Coming Out of Darkness || Victory Church [Book of John #2]

All right. Hey, if you have not heard the news yet, we are spending the entire rest of the year in the book of John. Yeah, it's gonna be a long journey. So out of the four of what we call gospels, those Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, John is different. John, can I say it like this? John just hits different. Come on, John's a little different. John tells longer stories. John paints brighter pictures. John goes higher in essence than the other gospels. And here's what I mean. The early church assigned the eagle to the book of John and eagles can fly higher than all the other birds. And they have the ability to stare directly into the sun. And that's what they were trying to say about the gospel of John is the gospel of John. Somehow Matthew, Mark, Luke, amazing. But somehow John has this way of going higher in view than them and staring directly into the universal majesty and beauty and splendor of who Jesus is. And I know that's a little intimidating. I know some of you are like, bro, it's early and you're talking big words. But let me just say this. Don't be intimidated.

My seminary professor said this. I'm gonna echo this, what we said last week is what's amazing about the book of John is that it's shallow enough for children to play but deep enough for elephants to swim. All right, so here's what I mean. As we're going through the book of John, God won't let you drown. All right, no matter where you're at. So whether you're an unbeliever, a new believer or you've been serving Jesus for decades, my promise to you is this, is that there are riches from God awaiting you every single turn of the page, no matter where you're at, God's gonna take care of you. And I introduced these two thoughts last week but I wanna reintroduce them because they're gonna kind of take us through the year of the journey that we're beginning. Two things, two big things are gonna happen this year. Here's the first one, is that you're gonna believe deeper in Jesus than you ever have, all right? There's a problem in the church at large today where we've made Jesus way too small. All right, here's what I mean. We have overemphasized his humanity and under emphasized his divinity and we've made him just small enough to fit in our pocket. Right, we can put him like in a little box and whenever we need a prayer answered,

we can take him out of the box and be our little genie. And then whenever we don't like what he says, we just kind of put him back in the box. Maybe we come and visit him on Saturdays or Sunday mornings at 9 a.m. service, right? We just kind of come and, no, no, we're painting a bigger picture because John's saying, hey, this Jesus isn't just the sacrificial lamb of God, he's also the roaring lion of Judah. He's the king of kings and the Lord of lords. He's too big to fit in your pocket. And some of y'all, maybe you started on that journey last week. And again, here's just my promise, that if you stick with us for this year, you're gonna fall more in love with Jesus than you've ever been. You're gonna have more awe of Jesus than you've ever had. You're gonna be more committed to Jesus than you've ever been. You're gonna be more excited and more evangelistic about Jesus than you've ever been if you stick with us on this journey, all right? Here's the second thing that's gonna happen this year, is this is the year we're gonna rob hell. Come on, guys. This is the year we're gonna plunder hell and populate heaven. So here's the idea.

If you're curious about Jesus, just stick around. It's a good place to be, just stick around. If you have friends and family and coworkers and neighbors in your life who don't know Jesus, invite them, bring them, and sit with them. And then here's the deal. When they get born again, disciple them, walk with them on the other side of that, because I believe that life is waiting for them, right? That these things are written. That's what John says at the end of the book. These things are written so that you may believe. And by believing, you would have eternal life in his name. And eternal life is waiting for our loved ones in Jesus, okay? So let me say one more thing, and then I'm gonna wanna dive into the scripture. I wanna give you two quick resources, all right, that may help you in this journey. Why? Because 1,000 of you stopped me at the door last week, and basically were like, how do you know that stuff? Right? Okay, so one went to seminary, so that helps. But there's a few things in here, all right? So kinda like lighter and heavier, all right? So down here, the heavy. So a commentary, if you don't know what a commentary is, it's basically a theologian who has given decades of their life to studying out that book, all right?

So Dr. Gary Burge was my professor. He actually translated the ESV version of the Bible. He's given decades of his life to the book of John. 600 pages on the book of John. So if you're looking for that depth of study, get that guy on Amazon, all right? This right here is kind of a lighter, but it's outside the book of John. So some of y'all know what this is. I highly recommend this to everybody. An application study Bible or a life application study Bible. I find way too many people who are just kinda like reading flat text and they just find, meaning it's just the whole page is just text. You find stuff you don't understand and you just keep moving. So these Bibles kinda have some commentary at the bottom. It's smaller, it's shorter, but it explains, it gives you some context, a little bit of God's mind on what's happening here in the scripture. Like, how many of, these are more expensive, but how many of you don't have a Bible like that? You're like, don't have a Bible like that. Okay, why don't you come up? I got one for you. Let's go! Let's go! Let's go!

Let's go! Let's go! He's a big guy right here. That's awesome. And you're gonna love that. You're gonna love that. You're gonna love that. All right, so let's do this. Let's open up God's word. And it's always my prayer that when we open up God's word, that we would meet the God of the word, right? Because God is active in his word. And here's news for you, if you didn't already know this, God is not trapped in stained glass. God is the living God. That's why we get excited about him in worship. Come on, somebody. And it is my prayer that as we lift Jesus up, like we're about to, here's my experience. When we lift Jesus up, Jesus shows up. So we're gonna do that, all right? So let's pick up just in John 1, 1, where we began last week, and let's unpack this. It's so beautiful. In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him, all things were made. Without him, nothing was made that has been made. Pause.

That's where we stopped last week. Some of you were like, that's a whole lot. Yeah, go watch it last week, all right? Go find that guy on YouTube, all right? So here's what John is just introducing us to, right here off the very top. Is that in the beginning was Jesus. Before Genesis was Jesus. Jesus is not a creation. Jesus is actually the creator. Jesus is preexistent, and Jesus is God. And in John, verse 14, he says, that word, that word put on flesh. And so Jesus is God, the author of the story, writing himself into the story, self-revealing himself to us. Jesus is God. Continue on for today. And him was life. And that life was the light of all mankind. Good news. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. There was a man sent from God whose name was John. Now, pause. This is not John the author. This is a guy named John the Baptist. And we're gonna talk more about John the Baptist in the next few weeks, but let's learn what John the Baptist came to do.

He came as a witness to testify concerning that light, so that through him all might believe. He himself, John, was not the light. He came only as a witness to the light. The true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world. Jesus, Jesus was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, children born not of natural descent, nor of a human decision or a husband's will, but born of God. Come on, somebody. That's the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. All right, shut myself down for a second. Listen, if you've read enough of the Bible, you can recognize that that's different, because John writes different. John writes higher. John paints more colors. Come on, right? And what's happening here, again, let's all get on the same page. John is lifting up our eyes

to see that this man that we sing songs about and we talk about, come on, and we put crosses on our buildings in honor of, and some of us put crosses around our neck, some of us tattoo crosses on our body. This man is not just a man. This man is not just a prophet. This man is not just a good person who lived a long time ago. This man is not just a good man who became a God. No, he is the one true living God. Jesus, the King of glory, has the name that is above every name, that at his name every knee must bow and every tongue confess him, Lord, in heaven and on earth and under the earth for the glory of God the Father. That's who this Jesus is. Jesus is God. And in verse four, let's go there again. Let's start pressing down on this. In him was, everybody say it, life. Life. Here's what he's saying. He doesn't say that Jesus points to life. Doesn't say that Jesus teaches about life. No, Jesus is life. Come on, somebody tell your neighbor, Jesus is life. Tell the other one, Jesus is life. Come on, talk to the neighbor's head in front of you.

Jesus is life. All right, kind of get really awkward trying to tell the person behind, Jesus is life. Come on, tell the whole world, Jesus is life, right? Jesus is the author of life. He's the origination of life. Life proceeds from Jesus. He's the giver of life. If you're hearing my voice today, then Jesus today, this morning, gave you life. Some of us just need to say, Jesus, thank you for my life. In him was life. And here's the, we know this, right? We live in a world that denies that. We live in a world that denies that Jesus is life. Let's just face reality of that. Like sooner you can come to terms about that, the better your life will be. We live in a world that denies that Jesus is life. And here's the reality. When you deny Jesus is life, you have to find another explanation for life. Okay, we all have faith about something, whether or not we would call it faith. Everybody has faith about something. So let me just say this this morning. Let's just take a step into an apologetical realm as we would call it. Matter did not produce life. Life produced matter.

Matter did not produce life. Life produced matter. Here's what I'm saying. A random, there was nothing. And all of a sudden from nothing, a big bang happened. Okay. And that big bang did not produce goo that turned into you. All right. Now I know we laugh about that. The atheist laughs about us. Okay, we all laugh about each other, all right. Here's what we're saying. Life existed in God, and then he brought that life into the universe. And this is the divide between the atheist and the Christian, the agnostic and the Christian, the earthly worldview and the biblical worldview, right? For the atheist, non-life created life. For the Christian, life created all life, right? The atheist faith just looks different. Okay. And yes, an atheist has faith. Now they don't call it that, but it's okay. It takes faith to believe that nothing produced everything. That's faith. You better, stare me in the eyes and tell me that's not faith. That nothing produced everything? Okay, a Christian's faith is that someone produced everything.

And the good news is that someone has a name and his name is Jesus. That's our faith, okay? That's our starting point. Our starting point is not nothing to matter to eventually trillions of years later life. Our starting point is life. And then life proceeded from him. And here's the deal. You will be mocked for believing that. Okay, especially if you're young, hear me. If you haven't been mocked yet, wait a month. All right, it's gonna happen, all right. And again, you just need to know that so you don't get all like all up in arms about it. But here's what John's trying to tell us, okay? Is that we will be mocked, why? Because the world is dark. That's the word he starts forming here. This word is dark. Let's continue verse four. And him was life and that life was the light of all mankind. Okay, life becomes light. Life becomes light. Can I say it like this? In the same way that the sunlight causes the flowers to grow, Jesus's light causes us to grow, right? In the same way that the sunlight brings life on this planet, physical life on this planet, Jesus's light brings us life, okay?

If, if we will let him shine on us. You have to let the light shine on you if you want to grow, if you want life. And the prophet Isaiah sees this 700 years before Jesus is ever born into Bethlehem, puts on flesh and comes into Bethlehem. We read this every Christmas, Isaiah 9 too. The people walking in darkness have seen a great light. On those living in the land of deep darkness, a light has dawned. What's the light that's dawned? Who's the light that's dawned? It's Jesus. And so here in just a few verses of John, John starts introducing us to a theme, all right? Very important theme. That's actually gonna run throughout the rest of the book. It's the theme of light and darkness, life and light and darkness. In fact, let's just read what we read a minute ago. Starting in verse four again. And him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. And the light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it. Do y'all get it? Life, life, light, light, darkness, darkness. John's like, pay attention. Whenever you're in the Bible, whenever you see repeated words,

they're trying to get your attention, okay? Life, life, light, light, darkness, darkness. And in fact, there was a man sent from God whose name was John. He came as a witness to testify concerning that light so that through him all might believe. He himself was not the light. He came only as a witness to the truth that gives to everyone what's coming into the world. John's like, do you understand the words that are coming out of my mouth? I'm trying to get your attention, all right? In fact, in the book of John, life is mentioned 16 times. Life is mentioned 35 times. Darkness is mentioned five times. It's this theme that's just running throughout John. In fact, let me give you a new pair of glasses as you're starting to read this book, okay? Whenever you see light or John points out that it happened during the day, God's there. A miracle is about to occur. Something special is about to happen. Whenever you see dark. Unbelief is there. Sin is there. The devil's lurking in the shadows. So whenever you see light, God is there. Whenever you see darkness, unbelief and evil is there. So here's what John shows us. When Jesus comes into the world, he appears as light crashing into the darkness. Right? That the light shines in the darkness. Now the question is this. Million dollar question.

How did it get so dark? One word. Sin. Thousands of years of rebellion. Right? In the beginning, God said, let there be light. There's light. There's light. And again, not just physical light. No, no, no. Like God's presence everywhere. In the beginning was the light, the goodness, the grace, the truth of God. In the beginning, God's light flooded the world. But when Adam and Eve sin, Genesis 3, what's the first thing that they do? For all my Bible scholars, they hide. They sew their little fig leaves together. Right? You know, model on their calendar. And they go behind the trees and they hide from God. They retreat into the shadows. And from there, if you know the story, the wheels fall off. Right? The first born kills the second born. Murder, pride, greed, selfishness, sexual immorality without repentance. In fact, if you just do the math, it took three chapters to get from the fall to the flood. From Adam to Noah is three chapters of just abject darkness. Genesis 6, 5. The Lord saw how great the wickedness of the human race had become on the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of the human heart was only evil all the time. Darkness consumed the world. The rich abused the poor. The innocent were crushed by the powerful. Right was called wrong, and wrong was called right. Until there was only darkness. So what is the darkness? Let me put skin on it for a second. What is the darkness? It's the resentment you won't release. It's the fear causing you to shrink back.

It's the addiction you keep making excuses for and saying, I got it. It's the unbelief and the idolatry that you're afraid to talk about. It's the anger that keeps popping off at your family or while you're driving. It's the affair you're afraid that's going to be discovered. And in case yours isn't in that list, darkness is any area of your life that you don't want God to touch. And here's what we have to say. This is not an outward darkness. Yeah, the sun's still shining. No, no, no, no. It's an inward darkness. It's a darkness of the heart, a darkness of the soul. The corruption is in our bones. It's in our DNA. The truth is, guys, humans, we love sin and we hate God. And we run towards the darkness. And we say ridiculous things like, I'm looking forward to the weekend because now I can drink and smoke and hook up and do the stuff. We find these phrases like, oh, I'm having the time of my life. And we're blind and we love it. Because we didn't know that there was another way. But then in the midst of the darkness, the light of the world stepped into the world. That Jesus is God flipping on the light switch in a dark world. But to a world that's been living in the darkness, the light hurts. Some of you are like, bro, turn it off. Because when your eyes have gotten adjusted to the darkness, the light hurts. When your soul has gotten adjusted to the darkness, the light hurts. When your sin has gotten adjusted to the darkness, the conviction hurts. And what do we do whenever somebody flips on a light switch in a dark world? We scream, we yell, instant anger. We cover our eyes, we say, turn it off. And that's exactly what the world did to Jesus. And that's exactly what the world still does to Jesus.

Turn it off, turn it off, turn it off. In fact, they would say, crucify him, crucify him, crucify him. And he came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. Why? Because the darkness is hostile to the light. But good news, even though they thought that they had extinguished the light and stuck him in a grave, the light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it. Let's think about this logically for a second. When the darkness and the light fight, the light wins every single time. When you flip on a light switch, there is no contest. When you woke up this morning and walked into the bathroom and turned on the light, you weren't like, I wonder what's going to happen. Because it's 50-50, man. Like, I don't know what's going to happen today. No, you know what's going to happen, that as soon as the light switch turns off, it overwhelms the darkness. The darkness doesn't stand a chance against the light. The darkness did not stand a chance against Jesus. And let me just say this really loud here today, guys. We make way too much of the darkness. We make way, we're way too afraid of the darkness. Listen, I'm not saying the darkness doesn't matter, but here's what I am saying. Jesus is not afraid of your past. Jesus is not afraid of your shame. Jesus is not afraid of your questions. Jesus is not afraid of your emotions. When Jesus walked the earth, demons begged for mercy. Listen, when Jesus walks up to Lazarus' tomb, death backs up. I'm not minimizing the darkness, I'm maximizing the light. That when the light shines, the darkness retreats. When Jesus walks into the room, everything changes.

And he wins every single time. Why? Because he's the light of the world. And here's what John's trying to get us to understand, guys, is that we really don't know what being lost is. We hear things like, well, you don't have eternal life. And we don't have words to describe, I don't know how to describe that experience. What John does, darkness, blindness. Think about who you were before Christ. I once was blind, but now I see, right? What do you do when you're in the darkness? What do you do when you're blind? You bump into stuff, right? You hurt yourself, you hurt other people. What do you do when you're lost? What do you do when you can't see? What do you do when you don't have eternal life? This is all you know the life to be, and everybody's running into each other. Everybody's angry about everything. Everybody's driving down the interstate of life. Come on, Ram, playing bumper cars. That's why everybody's so angry, because everybody's blind. Everybody's just living for today. Everybody's hitting the snooze button on life, and they're pulling the covers over their head to stay in the darkness, and they're just hitting the snooze button. 10 more minutes. Just give me 10 more minutes. Just give me 10 more minutes. And they don't realize that they're spending their life, they're wasting their life in the darkness, and the end is coming.

And so John tries to give us human words to explain spiritual realities. Outside of Christ, you're blind. You're living in the darkness. You have no light inside you. You have no life inside you. And the greatest irony is this, is that the medicine that could cure the world is knocked out of the hands, because it's bright, because I'm adjusted to this world. And that's hard for me. That would be hard for me to do that, to step into the light, because that's bright, man. So what is the light? What is the light? Let's put it up here real quick. It's life. It's God's presence. It's truth that's convicting. A lot of people today love to say, well, the church hurt me. No, the truth hurts you. The truth hurts you. Jesus hurt your feelings. I had a young girl last night said, you hurt my feelings tonight. And I said, well, honey, I love you, but God cares more about your freedom than he does your feelings. God cares more about your future than your feelings. In fact, this is the kindness of God. As a parent, listen, as a parent, I know this life, I'm willing to hurt your feelings for the sake of your soul, and your future, and your freedom. Because your feelings lie to you all the time. There's a way that seems right to a man, and in the end, it leads to death. Your feelings are just about pleasure, and lots of times, pleasure's taking you down a path of life, and it's keeping you in the darkness.

But if you're actually willing to come into the light, you experience forgiveness, you experience healing, and you experience this thing that so many people don't have called joy. I'm not talking about happiness. I'm talking about joy. And Jesus is that light. And the question is this, will we allow that light to shine on us? I cannot answer that question for you. You have to make your decision. Will I let Jesus shine on me? So I need to be super clear, okay? When the light of Jesus comes in the room, you have two choices. You either yell, turn it off, or you yell, bring it on. Okay, you either go towards the darkness or you go towards the light. Some run and hide because they're afraid that their deeds will be exposed and they get embarrassed about it, they get ashamed about it, and they let the enemy and their past keep them in the darkness. But some actually stand up and run towards the light to be healed and to be set free. Here's what I'm saying. Jesus's presence makes you pick a side. You have to pick. And here's the deal. If you're like, I don't know what to pick, you just picked. Because not picking is picking, all right?

I don't know if I'm ready to walk into the light. Well, you just picked the darkness. Just to be clear about it, okay? Just know where you're at today. There is no middle. True Christianity only gives the option of one or the other, light or dark, life or death. And if somebody tells you you can have both, they're a thief and a liar. Yeah, you can have Jesus and your sin. No, you can't. I'm not saying you don't sin. Like, yeah, we're gonna sin. But make your choice. Who is your master? Where's your allegiance go to? Are you gonna live in that or are you gonna live in him? Are you gonna live in the darkness or are you gonna live in the light? There is no third choice. It's Jesus or death. There is no third choice. So what is our response? Darkness, light. Life, death. We have to come out of the darkness and allow the light of Jesus to shine on us, okay? Just this last week, Tuesday, I was sitting with the campus pastors and we just started talking.

Maybe this was on my mind. I didn't bring it up intentionally. But we just got super real and we started talking about a lot of the high-profile pastors who have fallen over the last few years. And if you don't know what I'm talking about, love it. But there's been a lot, okay? And I knew some of these guys. And pretty much everyone, I knew somebody who knew him directly, okay? And the story's the same on every single one. And we start talking about these stories. Here's what happened. They started getting popular. They got busy. And then they got isolated. Because they retracted. And they're like, oh, I'm just gonna do my traveling thing. I'm gonna write my books. I'm gonna come up here. I'm gonna do this stuff. I need more time by myself to da, da, da, da, da. And what happened was nobody could see their life anymore. Right, because they isolated. They pulled back here. And then they got to the place where they only showed you what they wanted you to see. You understand you can do that when you're isolated, right? You can lie up and down on a Zoom meeting.

Ain't nobody seen your life. What are you talking about? And in the darkness, secret sins began to form. Listen, because nothing good grows in the dark. Roses don't grow in the dark. Mold grows in the dark. Death grows in the dark. Sin grows in the dark. Lies grow in the dark. Deception grows in the dark. We say this a lot. Nothing good happens after midnight. And these secret sins started stacking. And they started growing. And they thought, oh, they thought the same thing we all do. I can manage it. I got this. And they didn't realize the thing that they thought they were controlling was actually controlling them. Until that sin got so big that it got top heavy. And they actually finally did the thing they said they would never do. And the whole house of cards came crashing down. Why? Because sin lies to you. Sin lies to you guys. Sin lies to me. Sin only tells you about the pleasure and never tells you about the pain.

Sin only tells you about the feelings that are right in front of your face. It never tells you about tomorrow. Sin will never talk to you about a year from now. It tells you about the next 10 seconds. I brought, check it the next time. Sin does not promise you anything out there. It promises you the next 10 seconds of your life. Sin will, here, sin will never talk to you about the divorce you're about to have in 18 months. Sin will never tell you about 20 years from now that your kids are gonna be sitting in a counselor's office because of your sin today. It never tells you about that part. Sin never tells you about being fired next month because of today's sin. Sin never tells you about the drug of death. Oh, no, no, I can control it. And then 10 years later, your whole life is falling apart because the choices you made today. It only tells you about the pleasure. It never tells you about the pain. Sin lies to you. And here's the problem. We want it to lie to us. We love the lie. And we lie to ourself. We're like, no, I'm right. I got this thing. And we know where we're going,

but we think we're the one exception. Sin lies to us. And I asked the guys, I asked all the campus pastors. I said, guys, how do we not get? there. How do we not get there? Right? Like, like, listen, listen, I know you don't, I don't want to read about me and TMZ. You know what I'm saying? I never want to see my name on CNN. I don't want to show up in AJC. Like I, I don't want to be that guy. Like nobody gets in this to do that. And I say the same thing to you. Like, how do we not end up there? How do you not end up there? How's your family not end up there? What do we need to do? And here's, here's the answer. Here's the quick answer. We have to come out of the darkness and we have to let the light of Christ shine on us and set us free. And we have to walk in the light as he is in the light and I fellowship with one another. So I want to just give you three quick thoughts. How do we come out of the darkness? Here's the first one. We have to invite accountability. Okay. So my definition of accountability is this people holding me to be who I say I want to be. People holding me to be who I say I want to be. I've grabbed some men. I said, Hey, here's the man that I want to be. Whenever you see me not being like that, call it out. All right. So here's the question. Who have you given permission to, to speak into your life? Let me say it like this. Who in your life can tell you no? Go on, form that list real quick. If you're like, uh, danger, holy spirit warning sign. If nobody can tell, you know, you're a ticking time bomb. I'll need you back. Tell me no. Pride comes before a fall. I got two men immediately. I have pastor Dennis Rouse and I have the founding pastor of the church and I have Bishop James

Meeks. It's my two overseers, right? They can tell me no. Summer can tell me no. You better believe she tells me no more than everybody else combined. All right. Believe me. Believe me. She does. Um, uh, I would put my dad there. I would let my dad tell me no, because I, I respect him and honor him that much. Here's the problem. I talk to a lot of people who say they're like, well, yeah, I have accountability. Well, yeah, it's my best friend that I grew up with back in like Ohio. And I'm like, that person never sees your life. So they're like, Hey man, how's it going? And you can say whatever you want to know. I'm here's what I'm saying. Who sees you enough to say something when you're not being the person you want to be, who can say something and see something to keep you from fading into the darkness. We have to intentionally invite accountability. Here's the second thing we have to avoid even the appearance of evil. That's a first Thessalonians 522. It says this avoid even the appearance of evil. And so here's what I've discovered in my life. It's really hard to do evil. If you're avoiding even the appearance of it. Y'all hear what I just said? See a lot, a lot of our problem is we're like walking right up to the minefield and we're like, I didn't go over there. I didn't do it. Right. Yeah. Come on. How far is too far? Come on. All my boyfriends and girlfriends, how far is too far? You already lost. You're asking the wrong question. You're asking how impure can I be instead of how pure can I be? You're just saying how far in the darkness can I go instead of how far in the light can I go? The question is not how far is too far. The question is how holy can we actually be? Right? Because, because we're, we're tempting evil. Right? Avoid even, it's really hard to do

evil if you're avoiding the appearance of it. And it's so, so like, oh, I don't know how we slept together. Well, what happened? Well, I just invited him over to my house and we're going to like watch a movie together. You don't know how it happened. You really don't know how, I mean, I can do some diagrams for you going like decision matrix that led to that moment. Right? Because you didn't, you refuse to avoid the evil because you believed in yourself and you lied to yourself and sin lies to you. And the problem with deception is you don't know you're deceived. And so we allow ourself to be deceived because our flesh actually wants to go do the thing. And so we let our flesh lie to us to get us into compromising situations. And then we say foolish things like I can do it. I'm strong. I can resist temptation. One of my life quotes is from Arnold Glasgow. He says this temptation usually comes in through a door that has been deliberately left open. In other words, you know, it's possible to sin right there, but you just kind of leave it. In other words, okay, man, I don't know how I bought these scratch off lottery tickets. You chose that route home on purpose. And it was in the back of your mind. But the front of your mind was like, I don't know what the back of my mind's thinking. And you lied to yourself. Right? And you left that door open. I don't know how I ended up at the package store buying another 40 like Oh, yes, you do. You chose that. How'd I end up at the strip club? You got in your car. How'd I end up in this affair? You lied to yourself and you intentionally left that door open. You said, I'm strong enough. Nothing's ever gonna happen. You knew exactly. In fact, you kind of hoped it would happen. Listen, let me just say this for me. I don't have access to the church bank accounts here on purpose.

It's funny, like Gary Price, chief of staff was here last night and I looked at him and he's, he kind of does. And I was like, I don't even know what that means. Church bank accounts. Like, do we have like an uncle Scrooge vault? Like, I don't even know. Like, I'm so out of it. Like, I don't want access to any of that stuff. Okay. Because I don't want to trust my, I don't want to be that guy. Okay. Listen, I'm sorry, ladies. I don't meet one-on-one with a woman ever, ever, ever. So you can talk to my wife. If you want to have that meeting, that's awesome. Okay. There is a camera in my office. Okay. Summer knows where I am 24 seven because I got live 360 on my phone and she'll call me being like, you're driving too fast on the interstate. I'm like, that's a different sin, babe. Like let's put these things in categories. Okay. Like she can check my phone anytime that she wants to. She has all my passwords. She can, she, she can slide into my DMS and see what's happening over there. Come on. All right. I got filters on my phone, but she's got all that stuff. She owns all that stuff. And I know some of you're like, pastor, you'd be a little extra. You better believe I'm being extra. You better believe I'm being extra, extra intentional, extra on guard, because there is an enemy who prowls around like a lion seeking whom he may devour. I am not naive to think he doesn't want to take me out. He wants to take you out. So how are you living above reproach? How are you avoiding even the appearance of evil? What doors have you left open? Cause here's what I've discovered guys. When we intentionally leave things, doors open in our weakest moments, sin whispers to us from the dark. Come on. When you're tired, when you're hungry and you had a bad day at work, when you and your spouse just fought, whatever it is, you better believe that thing that you let be in the dark and stay there. It's going to start whispering to you. So when you're in the light and solid frame of mind, close the door, close the door, lock it, triple lock it, kick it out of your house, do whatever you got to do to avoid even the appearance of evil. Here's the third thing we have to do to get out of the darkness is we have to embrace vulnerability and confession. Okay. Accountability and vulnerability are two different things.

Accountability means they go first. Vulnerability means you go first. Accountability means it's kind of done to you. Vulnerability means you offer it up. Accountability is like, Hey man, how are you doing in your life? Vulnerability is like, Hey man, I need to talk. There's this area of my life that I'm not living the way that I need to be living. And I just need to get it out of the darkness. I've kind of sunk into this area and I need your help, man. I just need to get it out of my life because I want to walk in the light. That's also called confession. Confession. John writes a letter called First John. And here's what he said. This is the message we've heard from him and declare to you. God is light and him there is no darkness at all. In fact, if we claim to have fellowship with him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live out the truth. But if we walk in the light as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another in the blood of Jesus. His son purifies us from all sin. If we claim to be without sin, in other words, I know everybody just felt condemned, but here's what he's saying. Yeah, we all sin. If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. So what do we do when we sin? If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. And guys, this is the power of confession. Confession gets you out of the darkness and the darkness out of you. Confession robs sin of its power. Okay? Because remember, sin only has power over you because it's in the darkness. Death grows in the darkness. Sin cannot grow in the light. Shine the light of Christ on something and it'll actually cause you to run away, withdraw from that scene, flee from temptation. Okay? But when you leave that thing in the darkness, it'll grow. And so what does confession do? It actually invites the light of Christ to shine on that area of your life. And the light of Christ burns up the power of that sin. And confession is one of the greatest gifts of God and we need to start recovering it today. So here's what I'm going to say, guys. You need to practice confession in your small group. Okay? Now, maybe not to all 15 of them at the same time, but maybe to all 15 of them

at the same time. In fact, that's some of the most powerful moments I've ever seen in my life, is when somebody goes first. Guys, I'm not inflating this. I believe there's a special reward in heaven for those who go first. Because everybody's waiting for somebody else to go first, but nobody wants to go first themselves. Everybody wants to follow the crowd instead of be the leader. And I promise you, when you confess first, I believe, I believe, in fact, let me just say this as a pastor of this church, I believe when you confess first, God's hand of blessing comes upon that. And he says, I'm going to answer that prayer. Maybe everybody else who's just waiting to go last, I'm not sure about that one, because I'm not sure about the state of their heart, but the one who would go first, there's a blessing on that. And so we need to start practicing confession to get so we'd walk in the light. Get out of the dark. Confess to your friend, confess to your spouse, confess to a leader, whatever that is. Confess to somebody who sees you. Don't come up to me at the door after service and be like, I don't want to talk to anybody else. I'm not going to see you this week. And then what's going to happen is you're going to confess to me and feel the next sermon is about you. And then you're not going to, you're going to stop coming to church. Do you think I'm preaching sermons about you every time? All right. I don't see you during the week. Go talk to your family, confess, get it out to the people who can actually hold you accountable. Right? Let me end with this scripture. Ephesians five. For once you were full of darkness, but now you have light from the Lord. So live as people of light for this light within you produces only what is good and right and true. Carefully determine what pleases the Lord. Take no part in the worthless deeds of evil and darkness. Instead, expose them. It is shameful even to talk about the things that ungodly people do in secret, but their evil intentions will be exposed when the light shines on them. For the light makes everything visible. This is why it is said, Awake O sleeper rise from the dead and Christ will give you light. I'm going to say that again. Awake O sleeper, rise up from the dead and Christ will give you light. Awake O sleeper, rise from the dead and Christ will give you life. Let me speak it prophetically. Awake O sleeper, O slumbering one who's blind in the darkness, allowing the sin to lie to you day after day and you're bargaining with God saying, God, if you would do this, I'd finally be holy. And you're allowing the sin to control your life. You are a slave to whatever has mastered you.

Awaken, wake up, wake up, wake up, wake up, wake up, wake up, wake up, wake up, come out of the dark, come out of the dark, come out of the dark. You've been asking for a sign. This is your sign. God, do you really see? This is your sign. You're driving your life blind and the bridge is out ahead. And I have road flares today saying, wake up O sleeper, arise from your slumber, come out of the dark and the light of Christ will shine on you. Catastrophe is ahead. The enemy is prowling around seeking to destroy your marriage, seeking to destroy your soul, seeking to destroy your future. But there is one who came to give us life and life more abundantly. And his name is Jesus. So exit the ramp, take the off ramp off of sin, take the off ramp off of that affair, take the off ramp out of the porn, take the off ramp out of the love of money, take the off ramp out of the pursuit of things that just don't matter and come into the light. And Jesus wants to shine his light on your addiction, on your fear, on your pride and your greed and your lust and all the dark, all the stuff. You're like, God, it just hurts too much. It hurts my eyes. It hurts my soul. God, when you shine like that. No, he said, come out of the darkness and step into the light. And it's my promise to you guys. It's my promise to you guys. Because some of us in this room have tasted and seen that the Lord is good. And anything you give up, oh, I promise you it's so much better in the kingdom. So much better in the kingdom. When you start living in the light, everything gets better. Your marriage gets better. Your prayer life gets better. You get joy, you get freedom, you get healing. Oh my God. It's so much better than living by feelings. You actually enjoy freedom. And here's what I promise you. When you start tasting freedom, your feelings start wanting more freedom. Everything gets better in the light. So it's time to come into the light in Jesus name. Amen. Father I thank you that you did not abandon us in our sin. In fact when Adam and Eve rebelled you killed an animal and made skins to cover them. That's the heart of God for not even one to perish but in fact for everyone to have everlasting life. And I know this if you are here today and you're a Christian it's because there was a moment in time when the light shined into your darkness and you responded in faith and you repented you changed the way you thought about that darkness and you came out of the darkness into his marvelous light and by that you received eternal life. Others of you today's the day to do that. See it actually says that repentance is a gift. It's not this thing to be ashamed

of. In fact it's the path to freedom and life everlasting. And if today's the day that you need to say no to the darkness and yes to the light. If you need to say no to the evil and yes to Jesus. This is the day that you're gonna receive eternal life and be born again. I want to pray with you. I want to know who I'm praying with. If that's you today won't you raise your hand. Say today's the day I'm coming out of the darkness. Come on raise it high. Raise it high. Come on this is the king of glory we're talking about. Yeah it's a lot of you guys. It's amazing. I love it. You're about to experience something that even the angels rejoiced about. You can put your hands down. I want to pray with you okay. Family, God around you. He's gonna pray with you and I believe here's what's gonna happen. John 1 it says that to those who believed in his name he gave the right to become children of God. You're about to become a child of God. So let's pray. Jesus right now I come out of the darkness. I step into the light and I look back into the darkness and I see how I've been living. The sin, the shame, the guilt, the rebellion. Today I leave it and I step into the light and I say Christ is King. Christ is Lord. Jesus Christ died on the cross to forgive my sin and he rose again to give me life. So today I am forgiven. I am free and I am alive forevermore all because of Jesus. I'm a child of God and the rest of my life belongs to him. In Jesus name. Amen. Come on guys can we celebrate that? I'm gonna take two more steps here with a few minutes that we have and we're gonna receive the Lord's Supper together. I think it's a good opportunity to do that and we got some buckets down at the end of the aisles if you're on the right side would you take that pass that down and today if you're a father of Christ or maybe you just stepped into the kingdom through faith in Jesus I'm gonna invite you to take communion with us today. So at that last supper table Jesus took the bread, he broke it, he took the cup, he poured it. He said this is my body, this is my blood. He said take it as often as you do this do it in remembrance of me and so in other words these are the moments we remember Jesus. In another letter here's what it actually says it gives a little bit of instruction for this moment. It says whenever you receive communion make

sure that you examine yourselves before you do it. So I think this is a really good moment in light of what we just heard to examine ourselves. So let's do this, let's just bow our heads. Holy Spirit search me, test me, know me, show me if there's any unclean thing inside me and lead me in the way of life everlasting. Let's just take ten seconds right here. Holy Spirit put your finger on an area of my life that you're calling me out of the darkness into the light. Father right now I thank you that your body was broken so we could be healed and made whole. In fact right now I pray over anybody who's gone through trauma, trauma, abuse, I thank you that you took stripes to make us whole again and I pray hold over your family this morning as we take this bread and do it in remembrance of Jesus. Let's take the bread. Father, I thank you for the cup of Christ. I thank you that your blood was spilt to erase our rebellion, not just to cover over it, but to separate our sin from us as far as the East is from the West. I thank you for your nail-pierced hands. I thank you for the blood that was spilt for sinners like me, like us. And as we take this cup, God, I thank you for the forgiveness of sins. We are cleansed and free indeed, in Jesus' name. There's another small bucket at the end of the aisle. Here's what I'm gonna ask you to do as that bucket comes down. If you're able, when we stand up to our feet, as we do this, here's what's gonna happen. We're gonna spend about two or three minutes right here,

okay, and the team's just gonna lead us in a song. Here's my ask, here's my ask. There's some of us who have been sitting in darkness for way too long, okay? And I don't know what that means. It could be fear, it could be shame, it could be a sin, it could be a past, or it could be current. And if today's the day you say, I'm getting out of the darkness and I'm getting into the light, just between you and the Lord, as the team plays, I'm gonna invite you to just come forward, okay? And just have this moment with the Lord. And what it is, it's saying, God, I'm getting out of the darkness and I'm coming into your light. You're gonna start receiving your freedom and your life and your joy back into my life. And I believe this, there's a special blessing for those who go first. Let's worship. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Jesus. I love you. ♪ There was a moment when the lights went out ♪ ♪ When death had claimed its victory ♪

♪ The King of love had given up his life ♪ ♪ The darkest day in history ♪ ♪ There on a cross they made for sinners ♪ ♪ For every curse his blood atoned ♪ ♪ One final breath and it was finished ♪ ♪ But not the end we could have known ♪ ♪ For the earth began to shake and the veil was torn ♪ ♪ What sacrifice was made as the heavens roared ♪ ♪ As the heavens roared ♪ ♪ All hail King Jesus ♪ ♪ All hail the Lord of heaven and earth ♪ ♪ All hail King Jesus ♪ ♪ All hail the Savior of soul and every knee ♪ ♪ Come bow before the King of kings laid every tongue ♪ ♪ Confess that he is Lord, lift up your shout ♪ ♪ Let us join with all of heaven singing oh ♪ ♪ All hail the Lord of heaven and earth ♪ ♪ All hail the Savior of soul and every knee ♪ ♪ Come bow before the King of kings laid every tongue ♪ ♪ Confess that he is Lord, lift up your shout ♪ ♪ Let us join with all of heaven singing oh ♪ ♪ All hail the Lord of heaven and earth ♪ ♪ Holy, we bless You, Holy ♪ ♪ All hail the Savior of soul and every knee ♪ ♪ All hail the Lord of heaven and earth ♪ ♪ All hail King Jesus Christ ♪ Come on, worship Him today. ♪ All hail, all hail the Lord, all hail the King of Kings ♪ We thank You, Lord. ♪ Jesus Christ, Son of the Savior, all hail the Lord of kings ♪

♪ All hail, all hail the King of Kings, all hail the Lord of kings ♪ ♪ And I, all hail King Jesus, all hail the Savior of the world ♪ All hail King Jesus. I hear the Lord saying, to those who came forward, your hands are clean again. Your lips are clean again. Your heart is clean again. He's pulling out those scalps off of those old places where you had lost feeling, emotion. He's bringing life back into dry and weary places. Here's what we're gonna do, okay? We're gonna linger in this moment for a minute. Let me give one quick instruction. James 5 says to confess your sins one to another so that you would be healed. Here's what we believe. When you confess your sin to God, you're forgiven. When you confess your sin one to another, you're healed. So some of you today need to leave here and go confess to a friend, a spouse. Some of you need to not leave here today before you confess to a friend, a spouse. Grab a seat for a minute, go in the cafe. But we're gonna have our leaders. If you're a leader in the house, this is gonna be interesting, but maybe just kind of go over to the walls. I see Justin back here. We see some staff.

We're just gonna be on the walls over here, all right? Israel's got his hand up over here. If you're up here up front, I would encourage you, some of you just need to get out of the darkness. Okay, you've done it with God. Now your last step is to get it out of the darkness to somebody and just talk to a friend, a pastor, a leader before you leave. Let me give one quick instruction. If your spouse tells you something and you don't know how to handle it, fix your face. Okay, and then say, thank you for telling me. And then call a leader or somebody you trust and say, how do I respond to this? Okay, don't burn that bridge down on the step one of confession, okay? All right, we're after healing and future here. All right, we're gonna invite the light of Christ to begin shining in some of these places. And I believe this is that repentance precedes revival. A lot of us have been asking God to do something in our life. God, the promotion, the next step in my calling, all that, we gotta get the stuff out of the darkness, okay? The repentance doesn't come after the revival, it comes before it, okay? So here's the deal. If you're already up here, you can lean here up here. We're gonna formally dismiss after I say amen in just a second, I'm gonna pray over us.

But I'm just asking you to just say, Holy Spirit, what's my next step before I leave, okay? So Father, I thank you for the light of Christ that shines upon even the darkest of places. God, that there's nobody that's too far gone, there's no pain that's too deep, that the healing power of Jesus can't touch it, fix it, make it new and make us whole again. And God, I thank you that you've begun that journey today. Why? Because you're not trapped in a tomb. You're not just a good man, you're not just a prophet. Jesus is God. And Father, I'm praying that the life and the light of Jesus would continue to shine upon us. And as we leave here today, that that life and light would shine through us out into a world that desperately needs it until we meet again in Jesus' name. And all the saints said, amen, amen, amen. God bless you guys, love the Lord. Thanks for being a part of Victory Church on the Pando app. We hope this content was a blessing to you. But we want you to know that you're not done yet because we want to hear from you. So send us a letter and tell us things. things like what God is doing in your life, how we can pray for you, or even content that you would like to see us create in the future.

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