Light Up The Darkness | Jud Wilhite

Wow, what an amazing time of worship. We are so grateful that we get the opportunity and privilege to worship together as a family each and every weekend. Yeah, we wanna give a big, big shout out to all the men and women watching with us from with our partnership with God Behind Bars. Can we please clap it up for them? We just love you guys, we are just so, so thankful. Well, if you wanna follow along with the teaching notes, you can find all of that in our dashboard in our Central Church app. But guys, let's give it up big for our Pastor Judd because he gives us a message of hope. All right, good to see you guys today. I hope you're doing well. I wanna do a big welcome and shout out to our Central family locations that are joining us this weekend. Central Sunrise Mountain, we love you guys. Central Summerlin, Kingman, Aliante. Good to have you guys with us. So who today, raise your hand if you're somebody like me who wears glasses? Who are my glasses people? Okay, yeah, I see you, I see you. These are my glasses people. Now, who should wear glasses but isn't wearing glasses? Go ahead, raise your hand, let's see. Well, you know who you are, yeah, yeah.

All right, so I've worn glasses since like college. I've always had them and I can't imagine not seeing, although I am at an age now, some of you will understand this where I have to aim my glasses, you know, like I gotta get the progressive lens just right, you know, so you gotta kind of like, yeah, there it is, I got you, yeah, I see you. Just wait, some of you just wait, your day is coming. But my wife, Lori, is one of these people. She had to get glasses over the last several years but she doesn't ever wear them half the time. And so like, if we're out to eat somewhere, she can't read the menu. You know what I'm talking, you know who these people are, right? Can't read this, it's always like, you know, either handing me the menu or trying to do this with the menu to sort of figure it out. And if all else fails and you can't read the menu, what's your next move? Well, for Lori, she whips her phone out and she turns her light on. How many of you know what I'm talking about here? You get the spotlight on the menu, you get in real close, right? You're like, okay, yeah, I think I can make it out. And if that doesn't work, then she takes a photo of the menu

and blows it up like a jumbotron, like a magnifying glass on her phone so that she can read it. And I'm always like, just wear your glasses, just wear your glasses. This could be easy. But light has a way of making things more clear. Light has a way of making things more visible. And more than ever today, we need the Christmas light of Jesus to help us see and help us understand. You know, Christmas is a time filled with lights. We see them all around us, right? There's Christmas trees have lights on them. The neighborhoods, you know, lights go up in the physical trees around neighborhoods. Lights go up on people's homes. We see lights everywhere. We have the Electric City Light Show at our Henderson location, which is amazing. You can kind of drive through and see all these lights timed to music. And it's beautiful and it's part of the holiday season, but it's all supposed to point us to the greater light that came into the world. It was Isaiah chapter nine, where Isaiah prophesied about the birth of Jesus. He said, the people living in darkness have seen a great light. On those living in the land of deep darkness,

a light has dawned. That's the birth of Christ coming into our world. And we need it now as much as ever because there's darkness all around us, right? So much of our world is still in darkness. There's the darkness of sin. There's the darkness of corruption. There's the darkness of greed. There's the darkness of addiction. There's the darkness of loneliness, darkness of depression. We see it all around in our culture, people hurting, people in desperate need of light to see clearly, to navigate the world we live in. And the good news today is that Jesus was and is the light coming into our world to help us see and understand, to give us life. And as Jesus said, life that is meaningful and satisfactory, life from the inside out. And I wanna talk to you about that light over the next couple of weeks. And today I wanna talk to you specifically about the light of Christ coming into the world and how it can change our lives. I don't know how you're doing right now. I know there's a lot of stress in our world. I know inflation's up. I know cost of living's up. I know it feels like the money's not up for a lot of people. I know it feels like money's just going out the door

and you're just trying to keep all the bills paid and keep all the plates spinning and keep everybody at bay. I know there's work pressure, overtime pressure, life pressure, relationship pressure. I know somebody in the room today walked around your pad this week and you thought, is this all there is? Like, is this life? Is this what it's supposed to be? Is there anything else? Right, there's family tensions. Some of you, you feel like if you could just get that loved one back under your roof, everything would be okay. Or if you could just reconnect with that relationship, everything would be okay. Or if you could just make this jump in your career, everything would be okay. But until then, it feels pretty dark. And I want you to know today, this is good news. Nothing has to change in our lives for us to experience the light of Jesus. Nothing has to change. And the light of Jesus can change things from the inside out. I believe that with all my heart. So I want to look with you today at one of the Gospels. Now, the Gospels are the four first books of the New Testament of the Bible. Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. They are called Gospels because they're biographies of Jesus. But the word Gospel means good news. And so the life of Jesus is good news. Matthew and Luke tell a version of the birth story of Jesus. Matthew tells it more from Joseph's perspective, Jesus' earthly father. Luke tells of the birth of Jesus more from Mary's perspective. Mark just goes right into it, right into the miracles.

He skips the whole thing. And John takes a different perspective altogether. He tries to fly a lot higher and give us more of a theological, philosophical view of the birth of Jesus. So I want to look with you today at John and his opening chapter and what he says about the birth of Christ. Let's bring it up on the screen. John 1, beginning in verse 1. The way we do this at Central, I'll read this out when we get to the highlighted word, the red word. If you'll read that with me, just a way that we can engage with God's word and keep everybody awake. So here's what John says. He says, in the beginning, which by the way, that would be very familiar to a Jewish person who is familiar with the Old Testament, because that's how the book of Genesis starts, right? In the beginning, God created the heavens and earth. And John is well aware of this. In the beginning, he says, the word already existed. The word was with God and the word was God. He existed in the beginning with God. And if you jump down to verse 4, it says, the word gave life to everything that was created. And his life brought what? Light to everyone. His life brought light to everyone. And John will go on in chapter 1, verse 14 to say, the word made his dwelling among us, became flesh and made his dwelling among us, because he wants it to be crystal clear that the word he's talking about is the person of Jesus Christ. He's saying, in the beginning was Jesus, in the very beginning. And that would have been a reference back to the book of Genesis. All the early Jewish readers would have read this and immediately thought of the book of Genesis. Sometimes the book of Genesis was actually not even called the book of Genesis. It was called the in the beginning book. And so John picks up right here. He says, in the beginning, the word. And the term for word here is interesting. It's the Greek word logos.

And the reason that word logos is important is because it was a Greek word. It was used in Greek philosophy. Many different Greek thinkers down the centuries had used the word logos. In general, it's a very complicated word with a complicated history. But the core idea is that the logos was the divine mind in Greek philosophy, the impersonal divine mind or reason or wisdom. And John sort of hijacks this word and says, no, no, no. The impersonal wasn't impersonal. It was personal. The divine mind, if you will, was a person, Jesus Christ, who was with God and who was God, he says. And through him, as we'll see in verse three, all things were created. Now, this is important because some people think that you can be a Christian and not really believe that Jesus was anything more than a good teacher or a good guy. And I would just encourage you, the further you get into your study of the Bible, the more you realize that Jesus not only claimed to be deity, to be God, his followers like John clearly lay it out in the very first chapter of the Gospel of John. Like, I don't know how much more clearly you can lay it out, that when Jesus was born, the thing that we will celebrate in a couple weeks, 2,000 years ago, that wasn't the beginning of Jesus. That he was there from the beginning, beginning. That he was with God and was God, as he says. And through him, all things were created. And so he brings light and life, it says, to everyone. And I believe that. He can bring life and light into your world today. Some of you right now, you're struggling with the darkness that we feel all around us, or you're struggling with just the darkness that you may feel creeping into your own life. But Jesus is the light, and the more we look to him and lean on him over the coming days and weeks, the more I believe we can have peace and joy, even in tough circumstances. And the way we experience that is first, we gotta let Jesus light shine in us.

Let Jesus light shine in you. Now, I don't know how many of you today put up Christmas lights. Who are my people on the outside of your house, you put up Christmas lights? You're the courageous, all right, the few, the proud. You go all in, right, light up the neighborhood, like the Griswolds, right, you know, like you're to flip the switch, you know, and here we go. I've got a few neighborhood neighbors like that. Although I feel like my neighbors now go more all out for Halloween than for Christmas. What does that mean? I don't know. But we've only done Christmas lights on the outside of our house once. And it was my daughter's senior year of high school. She had begged me for years. I'd always said, you know, I'm a pastor, I'm busy. There's a lot going on at Christmas. We do a lot of Christmas things and Christmas services, and I don't have time to put lights up outside the house. You know, just be glad you got a gift under the tree. You know what I'm saying? Anyway, she begged me and begged me and begged me. And finally for her senior year, I'm like, we're gonna do lights, right? So I go, I buy all the lights. It costs a fortune, by the way, all these lights. And I get all this stuff, I get home.

The day after Thanksgiving, we go out, we're gonna put lights up all around the house. I mean, my wife came up with this whole extravagant thing of stars hanging from the trees and, you know, all of this stuff, right? And so we're out there trying to do all this. I'm up on a ladder. She wants me to go higher with the lights, go higher. And I can't get them there. I'm throwing them over branches. And listen, by the end, it became a total family meltdown. You ever had a holiday moment like this? Like, I wasn't talking, she wasn't talking. My daughter's like, what happened? And we're just like. In the end, I paid some dude to finish the job and put the lights up around the house. By the way, I recommend that if you can do it. If you're gonna go there, that makes your, anyway, I got rid of all those lights the next year and now I don't have any lights. So our house is like the black hole. But I mean, a lot of people put lights up. They go to a lot of trouble. It's amazing, it's beautiful. But what a tragedy it would be if we lit everything up on the outside of our lives, but we didn't allow the true light of the world to shine on the inside. Christmas is about more than the lights on our homes.

It's about the light that can shine in us through faith. Look at what John says, John chapter one, beginning in verse three, here's what he says. He says, God created everything through him, through Jesus, and nothing was created except through him. The word gave life to everything that was created and his life brought light to everyone. The light shines in the darkness and the darkness can what? Never extinguish it. The darkness can never extinguish the light. That means no matter what you're facing in your life right now, no matter what you may be up against, the darkness can never ultimately extinguish the light of Jesus in that situation. Not a family situation, not an addiction, not a relationship situation, not a money situation, not a business situation. No matter how thick the dark is, it can't extinguish the light, the light of Jesus that came into the world. And notice he says, from the beginning, the light was there, the word of God was there. He says, everything that was created was created through him. Now that's an amazing statement. And this is a unique distinction for followers of Jesus, that we believe that God is one God in three persons. Make no mistake, Christians historically believe in one God,

just like Jews and Muslims and we believe in one God, but we believe in one God in three persons, the tri-unity of God. God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit. No, I can't fully explain it to you because it's too complex. And the whole point of Christian teaching over the centuries and the whole idea of what's called the Trinity, the tri-unity of God, is not to explain all the mysteries of God, but to protect the mysteries of God. The whole idea is we can't fully understand this, but scripture clearly teaches it. We just read it together in John chapter one, verse one, that everything was created, God created it through the word. It all came into existence. And that may seem hard to believe, but science would have us believe something that I think's even harder to believe. Science would basically have us not believe in any miracles, except for one, the Big Bang. That somewhere there was nothing and somehow it became something, right? That somewhere, like there's no miracles in the world, but that's a pretty big leap. When you think about it, what we're kind of taught to believe is this, that in the beginning there was nothing, and then over a googolplex number of years,

nothing began to become something. And then over another googolplex number of years, nothing became something. And then over another googolplex number of years nothing exploded and created everything that we see around us Nothing created the seas. Nothing created the oceans. Nothing created the Grand Canyon. Nothing created Yellowstone Nothing created the human eye. Nothing created a butterfly. Nothing created a hummingbird and Who knows or cares where nothing is now because nothing made nothing something therefore nothing is no longer nothing because it is something Right That's a pretty big leap Now I'm all for like good science, but I feel like that's a pretty big faith leap it's kind of like saying that a tornado Went through a junkyard and pieced together a Boeing 747 ready for takeoff Very smart intelligent people ask us to believe this And John says no in the beginning the Word He was with God he was God and through him all things came into being and Then at his birth if you think about it this way from John's perspective The birth of Jesus isn't just the birth of a child. It's what theologians would call the Incarnation Because the incarnation means to take on flesh and blood the embodiment of God as a human Taking on flesh and blood. That's what the gospel teaches that Jesus was and is and you think about like the essentials for human life and how Jesus described himself in several different scenarios as Part of the essentials for human life if you think about human life What do you have to have to live as a human being? Well, first of all, one thing you have to have is light, right? You gotta have light things can't live without without light over time. Jesus said I'm the light of the world Right. Here's another thing. You need to live oxygen. You got to be able to have oxygen to breathe, right? Jesus gives the breath of life or Here we go water gotta have water can't live more than like three days without water or something, right?

You gotta have water. Jesus talks about himself being the living water Or food you gotta have food if you're gonna eat, you know, if you're gonna survive very long Jesus says I am the bread of life So you think about the essentials for human life? Jesus is the essentials for Spiritual life. This is what it means for us to grow in our faith and to let Christ's light shine in us He's the light of the world. He's the oxygen we breathe. He's the living water. He's the food that gives us bread of life Spiritually, he's the one that can bring light into the midst of our darkness And I think some of us right now maybe we're struggling maybe we're in a hard season and I go through them myself and I'm Sympathetic but this is just all of our reminder to step back and say well Am I leaning on the one who can actually give me spiritual light and oxygen and water and food? You know studies have shown there are two things that you can do two core things that you can do to grow Spiritually, there's a lot of things you can do but two core things that tend to always work The first is start engaging with God's Word individually on a regular basis Okay, very simple. And by the way, you can do that. You can grab a Bible on the way out We have them or you can go and you can get download for free the Bible app on your phone go to any app store just type in the Bible app and Download it. It's free. You can start open it up every day the verse of the day. You can get in a reading plan You can use our app. We've got devotionals and things that are available But like engaging with God's Word for yourself It's one of the surefire ways that you can allow the light of Christ to shine more brightly in your life The second thing is to pray personally individually to pray almost every day I go for a walk and I Spend that time on the walk praying just lifting my heart to God some of you you struggle to pray you're like man I don't know like I fall asleep. Whatever I get you. I am you so what do I do? I move I Just get out and I walk right doesn't matter how you do it Some of you your gym time can be your worship time some of you your car time can be your worship time But if you'll engage with God's Word on a daily basis if you'll start praying on a daily basis personally What it'll happen is you'll start getting more light spiritual light spiritual oxygen spiritual water spiritual food

You'll have the light of Jesus shining in you. He came to bring life and light to everything In fact, Jesus says he came to bring life a rich and satisfying life like that's what he came to bring and it's ultimately found in him because when we're weak jesus can be our strength when we're lost jesus is our guide right when we're helpless jesus is our helper when we're sick jesus is our healer when we don't know the way he's the way when we're attacked he's our shield when we're trapped he's our deliverer when we're out of resources he's our provider when we're scared he's our defender when we're broken he binds up our wounds when we're alone he's our companion when we're angry he's our calm when we hit rock bottom he's our bedrock when we're attacked he's our advocate when we sin he's our forgiver when we're afraid he's our encourager when we want to give up he helps us rise up when we fail he gives us victory when we panic he rescues us listen when we can't see he's our light he's our light and right now whatever situation you're in let the light of jesus shine in you let it shine in you he came to bring light and life and then let jesus light shine through you let his light shine through you look at this john chapter one let's pick it up now in verse six john goes on in his introduction of his gospel he says god sent a man john the baptist to tell about the light so that everyone might believe because of his testimony john himself was not the light he was simply a witness to tell about the light the one who is the true light who gives light to everyone was coming into the world he came into the very world he created but the world didn't recognize him he came to his own people and even they rejected him but to all who believed him and accepted him he gave the right to become children of god they are what reborn look at this they're reborn not with a physical birth resulting from human passion or plan but a birth that comes from god so the word became human and made his home among us so we shine the light we receive the light and then we shine the light so john the baptist is six months older than jesus in fact if you want to read about john the baptist in his birth you go to the gospel of luke the early chapters couple chapters of the gospel of luke are sort of like a soap opera weaving back and forth between the pregnancy of john the baptist the pregnancy of jesus and ultimately their birth and here the writer says hey john the baptist he wasn't the light right he was sent as a witness to the light and that's what we are we're witnesses to the light of jesus when john did see jesus he said he must increase and i must decrease he must become greater i must become less he knew it was all about jesus and he pointed people to his light and friends when you live your faith

out day in and day out you not only live in the light but you shine the light i mean i want you to think about it every kind when you take that phone call from somebody and you really don't want to take that phone call you know what i'm talking about but you take it anyway and you listen again and you pray with them and you're kind to them you know what's happening you're being the light in a dark world when you go the extra mile for your neighbor or for your friend who has a need in their life you're being a light in the dark world when you pick up groceries for somebody who's struggling or hurting or you adopt a single parent that you know that may be going through a hard time and you just decide i'm gonna help them what are you doing you're being a light in the darkness right when you share your faith when you're open about what god has done in your life you're being a light in the darkness and friends when we shine that light it can fill our heart with so much joy god can use the simplest of things too this lady told me a story blew my mind it's a story it's amazing and as she would say this is a story about how god saved her life from a total stranger she said she was working as a waitress and this guy came into the restaurant and she was taking care of him she noticed he was reading something and when he left he left it on the table and she saw she looked down and she realized it was it was from central church she just noticed it was from a church and she said i cannot tell you why but i decided i'm gonna hang on to this so he had left it so she picks it up she hung on to it she took it home eventually it made it away made it uh into one of her drawers and she said you know she had been through a lot in her life she was abused as a child she'd made according to her some really bad decisions with men and finances and eventually to kind of deal with the pain she started to drink first a little bit then a lot then she said really what she was trying to do is is slowly take her own life through alcohol And she said one day she was just so frustrated and so discouraged and she was standing there. She said, I pulled open that drawer and there was that piece of printed material from the church that that guy had left on the table months and months before. She said, I looked at it and I thought, I'm gonna call them.

So she pulled it out, she saw the phone number, she called the church. She said, Judd, the lady that answered the phone was so kind and caring and listened to me just pour out my heart about all the mess I had made of things. And then she prayed for me. She prayed that I would get the strength to deal with my addiction and to move towards healing and to take those steps in my life. And she said, I hung up that phone and I felt like for the first time in a long time there was hope. She said, you know what I did after that? I came to church and I started coming and then said, I raised my hand and asked Christ to come into my life and move in my life. And then I got baptized and I became sober through the help of people around me and prayer and the spiritual strength God was giving me. And God has flipped my whole life around over the years since then. And she said, I wanna tell you this story because it was a total stranger who left a piece of printed material on a table after he ate that God used to change my life. Come on, man. You know, it's one of the reasons I always carry around central in-buy cards

and I leave them everywhere I go. 90% of the time they may just get thrown in the trash. Maybe I get an eye roll. But man, it's the 10% or the 1% or the 0.1% where God can use something so simple to help somebody start to take a spiritual step in their life. That's why at Christmas, this is a great time. Have these ready. One of the ways you can let God's light shine through you is leave them around where you go, share them with your friends and family, see what God can do with the little bit that we offer him. But we are the light. Jesus says he's the light of the world, but he also says we are the light of the world. So his light's supposed to shine in us, but it's also supposed to shine through us. And for some of us, we're the only light somebody else may ever see. My friend, Pastor Phillip Anthony Mitchell did this amazing illustration. And by the way, he's an amazing pastor, blown up all over YouTube and all over the world, but I knew him before then and I love the guy. But he did this amazing illustration and I got inspired to share some of it with you. You know, right now I'm the only person in the room standing in the light, but this is actually who you are as a follower of Jesus

everywhere you go. You have the light. I don't generate the light. The light is the representation of the light of Jesus. I don't create the light. I don't make the light. The light isn't about me. The light is all about Jesus and who he is. And through faith, his light shines on me and his light shines on you. And everywhere you go, you have the light of Christ shining in you. And if you will allow it shining through you in your life, but oftentimes we don't see ourselves this way, right? We don't even think about it like this, but everywhere you go, when you go to work, this is who you are. When you go to Walmart, this is who you are. When you get in that Zoom meeting, this is who you are. When you walk in that family holiday gathering, this is who you are. When you walk in the concert, this is who you are. You have the light of Christ shining on you and in you. And God wants that light to shine through you. But to do that, you gotta not only know the light, you gotta walk in the light. You gotta trust Christ as the light. You gotta obey Christ as the light. And then you shine the light. You know, too many of us,

as followers of Jesus in our culture, we have the light, but we're living over here. We got our secret sins. We got our side world. We got all the, we let our, we start rolling with the culture. All the things the culture says is okay. All the things the culture says to do. And pretty soon before we know it, we've forgotten who God says we are. God says in Jesus Christ, we're forgiven. He says in Jesus Christ, we're empowered. He says in Jesus Christ, we're gifted, we're loved. We have the spiritual gifts inside of us. His Holy Spirit is within us. God wants to use us. He says anything that two people come together. together on and agree in my name. He will hear our prayers and move. And too often we live over here in our shame, in our sin, in our failures, in our mistakes, in our past. And we see ourselves not like God sees us. We just see ourselves like something else. But this Christmas can I challenge you. Not only receive the light, but shine the light. Look, when you show up at work, you don't have to do anything specific. It's about who you are as a follower of Jesus. Just let the light shine through you by how you conduct yourself. When everybody else loses, they're cool. You're tapped into a piece they don't yet understand. When everybody else lets rage. By the way, the Oxford Dictionary says that the number one word of the year this year is rage bait. All the little click bait that's used to enrage us and infuriate us. Rage bait. It's all over the place. But you're not inspired by rage bait. You're inspired by love. The love that came from God through Jesus Christ. And that love is contagious and powerful. Remember who you are when you show up among your friends who are not yet followers of Jesus. And you feel compelled to share your story and share the good

news of Jesus with them. Remember to let your light shine through. Look, when you're in a situation where God's convicted you, maybe you need to forgive somebody. Maybe you need to let something go. Maybe you need to have a hard conversation. You let that light shine through because you are the light of the world. Jesus is the light of the world. He's shining on you and in you. You know what Jesus said? He said a city on a hill cannot be hidden. It can't be hidden because the light will go out and be seen from far, far away. People will see that light. May they see your light over the coming weeks and months and through your life. May they be inspired to draw close to Jesus. Maybe you're here today and maybe you've never crossed that line of faith. And I want you to know today, I'm nothing special standing in the light. I'm just a humble servant and you can stand in the light as well. When you open your heart to Jesus, when you place your faith and trust in him, he will come in. He will forgive. He will restore. He will heal. He will give you the satisfying and meaningful life that he's promised and he will empower you to shine his light to the world. So I'm going to ask everybody today, would you bow your heads and close your eyes? If you'd like to become a follower of Jesus today, you can begin that journey by just repeating this prayer after me. Just say, dear God, I thank you for loving me. Thank you for sending Jesus into the world. I believe he died on the cross for my sins. I believe he rose again. Forgive me for my sins. Give me the gift of eternal life. Help me face the challenges that I'm up against. God, I surrender my life to you in Christ's name. And friends, with every head bowed, with every eye closed, if that's your prayer, if it's your commitment today, I want to ask you to just slip your hand in the air. You may be at our Summerlin location. You may be at Aliante. You may be watching us in our partnership with God Behind Bars or listening. Just slip your hand in the air and acknowledge you're surrendering to him. You're trusting him in your life today. Just reach out to him. God, we thank you for who you are. I thank you for each person reaching out to you today, trusting you today. God, I pray that your light will give them peace from the inside out. Forgive, restore, heal, and use them. And use all of us in these coming weeks to shine your light and to let others know that the light has come into the darkness. God, we thank you and we praise you and we ask you these things in Jesus' name. Amen.