Sermon Central
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Christmas Candlelight Service
Contributed by Bruce Ball on Dec 18, 2007 (message contributor)
Summary: One candle pierces the darkness, but many candles together shed light on everything within the darkness. Text & audio will be placed at www.sermonlist.com
‘And the angel spoke to the shepherds and said, “Do not be afraid. I bring you good news of great joy that will be for al the people. Today, in the town of David, a Savior has been born to you; He is Christ the Lord.”
And Christ was born. For centuries before this, mankind had wondered what God looked like, and on this night, the night of Heavenly hosts, God took off His mask and showed us what He looked like in the form of the Christ-child. God was love. And He sent His only Son to save us.
JOHN 3:16 says it best.
“For God so loved the world that He sent His only begotten Son, so that whosoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life.”
There was a man who was in a hospital, undergoing surgery. Everything went fine until he came out of recovery. When he awoke, he found himself to be totally blind. He opened his eyes to utter darkness, and utter silence. Can you imagine knowing something is wrong, but not know what is wrong? Can you imagine not knowing where you are, and in addition to that, you are blind and cannot see? What kind of fear would that invoke in you?
The man panicked and started yelling for someone to help him. And he had the presence of mind to stay put until that help arrived.
Mankind is in the same situation. We are utterly lost, and are blinded to the truth, but unlike that man, we all-too-often do not have the presence of mind to scream for help and then do nothing until that help arrives.
But there remains a solid truth, whether or not we wish to acknowledge it. Jesus was sent to save us; to offer us the only way out of this sinful and dark world. As humans we need a lifeline to grab on to, and a light to show us the way. Jesus is that lifeline and He is that light.
We must fully realize three things in our walk with the Lord.
1. JESUS IS THE ONLY LIGHT
In JOHN 8:12 Jesus said,
"I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will have the light of life and will never walk in darkness."
Have you ever walked down a country road without a lantern or flashlight? I have, and I will tell you something; it can get very dark. In fact, it can get so dark you literally cannot see the path in front of you. There are no street lights out in the country. And unless there is a full moon, you will not be able to see anything.
This world is spiritually dark, so we need a light to see where we are going. Jesus is the light in this dark world. He is the light that our spirit needs to see by. And the pathway He lights is the path of righteousness for His name’s sake.
The first thing we must do is realize that we need to follow Jesus. He is our only source of light in this spiritually dark world. And as such …
2. JESUS IS OUR ONLY SAVIOR
1 JOHN 1:8 tells us,
“If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.”
Realizing that we are sinful is one thing, but we must also realize just what that sin will cost us.
ROMANS 6:23 tells us what the cost of sin is.
“For the wages of sin is death…”
According to this part of the verse, if we sin, we die. That means we will live forever without God, and that place is described as hell. It is imperative that we fully realize just how serious sin is.
But there is good news here, too. That same verse goes on to say, “… but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
Once we realize that we are sinners and that spiritual death is the price we will have to pay for our sins, we will see the need to turn to Jesus Christ. But when we choose to submit or lives to Him, we will be forgiven from paying that price.
And once we have been forgiven from our sins, we acquire a responsibility. That responsibility is so heavy that many of us do not want to bear its load.
We are all born into a sinful world; therefore, all of us are creatures of sin. The only way we can go to Heaven is to be saved from our sin.
On the Bill O’Reilly a couple years ago, he and Barbara Walters were discussing Heaven. It was obvious that neither one of them knew anything at all about Heaven or what it takes to get there. Ms. Walters said she is a ‘secular Jew’, and she is not sure what we need to believe to get to Heaven. Mr. O’Reilly said we needed to be good people to get to Heaven.
