Scared of the Dark

[Music] Glory to God! Good morning church! We have a new series and we're all excited already. Wow! Scared of the death? It's a three week series and it's going to be awesome. I'm quite excited about this series and who dive right into it. You know, when the topic of this series came along, the first thing that came to my mind was, darkness was never God's plan, you know?

Darkness is never what God wants for any of us as His children. Let's just bow our head to pray. It's really hard coming out from Sara leading the service. I know she really struggled to bring us back into what we're meant to do today. I'm currently still struggling with it.

Father, we thank you for who you are over our lives. We thank you for this series that we're about to begin because indeed we know that you are the light of the world. We thank you for who you are and who you have revealed yourself to be to us. Lord, as we go into your word, Lord, none of me, Lord Jesus, but all of you, none of me, Lord Jesus, but all of you, that we would learn at your feet this morning that our hearts will be renewed, that lives will be changed and lives will be transformed in the mighty name of Jesus. Amen, amen.

So we're just starting, so we're starting off this morning. This is new for me because I have my laptop. I never use my laptop. I'm very old school. I always have my notebook, so I'm trying. So please be patient with me this morning. I don't know if any of us have ever been scared of the dark.

Have we ever been scared of the dark? For some people as an adult, yeah. I have hands up. Same here. Yes, me too. But we have someone who would say, "Oh, as an adult, I'm not scared of the dark. Come on. I'm bigger than that." But let me take you back to when we were children.

You know, age three, age four, five. I was really scared of the dark. So I would give you a scenario of a young girl living in Nigeria. Sometimes no power, so no electricity. So you have to either put on a generating system or you have lanterns. So growing up we had lanterns and when your mom moves from one room to the other, she moves with the lantern.

So you're left clinging to her feet. I am left clinging to my mom's feet. So, "Oh, mommy, don't leave me here. She's, oh, we're going to the sitting room. Okay, mommy, I'm running right after her and then we're done. Oh, we're going to the kitchen." So, I grew up really being scared of the dark.

But with time, you know, I overcame it. But for some people, it would be not being able to walk up the stairs without putting on the lights in the house or just moving from your bedroom into the toilet. We experience this in different areas of our lives and in different shapes. But the strength thing about darkness, the strength thing about darkness is that it doesn't, it doesn't necessarily change what happens or what's in that present state. I would explain.

So let's say for example in your bedroom you've got your bedroom, you've got your bed, your cupboard, you've got every other item in it. Now when there is light, those things you see them, you feel them, you know what it is, you know how to navigate. But immediately there is darkness. Your head begins to bring up scenarios. Oh my god, if I take two steps I may hit the wall.

Or I may bump, I may bump into a chair. Nothing has changed from what is real to you. Nothing has changed. Your bedroom is still your bedroom. That sitting room is still your sitting room really. But immediately there is darkness. You feel lost even if it's a familiar territory, even if it's somewhere you're used to.

Immediately there's no light. You feel like you are in a different space. Your imagination starts filling in the gaps. You see a court stand and you a court stand and you think, is there someone standing there? Literally you begin seeing things moving and then you may start hearing weird noises.

But that's just the darkness creating things in your head. Your room is still your room when the light comes up. Nothing has moved from where it's meant to be. I say that the darkness has a way of making us feel vulnerable. So for some of us, darkness is not just when the sun goes down or when the power is out or when the light is out.

There is more to it. It's not just literally what we think that, oh, immediately there's no light or immediately we don't have power, then that's just darkness. We hear people say, "I'm just in a dark place." You know, "I'm having some dark thoughts ." Or, "It's just a dark time."

I don't know if you've had phrases like that. You know, I have. I've used phrases like that before. Because at that time, I was going through things. But for some people, you know, they feel like they are being trapped. Not seeing a way out. Not seeing a future.

For someone going through that, that's darkness. It may not be just the light out. It may be life experiences. So, people see darkness in different ways in their lives. Sometimes, darkness is fear of the future. The future may feel bleak. You know, you can't really plan your life.

You don't see yourself doing anything better than what you are at the moment. Let's take a look at the world around us. We have injustice. We have war. We have discrimination. We have bullying. For some people, that's darkness. So we look into the society.

We see people suffering. Sometimes it's the pain people carry, the grief, the loss of a loved one. The darkness is out there. Let's be honest. We're going to say just the way it is. The darkness is out there. And sometimes we feel it around us as well.

So over the next three weeks, we're going to be exploring a powerful statement that was made by John in John's the gospel. It's in John 1, verse 5. So over these three weeks, I want us to ponder on this word, chew on it, stay on the word, focus on it, keep our gaze on it. It says, "The light shines in the darkness and the darkness have not overcome it." I will read the amplified version of this.

It's John chapter 1 verse 5. I'm reading the amplified version. It says, "The light shines in the darkness and the darkness did not understand it." It also says, "The darkness did not overpower it." The light shines in the darkness, meaning the darkness is present.

It's not saying, "Oh, the darkness is not there." It's not in denial. But what it says is, "Light shines in that darkness." And the darkness did not understand it. The darkness did not overpower it. So yes, the darkness is there. But what happens? Light shines in the darkness.

There is a beam of hope. There is a beam of light in that same darkness. And when the light comes, the darkness flees. Yes, I would say it again. When light comes, the darkness flees. Well, as Christians and as children of God, see Christianity didn't begin with saying, "Oh, cover up your pain."

Or, "Your pain is not in existence." Or, "Hide it with a smile." Or, "Denying the realities of life." Instead, what the Bible does is the Bible looks, honestly, at the word. It looks at the human heart. And it tells us that the answer to our deepest darkness isn't simply just, "Oh, try harder."

Or, "Think more positively." Or, "Oh, no, you can be a better version of yourself." What it says and what it tells us is that the answer is in the name of Jesus. The answer is Jesus. It's as simple as that. It's not complicated. The answer is Jesus. So today, as we begin, "Scared of the Dark," I want us to think about three things.

One, darkness is more than what we can see. I'll repeat it again. Darkness is more than what we can see. Two, we often hide because the light exposes us. And three, Jesus doesn't just show us the light. He is the light. Glory to God. Jesus doesn't just show us the light.

Jesus indeed is the light. He is the light of the world. Throughout this series, we have a slogan we're going to keep saying to ourselves in between messages, in between worship. And when we say the darkness is real, we respond, the light is greater. Let's practice it.

I call out to you, the darkness is real and you say what? The light is greater. Church, the darkness is real, the light is greater. Glory to God. We're not saying the darkness is not there. We're not saying the darkness is not real. The darkness is there.

This reminds us, you know, that the darkness is real, but indeed we have a light that is greater than the darkness. A light that would take away the darkness. Let's read our main scripture for this morning. It's first John, it's John chapter one. John chapter one.

I'm going to be reading from verse one to five. It says, "In the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God himself. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made and came into existence through him and without him not even one thing was made that has come into being. In him was life and the life was the light of men.

The light shines in the darkness and the darkness did not understand it. In the beginning was the word. That word is Christ. Okay? And the word was with God and the same word was God himself. Glory to God. I will jump again to verse five. It says, "The light shines in the darkness and the darkness did not comprehend it."

I want us to see how John started this scripture. He started with telling us who God was and who Jesus was. He wasn't telling us about how Jesus was born in a manger. He went straight straight up to the reality of who God is to us, who Jesus is to us and that he is the light of the world. So John describes Jesus as the world who was there in the beginning.

Through him who all things were made and in him himself it was found, the life is described as light. The light shines in the darkness and the darkness did not understand it. See, the darkness is there, but it is not the end of the story. You know, sometimes we experience darkness and we want to throw in the towel. You want to give up.

When you think about it, you say, "I can't do this anymore." That's not the end of the story. This is the beginning. It needs to come. Darkness cannot last forever. The Bible says that "weeping may endure for a night." Hey, but joy comes in the morning.

Weeping may end. So the first point is, I said earlier that for some, you know, we think that darkness is just about us not having light or not having power, but there's more to that. There's more to darkness. We look at the darkness around the world, things happening. And then we look at the darkness in our own lives.

You know sometimes it's easy to say, "Well, I'm not the one causing the injustice." "Oh, I'm not discriminating against anyone." "Oh, I'm not the one causing the war." You know, these are things we could always point fingers at. Either we can say, "Oh, it's the government," or "It's the policies."

These things are happening because this person is doing it wrong, or because that person is doing it wrong. Let's take a minute and look inward. There is darkness in our own lives as well. What's happening in our hearts? Things people are not seeing.

That little envy, jealousy, it may be that someone has got something you were really wanting for, you were looking for a job and someone just shared a testimony and just said, "Oh, I got this job." And you're like, "Come on, I've been asking for this job as well." You know, you may also be believing God for something and that's somebody else's miracle, that's somebody else's reality. And deep down in your heart, there's just this little bit of jealousy. So now we're no more pointing fingers to the world.

Let's think of ourselves. What are we doing? That little anger when you just get pressured. You know, we can be very good to identify darkness in other people's lives, but it's really hard for us to look inwardly sometimes. Almost all the time, really, I can speak from my own experience.

You know, it's easy to see what someone else is doing wrong. It's so hard to see what Ruth is doing wrong. You know, I haven't done anything wrong. Come on. I have not. Have I? But you feel like, oh, I'm not really hurting anybody. It's just the way I am.

Or sometimes we say things like, they made me do that. He made me get angry. Or he pushed me beyond my limits. Sometimes our experiences really have hurt. And we understand that these things matter. The Bible invites us to be honest about it, you know, to look down inside it and be honest about it, because what God wants to bring to us is freedom, not condemnation.

He wants to bring freedom to us, freedom into our hearts. The darkness can make us feel really lost. I give an example earlier of having a very familiar space. You're used to being in this space and then darkness comes and it looks like you're in a different place entirely. And then you switch on the light and you're like, "Oh, nothing has changed.

My television is still standing wait. It's meant to be. The sofas are here. The dining table is there." When the light is off, it looks like you're confused. You don't know where to go to. You don't know where to turn. Sometimes we make wrong turns in the darkness.

I think that's how spiritual darkness is as well. We lose sight of what matters. We begin to believe that our mistakes define us. We become consumed with worry. We begin to struggle with God's faithfulness. I believe very strongly that darkness can actually distort our perspective of what God is doing in our lives.

If we can't see clearly, we can end up walking in the wrong direction even without realizing it, physically and spiritually. And I think that's why we need light. Not just an encouragement or a few helpful tips. John says that the life is found in Jesus and that his life is the light of humanity. So Jesus shows us the truth about God.

So at the end of the day, we need to find ourselves back to that light. My second point is we often hide because the light exposes us. So some people we want to hide in the darkness because the light shows some things we're trying to hide. You know, a bright light would show our excesses, things we're struggling with. Sometimes it's just comfortable to just be in the dark because well no one is going to see me and no one is going to see the things I'm hiding.

For example, you have a house that's not well-leated, dark, the curtains are drawn and you haven't been cleaning the house, of course it's dark, you really haven't been cleaning it and then you decide to open the curtains and then you see the dust, you see the dirt, then you begin to realize that oh I actually thought I was in a clean environment but mold is building up, you have dust on your furniture, that's how it is for some of us. We want to cover up those things we're struggling with. Remember I said it's not for condemnation, remember. The light reveals what the darkness conceals. Also I know that being exposed can be very uncomfortable so I'm not going to lie lie about it or try to hide it.

Being exposed can be very uncomfortable. In John chapter 3, verse 19 to 21, John 3, I will just paraphrase. So in this scripture, Jesus speaks about light coming into the world and how people love darkness rather than light because their deeds are evil. So sometimes we resist the light because we don't want it to reveal some things. In the scenario I gave about the dark room, the light didn't create the mess but the mess was already there.

So sometimes God works like that in us. We hear a sermon, we listen to the word of God, we come for prayer meetings and he begins to change our hearts. He begins to transform our minds. He begins to renew our hearts. And then we realize that we begin to drop these things one after the other.

Hiding doesn't heal us. Let's think about Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. After they realized they were naked, the first thing they did was to go and hide. But that didn't do much. So when we hide, it doesn't heal us. Jesus exposes us to heal us, not to destroy us.

So for some people, they hear a message about sin and then they feel like God is angry with them. That's not the case. Or we feel like, oh, we failed. That's not the case. Jesus wants us to come to Him. He cares about us. One thing I know is that Jesus doesn't just show us the light.

Jesus is the light. I think that's the deal changer. That's the game changer. He doesn't just show us the light. He is the light. I want to try and explain this in a very simple way. Remember we said the darkness has always been there and the light shines in the darkness.

And now we're saying that Jesus is the light. When we read the book of John, John doesn't just leave us saying, "Oh, that's five." John 1 verse 5. I'll go back to it. So, from verse 4, it says, "In him was life, and the life was the light of men." He could have ended it there, but he doesn't leave us there.

He says that, "The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not understand it." Jesus indeed is that light. That light that overcame the world, Jesus indeed is that light. As we sit down and reflect, I will jump to the last line. We say, "Bring your darkness into light."

Our struggles, whatever it is, it comes in surrender to Jesus, which is the light. I took out this week to think about it and say, "What is Jesus to me, Ruth? What do I understand as the life that Jesus represents in my life?" And I realized that as a young girl, that's all I've had, Jesus. That name Jesus.

And how that light illuminates our life. It shines upon our life. It takes charge of everything around us. It takes control of our being. Perhaps you've spent a long time, you know, to manage things on your own strength. Perhaps you've been hiding it, hoping it would go away one of these days.

I don't know what it is. You know, you know what it is. Whatever it is, you can bring it at the feet of Jesus this morning. Is it hurt? Whatever it is, the light of God can illuminate our lives. And separate us from darkness. It is not the will of God for His children to be in darkness.

So the light of God can shine on that situation and illuminate it. Where you think you're confused, where you think you don't know what to do, where you're asking for help, where you're asking for direction, where you're asking for a way, where you're saying where can I turn to, who can I turn to, or who can rescue me? Jesus is that answer. After all that I said and done, Jesus is that answer. No matter the hustling and the bustling of our lives, getting involved in every other thing, when we come to a crossroad and we don't have answers, and it looks like the road is, is, is, is blurry.

Jesus is that answer. Today you can begin to, you can bring, you can begin by bringing yourself honestly to Jesus. You don't need all the answers. You simply need to come to Him. One of the greatest decisions I ever made in my life, as a young girl in seventh grade school, was to come to high school here, was giving my life to Jesus.

Leading on Him to shine His light over me. A young teenager who was confused of life, who didn't even know what tomorrow would bring. But relying on that name, to bring His light upon my life. I regretted that decision. Oh, I have never regretted giving my all to Him.

My life, my heart, my all. all. Let's bow our head this morning. We thank you that you are the light of the world. We thank you that you don't turn away from us when we are struggling, when we are afraid or when we are ashamed. We thank you, Lord Jesus, that you see us completely and you still invite us to come to you.

Please, Lord Jesus, shine your light into the dark places of our lives where we are afraid, help us to trust you, where we have sinned, help us to be honest, to repent and to receive your forgiveness, where we are hurting, bring comfort and help us to find the support that we need, Lord Jesus, and where we feel lost, show us the next step, and where we have been hiding, Lord Jesus, give us the courage to come to your light. Help us remember that the darkness is real, but it is not greater than you. Teach us to follow you, to trust you, and to work in your light. In Jesus' precious name we have prayed, Amen.