 5:20 - and there are so many illustrations, I’m just
picking a few favorites of mine - it says, “Woe to those who call evil
good and good evil.” Another way to say that, who substitute darkness for light
and light for darkness. In that little comparison, darkness equals evil and
light equals good. That kind of discussion appears a number of places in the
Old Testament as it does a number of places in the New Testament. We read one
earlier, Ephesians 5 and verse 8, if you kind of follow along. “You were
formerly darkness, now you are light in the Lord, walk as children of light for
the fruit” - verse 9 - “of the light is in all goodness and
righteousness and truth.” There you have them both.
“What is the characteristic of this life? The characteristic
is righteousness and truth so that you are learning what is pleasing to the
Lord and you are no longer participating in the unfruitful deeds of darkness.
All of those things are exposed to the light. You have arisen from the dead,
and Christ is shining on you because you’re living in the light. So when you
think about God as light or God as life, understand that the two great
properties of that life are truth and righteousness, truth and holiness.
“And that becomes very important for John because
if you say that you are a possessor of the light, that you are in the light,
you’ve received eternal life, then what we should know about you is that you
are devoted to the truth and to righteousness because that is the essential
nature of that eternal life which God imparts. That’s back to 1 John 2:9. “If you say you’re in the light and you hate your
brother, you’re not in the light, you’re in the darkness because the property
of that light is righteousness and righteousness doesn’t hate, it loves. So
when we think about this eternal life, it touches precisely where we live in a
practical sense.”
“If you have eternal life, it manifests itself in
your devotion to the truth and your commitment to holiness because this is that
eternal life which comes from God. That’s why John says, if you say God is
light, and He’s given you His life, then I can say that since the life of God
is characterized by truth and righteousness, if He’s given His life to you,
then your life, the life that God has granted you through faith in Jesus Christ
who is that life, if that has happened, then the manifestation of that life in
you will be in your commitment to truth and righteousness.”
8/22/2024 11:01 PM
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