I am | Light of the World

[Music] [Applause] [Applause] [Music] hey if you're new to canvas we encourage you to check out our canvas.church website and our campus church app you can also check out the link that's dropped in the comments section in the group chat this gives you links to give to the ministry of canvas places to serve information on canvas and access to our canvas team during our gathering you can chat with our online host you can express what you're feeling through emojis and you can join us in worship wherever you're watching from if you'd like prayer we have a prayer icon that you can click on and it'll send a prayer request to our team and we'll have that host pray with you right there [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] we're about to get started to get the most out of our online experience we encourage you to engage with us today let's get ready for the gathering [Music] hey good morning camera shirts welcome to church this morning we're glad you're here who's excited about the rain this morning come on god is good isn't he he's faithful let's be grateful this morning for what he's gonna do in this place come on here we go [Music] whatever comes i won't complain [Music] is [Music] is [Music] [Music] you are my god [Music] oh is [Music] is [Music] open [Music] [Music] is [Music] [Applause] [Music] lord are you [Music] lord i foreign [Music] [Music] church come on thank you father [Music] hey [Music] oh uh [Music] hey good morning canvas man my name is rob isn't it awesome to see what god has been doing in the lives of our students over the last few weeks at camp um man the games are awesome things are awesome up at camp but the reason why we send students to campus so that they can experience god and when we got back from camp we had a celebration gathering last sunday nine of our youth students got water baptized nine water baptism it's it's a public declaration of faith and um it's something that you have an opportunity to do next week we're going to do baptisms at columbia falls out of the community pool but we're also going to do them here on our patio for our kalispell campus and so um the reason why we get water baptism one jesus tells us to get water baptized if if he is your lord and your savior it's just one of the next steps that we do and like i said to it it is a powerful symbol of dying to yourself and coming alive with christ so don't miss that opportunity to get water baptized next week you can scan the qr code with your phone um just scan the c back in front of you that qr code and it'll send you a link to get signed up for baptisms well if you are new to canvas welcome we're so excited that you're here with us as a matter of fact we've got a team of people out in our lobby that are excited to meet you and we even have a free gift we want to give you just to say thanks for being with us this morning one thing i want to encourage all of us to do each and every week is to fill out a connection card and you can do that you can just grab out the connection card out of the c back in front of you fill it out put it in the red bin on your way out or you can scan that same qr code and it'll send you a link to fill out the connection card digitally the reason why we fill out the connection card is it's a practical way for us to respond to the truth of god's word and so don't miss that opportunity to respond with a connection card this morning well as we go back into worship i want to encourage us this morning you may have heard this a million times you may have never heard it i want to let you know god loves you the reason that we can love is because he first loved us and so this morning let's receive the love of god but then let's turn around and give it back to him and let's tell them how much we love him this morning let's worship [Music] [Music] is now the savior now to wash our feet [Music] [Music] come on church his name is victory your name your name is your name your name [Music] is [Music] is our peace is is [Music] your name is your name [Music] is [Music] in your name i come alive to declare your victory the resurrected king is resurrecting me by your spirit on your eyes [Music] [Music] is [Music] is [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] days [Music] is [Music] [Music] [Music] is [Music] is [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] [Music] your victory [Music] is is [Music] come on church let's give your praise thank you to our victorious king and we have victory because of what jesus christ did by dying on that cry the cross being rose again he defeated death and that's why we have victory church but as we sing this next song i would encourage you lift your voices lift your hands let's enter into the presence of god the holy spirit is here he wants to minister and move in our hearts and we cannot be reserved in our worship this morning we gotta give all we have just as jesus christ gave all we he had we in turn need to give all we have this morning so let's worship him let's give him all we got and let's give him praise for he is due [Music] i am weary from the ways crashing over every day god of mercy please rescue [Music] i am lonely for your voice gentle whispering father tell me everything's alright [Music] is [Music] my heart take what's broken [Music] [Music] mountains you will be breaking [Music] break the walls apart open the heavens almighty god you are overcomer defender of my heart come on believe this the oceans open wide your fire falls down helping in earth king jesus forever by my side come on he's here now [Music] break the walls apart [Music] of my heart [Music] to jesus [Music] is [Music] is [Music] you will be [Music] you will be pretty [Music] let's just take a moment prepare our hearts before we take communion together there's an area in your life that you need to see breakthrough happen an area in your life that you need to surrender over let's just take a moment prepare our hearts before we remember when our savior jesus christ [Music] if you go ahead and grab that piece of bread i'm going to read out of first corinthians chapter 11. it says this on the night when he was betrayed the lord jesus took some bread and gave thanks to god for it then he broke it into pieces and said this is my body which is given for you do this in remembrance of me let's pray to the father father we hold this piece of bread in our hand and when we come together lord we take time to remember what your son jesus christ did for us [Music] this body that was given over willingly to that cross obeying what you had called him and brought him to this earth to do for us and though we just say thank you jesus we are honored that you gave the largest sacrifice ever of your life for this world for us and it's with this piece of bread that we hold in our hand this morning that represents your body that was being broken on our behalf and we say thank you for what you did and we take this in remembrance of you go ahead church [Music] if you go ahead and grab that cup this cup represents the blood of jesus christ and it continues on in first corinthians and it says in the same way he took the cup of wine after supper saying this cup is the new covenant between god and his people an agreement confirmed with my blood do this in remembrance of me as often as you drink it father thank you for your son's blood that was shed for us on the cross a blood that is covers our sins a blood that heals our bodies a blood that makes us a new creation in your eyes and this morning father we are in all of you what you did how much you loved us for lord we were all sinners one and we've all fallen short of your glory but your son came to this earth to save us from our sins and his blood wiped away what we used to be thank you father for that and lord we just hold this cup in our hands that represents your blood that was shed for us on the cross and we take it together in remembrance of your son jesus christ go ahead everybody we have victory in jesus christ and i want you to do this everybody across this place just close your eyes how many need victory in this place this morning how many there's an area in your life that you maybe need breakthrough and you just need god to give you victory that you just need to surrender i just want you to lift a hand towards heaven all across this place father by your blood set people free this morning i pray bring breakthrough bring victory lord you defeated the grave you defeated death so lord you can do all things and all things are possible with you come on church let's lift our voices let's lift our hands and believe that god can give us victory let's have faith this morning that he's going to do a great work in your heart come on surrender to his will surrender to what he wants to do in your life this morning let's give all we have for him [Music] there will be there will be victory here there will be there will be victory here there will be there will be victory [Music] there will be there will be victory here there will be there will be victory here there will be there will be victory but prophesy this over yourself where you need breakthrough there will be there will be a victory here there will be there will be victory here there will be there will be victory here there will be there will be a victory here there will be there will be victory here [Music] break the walls almighty god you are overcome defender of my heart the oceans open wide your fire falls [Music] down [Music] almighty god you are overcomer defend you love my heart [Music] jesus [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] you will be there will be you will be [Music] so [Music] [Music] my pain is gone and mercy fills the streets to look upon the one who bled to save me and walk with him for all eternity and there will be a day we'd all bow before him and there will be a day when there will be no more standing face to face [Music] every prayer we prayed in desperation the songs of faith [Music] when he returns to [Music] there will be a day when death will be no more standing face to face and on that day we'll join the resurrection stand beside the heroes of the faith and with one voice a thousand generations [Music] sing worthy is the level of slave and on that day to join the resurrection [Music] a thousand generations [Music] [Music] [Music] angels and the saints we raise oh [Music] is [Music] [Music] you know the bible shows us in revelation chapter 4 a glimpse into heaven and what's happening at the throne room of god and it says that day after day night after night morning after morning evening after evening these great beasts and it uses all kinds of crazy imagery that represents all of creation bows before the king of kings bows before the lord of lords and they say holy holy holy is the lord god almighty who was and is and is to come holy is his name and you don't want to know what happens when we sing those words here on earth heaven and earth collide that's what happens in worship we enter into a glimpse a moment where we get to experience the power and the move of god and we get to touch heaven because all of heaven and all of creation and all that god has saved proclaim holy holy holy is our lord god almighty who is worthy of every praise who is worthy of every honor who is worthy of all of our shouts who's worthy of all of our hope who's worthy of every peace that's inside of us [Applause] those goosebumps that you feel they're not from the band they're great we love them that's the power of god moving in our life and heaven touching earth and i just i was standing in the back i was worshiping and then i was standing back behind the curtain and i was worshiping and i i just sensed this i said that god wants to do a move in our lives today he wants to make a move in your life he wants to bring some transformation he wants to bring some change he wants the power of heaven to touch your life i want to ask are you ready to receive that are you ready to receive his transformation are you ready to receive his hope are you ready to receive all that jesus has for you because i think he wants to do a move today so to that end i'm going to pray and then we're going to study god's word together and i believe that heaven's gonna touch earth jesus your presence is here in this room in fact your word says that we can enter boldly into the throne room of grace that we can get a glimpse that we can get a piece of heaven that we can experience your presence because of the work of jesus on the cross so i pray today would be a moment where we experience that where we step boldly into your throne room and we allow your goodness we allow your grace we allow your power to transform us and to change us and to give us life and we pray these things in the mighty name of jesus and everybody who loves jesus says amen amen why don't you turn to someone next to you give him a high five and then take your seat make sure you sanitize your hands after that high five though oh canvas it is so awesome to be with you it's fantastic to be here in kalispell and uh if we have not met before my name is jared it's actually been almost a year since i've been here at the kalispell campus and there's a couple reasons for that one we've been busy planting a church in billings montana canvas church villains yes which has been fantastic in fact that was the reason i was here almost a year ago we were just several weeks away from launch and now we're only several weeks away from celebrating one year as a church which is pretty incredible um the other reason that it's been almost a year since i've been here if you maybe are new to canvas and you don't know my story it's been pretty chaotic over the last couple years in may of 2019 i was diagnosed with leukemia and i fought it and beat it and was in remission for about a year and then we launched the church in billings in september of 2020 and then december of 2020 they found a recurrence of my cancer so i've actually spent the last seven months or i guess i spent about seven months in seattle receiving a bone marrow transplant and i got to come home to billings about a month ago and i stand before you today cancer-free in jesus name and there's a lot of things in life that i would suggest doing multiple times having cancer multiple times not something i would suggest don't try that one but uh praise god i'm so thankful to be like literally physically standing here uh so thankful for the grace of god on my life and so proud of the fact that um there's still a church happening in billings montana even though i was gone for seven months little baby church we just launched it pastor leaves um but here's the the truth and i had said this to our team so many times before i ever got cancer and had to leave our new church i said this is god's church this isn't my church and can i just tell you that god prevailed and he made his church move forward and there are people who have found jesus in billings we've seen people get baptized life transformation is happening and i'm so proud of our church i'm so proud of my wife caitlyn she actually flew back and forth between billings and taking care of me in seattle she took 41 flights back and forth to make sure the church continued to move forward and we had an incredible leadership team that kept things moving forward and so we've had an amazing first year and we can't wait to see what god does next i mean it's just been so awesome and so but i'm excited to be here in kalispell today here's what i wish i could do and honestly i i i i genuinely am saying this i wish i could just jump down and give so many of you hugs i i would love to do that in fact uh last night at our saturday night gathering um i i felt like a little bit like a drug addict that couldn't get his drugs okay because here's the truth i can't jump down and give you hugs because i'm still highly immunosuppressed i have to avoid germs like the plague and we're in a plague so anyway i have to i have to avoid all of that kind of stuff and after our saturday night gathering i told him i i can't jump down i can't give you hugs i'm not gonna be in the lobby and by the way this is something we value so highly at canvas church that our communicators we don't just talk and then go run in the back we're a church we're a family we want to love you we want to hug you we want to shake your hand and me not being allowed to do that i was going nuts in the back last night i wasn't ready to just drive off to my hotel room so you want to know what i did i actually circled the building in my car just watching people wishing that i could hug them there were a few people there were a few people i rolled my window down because i'm outside and it's safer and i talked to them so just know i wish i could hang out with you i wish i could give you all love but i'm going to be hiding in the back and so uh give each other high fives on my behalf and hugs on my behalf um i'm excited though because we're in the middle of a great series and what a what a fun time to be here uh you know it would kind of suck if i was here during a boring series but we're in a fantastic series uh in the book of john and it's called i am and we're studying the i am statements of jesus in the book of john we got really creative with that title by the way the i am series studying the i am statements of jesus and uh we talked a couple weeks ago stephen talked about jesus statement of saying i am the bread of life and he talked about uh the fact that jesus was trying to awaken us in his i am statement about saying he's the bread of life to us being spiritual beings and we need more than just physical food to satisfy our needs but god actually created us for relationship and there's something that is inside of us that cannot be satiated by the things of this world and it can only be satisfied by relationship with god and jesus came to be that bread of life for us and then pastor west was with us last week didn't he do a fantastic job oh i'm so glad that we have friends that know how to preach and can and bring them in and he did a great job talking about jesus saying i am the good shepherd and the characteristics of of jesus that we can learn when he claimed to be the good shepherd and by the way that's kind of our goal in this series our our goal in this series is to look at who jesus claimed to be you know there's a lot of opinions about out there about jesus you might have your own beliefs about who jesus is the media has portrayed jesus in particular ways christianity in particular ways and i just want to say i don't know that i trust everyone's opinion about jesus so let's go right to the source and let's ask him who he says that he is and let's go based on that so that's kind of the goal of this series and in fact we have an overarching verse in this series john chapter 20 verse 31 and really john wrote this account of jesus's life the entire book of john that we're studying he wrote this account of jesus's life with this purpose in mind he says but these things are written so that you may continue to believe that jesus is the messiah the son of god and by believing in him you will have life by the power of his name i think this is so fascinating that john says that you may continue to believe you know you may have been following jesus for five minutes you may have been following jesus for a hundred years but we need to come back again and again and again to the story of jesus to see who he says he is to see who the bible reveals him to be so that we can understand him correctly because if we don't come back again and again we might fall off the path we have to come back because these things are written so that we can continue to believe and by believing in him you will have life by the power of his name so we're going to be looking at another i am statement of jesus today and he says that he is excuse me he says i am the light of the world but i want to set up some context because in order to understand the power of this statement we need to understand when he said it and what's going on in the world when he makes that statement because that's a great thing jesus okay you're the light of the world but what does that mean and how does that change my life and in order to understand the context of it you've got to know what's happening in john chapter 7 and john chapter 8. it was a time of the year where the festival of tabernacles or the feast of tabernacles was taking place and the jewish people would travel from across all these regions to the holy city of jerusalem to where the temple was and they would celebrate a seven day long festival or feast and this was something that was instituted by god you can read about it in the old testament and it was supposed to be a reminder to the people of god of the time that they spent wandering in the wilderness before the promised land we've been talking about the israelites a lot this year and hopefully hopefully you have some context of that god's chosen people that were supposed to go into the promised land they wandered for 40 years in the desert and in those 40 years the bible teaches us that god guided them god provided for them and they lived in these temporary shelters and so what would happen is now here we are you know thousands of years later after that time they're still celebrating and remembering what god had done for them so they would gather together in the city of jerusalem and they would build temporary shelters like the ones that they would have used when they were wandering in the desert and they would eat inside of these temporary shelters some of them if they were very pious they would even sleep inside of the temporary shelters to remind themselves of that season of god's faithfulness the bible also tells us that in that time god would guide his people as a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night and so there were several rituals that happened in this seven day really it was a party i mean it was it happened in september so it was a celebration of the harvest the provision of god that they had a harvest there were water uh celebrations where they celebrated the fact that god had sent the reigns and here in california we got some rain this morning praise god for a little bit of rain i wish you'd send some of that to billings because we've been pretty dry but they would celebrate the fact that rain had come and they would also on the seventh day or the eighth day of the festival however it worked out had a a ritual where they would light these giant lanterns in the temple in fact they were in the the courtyard of the women so it was this outdoor place and they were massive lanterns i mean bigger than any lantern that you or i have seen in fact some say that the lanterns were so large that they would light up the entire city and so there was a big party that would happen leading up to the lighting of these lanterns because these lanterns represented that pillar of fire by night that would guide the israelites and it was a recommitment time for the people of god to the god of light the god who created light and the god who is going to send his light back to the earth in the form of a messiah so picture that backdrop happening thousands of people in the city of jerusalem and then jesus makes this statement in john chapter 8 verse 12. jesus spoke to the people once more and said i am the light of the world if you follow me you won't have to walk in darkness because you will have the light that leads to life this is an audacious claim by jesus here these people are with this backdrop of the the god of light yahweh the one that they had followed in the wilderness the they're waiting on the coming messiah and jesus stands up in front of the crowds and says i am he i am the light of the world the person that you've been waiting for it's me and the people were divided is this guy a liar is this guy just crazy is he a lunatic or is he the messiah and obviously if we know the story of jesus he was put to death on the cross he was raised again on the third day and he proved the fact that he indeed was the messiah and so we need to look at this claim of jesus and ask the question what does this mean for us today if jesus is the light of the world how does that transform me how does that change me here's what i believe i believe that jesus was revealing characteristics about himself about he who is the god of the universe to you and to me and so i want to look today at three characteristics of light that i think help us understand jesus the light of the world a little bit better and the first characteristic that of light that i want to highlight is this that light brings hope light brings hope i don't know about you but i do not enjoy walking in the darkness it's not a very fun thing i don't know if you've been camping before and forgotten your flashlight right and then the nighttime comes and it's like oh man this stinks i i hate it thankfully uh we all have flashlights in our pockets from now on we don't even have to remember flashlights uh flashlight if you don't know what it is it's like an app in real life kids okay uh it's not attached to your phone it's a separate thing but you know flashlights they're a powerful thing because walking in the dark can be a little bit hopeless in fact i remember one time i i really enjoy hiking uh i enjoy getting out into the mountains i like the physical activity part of it i enjoy the scenery i love hiking into a lake there's nothing like jumping into a mountain lake you get to the top and you just dive in and it's refreshing and um so i used to do a lot of hiking not very much in the last couple years because uh hashtag cancer and chemo do not go well with hiking uh but a few years ago i was a youth pastor in the seattle area that's where caitlin and i moved from and uh i i gathered a group of our leaders together to do a hike together because it was something i enjoyed doing and i wanted to hang out with them and so we decided to not just do a hike we decided to do a sunset hike up uh mount pilchuck in the seattle area and uh if you're ever there it's a fantastic hike it's super fun you hike up to an old fire lookout tower type thing and it's a great place to watch the sunset and i made an assumption that uh most people would understand that when you go on a sunset hike you're on the top of the mountain and then you watch the sun set which is the thing that provides light to the world by the way and then you hike down in darkness that's a bad assumption that people uh think that they that to assume that people know that because we got up there we all enjoyed the sunset we went to walk down and only like a quarter of the people that i brought brought flashlights to hike down so what is wrong with you people do you not understand what the sunset means we're hiking down in the dark and so a small group of these people got together and they kind of showed each other the way and they booked it down the mountain and then we had some novice hikers with us and guess who got stuck with the novice hikers without any flashlights this guy right here i had come prepared i had a flashlight i knew what i was doing but instead of getting to truck down the mountain at a normal speed i had to hike with the slow people and i had to guide them with my little flashlight and and i remember one of the girls you know she was just new and she was scared about everything and every bush that you know rattled she thought like a cougar was coming out to get her like she was just freaking out about the whole thing and i remember thinking to myself you know what would be miserable is if none of us had a flashlight can you imagine trying to hike down a mountain without a flashlight and we didn't even have the light of the moon because after we had gotten off of the rock hopping you started to get into the trees and so there was no ambient light from the moon or the stars we were walking in complete darkness and i thought man if we didn't have a light this would be hopeless like we're just gonna have to live here now okay because there's no way we're getting out there's no way we're finding our way i think sometimes that's how we feel about life i think there are seasons of life or there are times of life or maybe you're not a follower of jesus yet and you feel this way about all of your life that you're walking in darkness that you're tripping over every obstacle that every time you feel like you're gaining momentum in life you're falling and you can't get back up you can't see away and you begin to feel hopeless in fact i want to demonstrate this we're going to do this at all of our campuses let's go ahead and bring all of the lights off and get a feeling of what darkness is like you know if there was an emergency that happened right now like the fire alarms were suddenly to go off you can see the exit doors here in kalispell and i really pray we can see the exit doors at all of our campuses because that would be dangerous but you're tripping over top of things because we can't see like we literally cannot see i see a few phones sliding up shame on you this is church all right focus there's kind of a sense of hopelessness that comes with the dark dough in fact the only people in this room that have a little bit of hope spiking are the guys that just reach for that girl's hand that you like don't worry baby i'll come for you but there's something about light that suddenly brings a glimpse of hopes like if there was an emergency at least with this flashlight i could light up a few of the alleyways to or the the pathways to get out of here at least with a light we can see a little bit of direction with the light it brings hope to our lives and jesus said i am the light of the world and you might feel like you've been tripping you might feel like you've been walking in darkness you might feel like you can't find it maybe you're dealing with anxiety you know what darkness brings it very it brings fear have you ever watched a horror movie that happened in the daytime no it always happens in the night it happens in darkness and maybe fear and anxiety have described your life up until this moment and jesus is saying i want to be the light of your world i want to bring you hope i want to light up the darkness in your life i want to give you a clear path you can bring all the lights back on and i want to bring hope to your life that it can only be found through me what does jesus say he says i am the light of the world and if you follow me you will no longer have to walk in darkness but you will have a light that leads to what that leads to life there are some of you in this place today jesus wants to be the light of your life jesus wants to bring you hope his life will bring you a hope that you've never experienced in any other form of life because light brings hope and jesus wants to bring hope to your life second characteristic of light that i think we need to understand in order to understand more of jesus and his character and what he's revealing when he says that i am the light of the world is this is that light is powerful i told you that i was a youth pastor and i loved my youth ministry days one of my favorite seasons was the summer time because i got to spend a lot of time at summer camp hanging out with students and it was just so much fun and one of the things that i learned i would learn a lot of cool things at summer camps because kids teach you stuff all the time and i want to be a lifelong learner so the more time i spend around teenagers the better i learn new words i learn new definitions of words that i shouldn't have been saying that i didn't know i was saying wrong it's great hang around teenagers more often but they they taught me this game and i didn't believe in the game at first i thought they were trying to play a prank on me but i don't know have you ever been star tripping before anyone in that oh man you need to learn this game i wanted to bring someone up on stage to play the game but i didn't want to face a lawsuit and so here's what happens in the game is that i had seen this group of students they were laughing and giggling and whatever else and so i went over there to see what was going on and there were flashlights going on and off and they were yelling people's names and people were falling on the ground when the lights would turn on and i was like what is going on over here they said hey we're star tripping they said here's how you do it if you stare at a star in the sky and you spin around and around and around and around and then someone yells your name and shines a light in your face you fall over like you're dead and i was like oh it sounds so fun but i actually didn't believe him i i sort of believed him but here's here's honestly what i believed i thought i was more powerful than the light i thought you know what i'm going to show these guys i'm not going to fall over they're going to try this on me and it's not going to happen so i remember all right it's my turn to play the game and so i found a star and i started spinning round and round and round and round and round and round and round and round and round and round and then someone yelled my name jared and they turned the light on and i kid you not it was like someone had taken my legs out from under me and i hit the ground so fast like almost like dead and i said this is awesome this is the greatest game that was ever invented i started calling all kinds of random people over i bet you can't stand up when this light hits your face boom knocking them over it's great you need to do it next time it's darker you can see the stars this is the best game ever star tripping but i learned in that moment that light is powerful powerful enough to to knock me over and this idea of of light and darkness it's actually a feat a theme that we find throughout the new testament and paul was writing in the book of ephesus in a letter that he wrote to the ephesian church in ephesians chapter 5 we read this he says this for once you were full of darkness by the way i think this is interesting that the darkness uh when we talk about he's talking about the the the being separated from jesus it's not just around you but the darkness is actually in you there's a darkness of the soul it says you were once full of darkness but now you have the light that comes from the lord so live as people of the light for this light within you notice where's the light it's not on the outside it's inside you there's a light to your soul that comes when you choose to follow jesus so live as people of the light for this light within you produces only what is good and right and true so the light inside of us produces life just like jesus says it produces what is good and right and true but he goes on to say in verse 11 he says take no part in the worthless deeds of evil and darkness instead what does he say to do he says to expose them expose them to what exposed them to the light because light has power did you know that light actually has the ability to kill bacteria and even some viruses the uvc light is the type of light that they can shine sometimes they put it in air filters i have a cousin my cousin kelden when we go hiking he has a uvc light water bottle filter and that's the way that he filters his water that we draw from you know creeks or whatever when we're doing multi-day backpacking trips and i don't know that i've learned to trust the uvc light yet i pump mine through a filter and all kelvin does is he scoops up water and turns on the battery and just kind of moves the water and this uvc light supposedly goes in and kills all the bacteria but he's not dead yet so it must be working somehow and it's interesting he has to turn the water back and forth because the bacteria has to be exposed to that light in order for the light to kill it he has to make sure to swirl the water he's got 30 seconds that he has to swirl that water around long enough to expose it to the light so the light and its power can kill off the viruses and the bacteria and i think it comes as no surprise to us that there are viruses and bacterias of our soul there are things in our life that that want to rob us that want to steal us of our joy that want to steal us of our our purpose and one of the things that jesus came to do is to bring his power of light the light of his life and change and transform those things but they don't get changed and transformed until their exposed we have this amazing ability as human beings to hide ourselves from the light we have this amazing ability as human beings to take on hope in some portion of our life but honestly i think a lot of times it's because we're lying to ourselves i think we get so used to the darkness that we don't even realize we're living in the darkness we don't even realize that bitterness is robbing us of the joy that god promised us we don't realize that our selfishness is hurting the people around us because we've lived with it for so long and we've become so accustomed to the darkness that honestly in some ways we fear the light because the light when it comes in and it changes us and transforms us which was what jesus wants to do sometimes it almost feels painful like have you ever turned the lights on in the middle of the night after your eyes have gotten used to the darkness there's a painful moment i experience this whenever i have to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night the first thing that i experience is walking in the darkness and tripping over my dog who seems to lay exactly where i'm trying to walk every time and then i get into the bathroom and i have to turn on the light and what do you do when you turn on the light ah it's bright but you know what would be really bad is if i use the bathroom in the darkness okay that would be really bad that does not lead to life all right and i go through that momentary kind of almost pain from the power of light because i know that it actually leads to my benefit i'm just here to tell you today that a prayer that many of us followers of jesus need to pray is god would you expose the parts of my soul would you expose the parts of my heart that have been hiding in darkness and would you bring them to light and it might be a little bit painful it might be a little bit painful to realize that you've been living selfishly it might be a little bit painful to start to deal with the lust that's driving your life the inappropriate relationships that you're gonna now have to break off and to bring yourself into the light because we are called to live as people of the light but we cannot live as people of the light and we cannot have the fullness of life that jesus has promised us unless we expose every part of our soul unless we expose every part of our heart to the power of his light to transform us to change us and to forgive us because here's the truth there is no darkness that god is afraid of there is no part of your soul that god wants to avoid no he wants to come in he wants to transform you he wants to change you he wants to forgive you and he wants to offer you the light that leads to life he said i am the light of the world and if you choose to follow me if you choose to open your heart to me if you allow me to transform you and change you you will have a light that leads to life life for you and also life for the people around you first characteristic of of light is that it brings hope the second characteristic of light is that it's powerful it's meant to transform us it's meant to change us it's meant to be exposing the darkness in our souls but the third characteristic of light is this is that light is not meant to be hidden light is not meant to be hidden i think it's fascinating that jesus says in the sermon on the mount john is one author who records the story of jesus life and he records jesus saying i am the light of the world and matthew is another author who records uh uh the story of jesus life and i don't believe that jesus says anything by accident there's intention in all of his words and in one hand he says he is the light of the world but on another hand look what he says on the sermon on the mount his most famous sermon recorded by matthew and we read in matthew chapter five he says this he says you are the light of the world oh jesus i thought you said i am the light of the world i thought you said you were the light of the world and jesus says no no no no you are the light of the world like a city on a hilltop that cannot be hidden no one likes a lamp and then puts it under a basket instead a lamp is placed on a stand where it gives light to everyone in the house you know when i at first glance when i i read this passage it's a little bit of an intimidating passage for me jesus you're asking me to be the light of the world because jesus physical presence is no longer here he came in the form of man he died he rose again and he ascended back into heaven where he remains now at the right hand of the father and he sent his spirit the holy spirit to us to empower us to carry his light to the world but here's what's intimidating about this verse is it's me like it's easy when jesus is the light of the world but jesus you're calling me to be the light of the world like i feel much less like this super powerful flashlight that i bought at rei and don't ask me how much money i spent on it because it was ridiculous but it's powerful you can see it i'll shine it in the campus people's eyes right now through that camera it's a powerful light and i feel like if jesus is this light then this little phone is me and you can see this light but it doesn't really provide light to this room i can't blind our people at the campuses with it it's kind of sad almost feels pathetic i think we misunderstand this passage though because we read it in english and in english i don't know if you've studied english it's a fantastic language but it is the most complicated confusing language on the planet because we have words that mean the same thing they're spelled the same way but they mean different things and and we have plural versions of certain things but then there are other things that use the same word for the plural and the singular like the word deer did you know there is one deer two deer three deer there are no such thing as deers okay maybe you learned something today moose it's the same way one moose two moose three moose and a flock of mison if you all of them i don't know what do you call a group of mooses together no moose i don't know it's confusing all right english is not a great language and the word used specifically can be both singular and plural and we don't have a plural version of the word in most of the english language unless you're a hick from the south and those geniuses came up with a plural version of this word and it's called y'all thank god for the south y'all and if you go back to the original translations of this this word you in the greek is actually plural so let me teach you the way you should read this passage y'all are the light of the world y'all like not just me y'all do you know that there's power when we combine our lights together my one little phone flashlight is not very powerful but i wanna give an illustration and so i'm gonna ask you to do something we never ask you to do in church and that's to pull out your phone go ahead you can do it all over this place at all of our locations and figure out uh don't turn your flashlight on yet you got to keep it off for this moment otherwise you know it's not going to be as cool when we all turn them on together and if you don't know how to turn your flashlight on turn to someone next to you under 25 and just ask them and if you live in cup bank and you have a flip phone just look at all of our lights okay oh man i'm going to purgatory or something for that one i'm going to ask at all of our campuses that the lights would come down don't turn your light on yet one little light is not very powerful but that's not how we read the passage so i'm gonna ask that everyone turn on your lights and we're gonna look at across all of our campuses wow look at this look at this look at this look at this y'all are the light of the world canvas we're called together to be the light of the world we're called together to be a city on a hilltop that cannot be hidden we are called to be light in the darkness in kalispell montana we are called to be light in the darkness in columbia falls we are called to be light in the darkness and buildings and in comeback we are the light of the world together standing together reflecting the goodness reflecting the character reflecting the power reflecting the hope that jesus came to share with this world y'all are the light of the world and we live in a world that needs this light [Music] we live in a world that's full of darkness but together we carry the light of jesus with us you can bring those lights back up you can leave your phone flashlight on if you feel like it but i'm gonna turn mine off that's who we're called to be called to be hope bringers who do we point people to when we let our light shine we point people to jesus let's bring that passage back up you are the light of the world like a city on a hilltop that cannot be hidden no one lights a lamp and then puts it under a basket and said the lamp is placed on a stand where it gives light to everyone in the house and the next passage says this in the same way let your good deeds or let your light shine out before all to see the way that you live your life that light that leads to life and goodness as paul says so that everyone will praise your heavenly father the connection for us is we're not the light of the world because we bring hope we're not the light of the world because we bring power we're the light of the world because we reflect the goodness of jesus in this world y'all are the light of the world you know as i was reading this passage this originally wasn't in my notes i was going to end on this point but i was reading connection cards we tell you every single week that we read your connection cards and it's not a lie we read them and on wednesday night i was reading connection cards after the gathering and someone wrote something on their connection card they said this they said i'm the only believer in my house i'm the only believer in my family and i i want to be a light and my mind was triggered let's go back sorry media people to that first part of the verse says this you are the light of the world like a city on a hilltop that cannot be hidden that's when we turn our lights on all together then he says no one lights a lamp and then puts it under a basket instead a lamp is placed on a stand where it gives light to everyone in the house and i felt a very specific word from god's holy spirit as i read that connection card and i thought of this verse and i i think there are a few people that you're intended to hear this thought is that jesus has placed you as a lamp and he's placed you on a stand and you are giving light to everyone in your house you might be the only believer in this generation in your family you might be the only believer in your household and you're desperately praying for your children you're desperately praying for your spouse you're desperately asking god to have you as a light inside that home and i just want to encourage you don't go home and place your light under a basket you are called to be a light in that house and god is empowering you through his holy spirit to bring light to that entire household to bring light to your family and by the way you don't stand alone because we stand with you as a church and we pray for you we ask god that he would empower you to be a light to your entire house and the message that i felt the holy spirit would want me to say is this i have positioned you and i have placed you on a stand inside that house for a reason i have placed you on a stand for a purpose and i am calling you to bring light to that house and god's god's empowering you you're going to see transformation in your household that spouse we're praying they come to know jesus those children we're praying they come to know jesus those parents that you have that are living inside your house we're praying they come to know jesus you are the light of the world y'all are the light of the world we together are the light of the world and we share jesus hope with the people around us i'm going to encourage you to grab your connection card this is the way that we respond to the message every single week i wrote down a couple ways that you can respond maybe today you'll say this i choose to follow jesus when we did that darkness illustration and life was full of darkness man that feels like me and i need a light in my life that leads to life and that's who jesus is he wants to be that for you maybe today you'll make that decision maybe you're not quite ready to make that decision but you're ready to admit i feel like i'm walking in darkness and i'm trying to find the way to the light i just encourage you come back next week you'll be surprised hanging around people of light that all of a sudden jesus becomes real to you number three you want to make a commitment i will not hide my light in my home i will not hide my light in my business i will not have my light in any part of my life or number four i will be a light for jesus in this world would you stand your feet all over this place we're getting ready to sing a closing song ask god to solidify the word that he's been speaking to our heart god i thank you so much that you sent your son jesus as a light to the world that you sent you came in the form of jesus to a hopeless and a dark world and you gave us life you gave us hope you gave us a future you gave us your power of your spirit god and i pray that we would together as your church be the light of the world that we would be the light of our households and we would be the light of our business places that we would be the light of our neighborhood that together we would be a light like a city on a hilltop that cannot be hidden and that we would pierce the darkness through your power that people would come from afar and see the light and the hope and the life that comes from knowing jesus christ as our lord and savior and that their lives would be transformed and that their lives would be changed and i pray that montana would never be the same because there was a group of people who understood that y'all are the light of the world that y'all reflect the goodness of jesus that y'all represent jesus in this world and i pray that you would receive glory that you would receive honor that you would receive praise as life transformation happens we pray these things we ask you to move them through us and we pray these things in the mighty name of jesus amen come on canvas let's worship [Applause] together [Music] but the name that is [Music] come on let's sing it out [Music] [Music] [Music] is it standing next to me [Music] to me where you'll be everybody cause i know that's where you'll [Music] thank you canvas for being with us this week make sure you fill out the connection cart and respond to one of the four next steps our team reads each of these each week we pray over them as well make sure you check out the app too canvas we love you and we look forward to seeing you next week [Music] [Music] you

Channel: Canvas Church

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Id: nC_FWek-F48

Length: 83min 44sec (5024 seconds)

Published: Sun Aug 08 2021