Children of Light

Darkness is not just “out there.” It shows up in family wounds, secret shame, and the exhausting feeling that you have to earn love to deserve a place. We open John 1 and follow a surprising claim: Jesus doesn’t only come to rescue sinners, he comes to adopt them. That means the gospel is not a ladder you climb, it’s a home you’re welcomed into, turning people who feel like outsiders into “children of light.” 

We also talk about John the Baptist’s role as a witness, not the main attraction. That hits hard in a world where big personalities can steal the spotlight and where church can drift into performance. The point is simple and sharp: Jesus is the true Light. When the message stays centered on “Jesus Christ and him crucified,” faith stops being about charisma and starts being about reality, trust, and the power of God to save anyone who believes. 

Then we get honest about why people resist the light. John 3 names what many of us feel but rarely say: exposure is scary. Shame makes us hide, and hiding keeps us blind. We unpack how lies about God keep people in the dark, and how the cross answers shame with cleansing rather than condemnation. Finally, we connect belief with receiving, explore what childlike humility looks like in real life, and why prayer works best when we approach God as a tender Father who gives grace over performance. 

If you want a clear, Scripture-grounded look at adoption, grace, identity, and freedom from sin’s grip, press play. Subscribe, share this with a friend who needs hope, and leave a review with the line that challenged you most.

Transcript

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Alright. Today's sermon is called The Children of Light. Okay. Children of Light. Some families are healthy. Some are not. Some families are broken. Some families leave scars on

The Longing For A Real Family

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your body.

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A family that should have been loving and safe was dangerous. Some leave memories that you'll treasure forever. And deep inside every single human being is this longing to belong somewhere with someone. And that's that's what our families are supposed to be. We want to be fully known. We want to be fully loved, and we want to be fully accepted. We were created with these wants. We we need this. This isn't just something we want, it's something we need, we crave it. Last week, John showed us that Jesus was the creator of the universe. We studied that last week. He he created everything. This week he shows us something way more shocking and intimate because the creator didn't just come to save sinners.

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He came to adopt them.

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He came so that rebels could become his sons and daughters, even though they didn't deserve it. He came so people living in darkness could become children of light. And he he pictured that like back in creation in Genesis, Jesus Kung Fu kicked the darkness out of the world. He he cre spoke and there was light, right? And that's a foreshadow of the work he does on the cross today. He kicks the darkness, he deletes the darkness out of our lives. So as we continue to look at the book of John today, this is the prologue that we're studying. We're gonna zoom in from the 6,000-year lens, because that's when creation was. If you want to talk about creation science, talk to me later. To 2,000 years ago, when Jesus came and why Jesus came and what that reveals to the world that we're looking at, okay? So let's chew on this section. Uh, there was a man in John chapter 1, verse 3, it says, There was a man uh who was sent from God. His name was John. Now, this is not the same John that's writing the book, it's John the Apostle that's writing the book. This is he's talking about John the Baptist, okay? Uh his name was John too. But this man came as a witness to bear witness of the light that all through him might believe. He

John The Baptist Points To Jesus

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was not the light, but he was sent to bear witness to that light. That was the true light, which was giving light to every man coming into the world. He was in the world, and the world was made through him, but the world did not know him. He came to his own, and his own did not receive him. But as many as received him, to them he gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in his name, who were born not of blood, nor of the will of men, nor of the will of flesh, but of God. Alright, so let's break that down. Okay, the first two verses said there was a man sent from God, his name was John, and this man came as a witness to bear witness to the light that through him all might believe. John the Baptist was the greatest prophet in history. Did you know that? He's the greatest Old Testament prophet in history. You're saying, wait a second, Pastor Flubbing John the Baptist wasn't in the Old Testament. He's in the book of Matthew and Mark and Luke and John. Aha. But he was before Jesus died on the cross. So technically he's a prophet that existed before the new covenant was established, which means he's an old testament prophet. He's the greatest of all of them. It's like God saved his best prophet for last. Okay? He gave 67 prophets to the nation of Israel. 67 people are named prophets in the Old Testament. Did you know that? And some of them men, some of them women, all kinds of people, God sent as prophets. But John was the best. Why? Why was John the best? Well, number one, Jesus says so. But number two, uh, he didn't have to speak in shadows and riddles. He just said really clearly and to the point. He said, when Jesus walked up to be baptized, he's like, behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. Like he was that clear. He didn't have to hide it behind words like Messiah or anointed or all the ways that the Old Testament prophets pointed towards the Messiah. He's just like, this is him right here in flesh and blood. I'm not worthy to unloose his sandals. I love this, he's my cousin. I love him. He knew him. He presented Jesus clearer than anyone else as the Messiah. You ever drive to Las Vegas? No one ever hears sinned in Las Vegas.

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Okay. We got one honest Las Vegas sinner.

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I wasn't talking to you. The one behind you raised her hand. But I see your conscience is. No, I'm just joking. Okay, well, as you know, there is, as you're getting there, there's like signs for the different casinos. It's like circus, circus is coming, right? And as you get there, the signs get bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger. And then the last signs that you get to have an electric draw bigger than this whole island of South Padre. There are these signs that have lights everywhere and they're flashing and they're blinking and there's fireworks going off and they're doing everything they can to tell you this is the last exit for the casino. John the Baptist is that last sign. Okay? He's like, this is Jesus. Get on board or you're gonna miss him. Right? He's telling them all that. Um we're gonna learn more about John the Baptist's uh message here in a couple weeks, but it says here that this man came as a witness to bear witness of the light that all through him might believe. Not through John, but through Jesus. All through Jesus might believe. So the big picture here is that John the Baptist was the best witness possible. He literally, literally everybody believed him. Everybody agreed with him, except for the most evil, wicked, like rulers of Israel. They were the only ones who were kind of intimidated by his power. But literally everyone is like, no, John, John is a really great preacher, and we his even his enemies had no words to argue with what he was saying. God sent his best at just the right time so that all might believe. So God literally sent the best opportunity for everyone to believe. You're like, I wish God would just send, you know. He did. He did the best that we could possibly get so that everyone could believe. And that's God's stated premise of this entire book. As John's writing it, he's like, this entire book is written so that you can believe. Um, because why why why? Because God desires all people to get saved. There's some weird theology out there that says God doesn't want everyone to get saved, he only wants a few chosen people to get saved. That's not true. God wants every person to be saved. And he says that right here. All. He wants all people to get saved. How do they get saved? By believing. By believing. That is the way that salvation happens. That's really super important. And this book of John is written so that anyone who reads it can believe the right thing. And by believing the right thing, it really works. They will get saved. They will be saved by believing the right thing. I have a buddy named Danny. And Danny uh I met him one day. I was um I was a pastor and I was called into the hospital to m to pray with this family, and they had a small child, and the child was dying. They had gotten uh flesh-eating bacteria at a at a lake. And and the child was under six months and and and they were dying. And they did die. But I spent two days in the hospital with this family. And one of the family members, the uncle of this child, was a guy named Danny. And and as we started getting to know each other, we became really close friends and um just loved each other. And his story I I tell you this because his story is he was maybe two years at that point into being a Christian, and he had gotten saved in prison.

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Right, Doug? That's what Doug does. He he gets people saved in prison.

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So Danny had this cellmate, and the cellmate said, Would you read uh the book of John to me? Literally the book of John we're studying right now. And Danny was like, the guy didn't know how to read. And Danny was like, sure, I'll read it to you, but it's not true or anything. So they spent two days reading through the book of John, just reading through it.

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And by the end of that book, Danny looked at the guy and said, Jesus is God, and Jesus loves me, and I believe in him.

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He had no preacher, he had no one telling him anything. All he did was read the book of John, and it trust God's Spirit spoke to him and gave him the truth of the gospel through the book of John. So that's what we're we're reading about here. John the Baptist gave this message that John is giving us of what how to believe, and God will work in us the ability to believe as we study his word and as we are there. Okay. Um, what is believing? What does it mean to believe? Well, in Acts chapter 10, verse 33, Peter is talking to a Gentile family named Cornelius, was the father's name, and he they were the first Gentiles to get saved. So before you, they everyone thought, everyone thought you had to become Jewish to be a believer, to be saved, because that's kind of the way everything worked back then. But God went with through Jesus, God opens the door of salvation to all people, which is great because we're mostly Gentiles in here. I think we're all Gentiles, and that's fine. So God opened the door for us to get saved, and

Belief That Saves And A Prison Story

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Peter tells Cornelius this to him all the prophets witness that through his name, whoever believes in him will receive remission of sins. So the Bible says, God says, anyone who chooses to believe in Jesus, that there is power in his name or his identity, and that and that believing in it will remove all of their sins. So what is believing then? Well, I'll explain more in a minute, uh, because we need to shine more light on this, as you'll see. That's a good joke. You'll get it later. But remember I said that joke. All right, so back to John chapter one. Says, He was not the light, so John the Baptist was not the light, but was sent to bear witness of that light that was the true light, which gives light to every man and was coming to the world. So John the Baptist shows up, sent from God, and and this passage makes it crystal clear, he was not the light, but he came to testify so that people would believe in the light. Okay, what's the point? Christian faith isn't built on a person's charisma or spiritual performance. We were driving through San Antonio this week, and there's like a lot of big churches in Texas. You guys know that? A lot of big churches.

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And sometimes there's like there's this one that's like in an entire stadium, right? What? That's in Houston?

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Okay, yeah, I thought it, I thought it was in Houston. And what's what's really sad

Why Charisma Cannot Create Faith

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is that a lot of these big big churches, not all of them, but a lot of them are built on the charisma of the pastor. People love the they love a really funny, engaging, surface level thing. And that's really sad because he says here, the true light has nothing to do with charisma or performance. It's all built on Jesus. So unless someone is giving you the pure, unadulterated word of God, he is the light. Jesus is the light, he is the life, his name and his identity is all these things. So if someone is looking at me and my personality, it's distracting from the bigger light. Now I might be a light, but I'm not the light. So my goal, and I pray that the goal of every leader in every church is to step aside so that people can look at the true light. That needs to be the most important thing because God will not share his glory with any man. And so we want to see God's blessing here on our church and on all the churches around the nation. So we want this to be the focus. Amen? Amen. All right. So this is why Paul showed us an example of how to stay focused on Jesus. Look at 1 Corinthians chapter 2, verse 2. He said, Paul said, Paul, the greatest preacher of all time, he said, I determine not to know anything among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified.

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Paul, the guy who wrote two-thirds of the New Testament, says, I'm stupid, and all I know is Jesus.

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I can't argue with you, I can't fix you, I can't change you, I'm not gonna try to impress you. I know nothing except Jesus. And we know that he actually knows stuff, he's actually brilliant, but he's committed. He is he knows I'm not the light. Jesus is. Never our talent, never our abilities, never anything that comes from us. His gospel is all we need because his gospel is the light. Who is Jesus? He's God. What did he do? He was crucified and rose again. This is the light. This is the gospel for sinners, or you could call it it's the light for the darkness. And John the Baptist says, This light is coming into the world and it gives light to every person. That means that God has not left humanity in total darkness. You ask the world, where's God? They're like, Where's God when there's sickness? Where's God when there's this? Where's God when there's that? But God has not left us in total darkness. The light has entered the world, and God is drawing, exposing, and making himself known through Jesus. All right. In verse 10, it says, He was in the world, and the world was made through him, and the world did not know him. He came to his own, and his own did not receive him. So we know the world was made through Jesus, but it still didn't know him, even

Rejecting Light Through Shame And Lies

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though, but they had no excuse because he made them. And it gets even more personal. It says he came to his own people, but they didn't receive him. And this shows that the the problem isn't a lack of information, it's a rejection of light. That's the problem. It's never that someone doesn't know enough information, it's that they choose to reject the light. Why do they do this? Well, in John chapter 3, it tells us why. It says, and this in and this is the condemnation that the light has come into the world, but men love darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil. For everyone practicing evil hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed. What does all that describe? It describes one big word, which is shame.

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Shame.

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So Jesus is gonna deal with shame on the cross. That's the light that he's bringing. He's gonna say, I'm gonna deal with your shame. I'm gonna forgive you 100%, I'm gonna cleanse you with my blood on the cross. And not just shame, but shame causes us to live in blindness. And his cross also, his light also cures blindness. Look in 2 Corinthians chapter 4, verse 3. But even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing, whose minds the God of this age has blinded, who do not believe. Why are they blind? Because they don't believe. So Satan is going around the whole world tricking people just not to believe the gospel. He twists the truth with lies. He trifft twists the truth with lies. He says, God doesn't want you to have fun. He says, children are a burden. Children are not a blessing, they're a burden. He says, God is unjust. He says, God is hateful. If God was loving, then why would all these painful things have been happening to you? All of these things are lies that Satan uses to trick people out of the light. He just wants to get them out of the light to keep them living in the dark. Because the biggest lie he's he whispers in your ears, you don't want to be exposed, do you?

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You remember Adam and Eve in the garden? Ah, we're naked. You were exposed.

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That's always been Satan's whisper. That's been his strategy. When God is simply giving light, which is his love. So back to our text, verse 12. But as many as received him, to them he gave the right to become children of God to those who believe in his name, who were not born, who were born not of blood, nor of the will of flesh, but, or nor the will of man, but of God. So here we have the word receive and believe used interchangeably. So believing in the Bible is

Receiving Jesus With Childlike Humility

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the same as receiving. Spurgeon is my favorite preacher from the 1800s, England. Okay? He's called the Prince of Preachers. He was an incredible preacher. And I so I do Spurgeon quotes, and I do this little ditty, Spurgeon quote, Spurgeon quote. So here's your Spurgeon quote for the day. Ready? Faith is described as receiving Jesus. It is the empty cup placed under the flowing stream. The penniless hand held out for heavenly alms. That's what it means to receive. Okay, do you see the humility in that? Right? And this is the heart of the gospel of grace. We believe and receive. These go together. And God supernaturally makes us his children. In Greek, it's his little ones. His little ones. Isn't that cute? What does he mean by that? Well, Jesus tells us in Matthew 18, verse 1, it says, at that time the disciples came to Jesus saying, Who then is greatest in the kingdom of heaven? And Jesus called a little child to Him and set him in the midst of them. And said, Assuredly I say to you, unless you are converted as become and become as little children, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven. Little children demonstrate humility. And God has seen it fit to give us a wonderful example of little children. Thank you, Boogie. You're amazing. We love you. You're awesome. And we are glad that we can be patient with children because God has been patient with us.

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How many times have we screamed and cried when things didn't go our way? Or when we were uncomfortable. And God said, Oh my little children, I love you. I'm gonna take care of you.

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I'm never gonna look down on you for your anything. I'm gonna be a good father to you. And we're blessed to have little children in our room in our church today that remind us of God's fatherly heart. And I thank all of you for being so loving and kind to the kids here in our church because they don't know what I'm talking about usually. And it's a blessing that they see a loving family that they know they go to a loving family every Sunday. So thank you guys for being a part of the lives of the little kids in here.

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And you guys are amazing for coming every week. We love you guys.

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Um so little children show us what humility looks like. What is humility? It's it's knowing that you need somebody. I have a dirty diaper. What are you gonna do for me? I need food. What are you gonna do for me? I'm bored. What are you gonna? It's it's knowing that someone else is gonna meet your needs. That's humility. How do we know that that works with grace? Because James 4, 6 says God gives grace to the humble, but opposes the proud. So when we say, Oh, I don't got I don't need God today, I don't need God for this area of my life, this area of my life, I decide what my identity is, I decide what I do. That's pride, and we're cutting ourselves off from the grace of God, this light. We're literally putting ourselves in the darkness. And James 6 says, God gives grace to the humble, and so we become his children when we live with humility, and this means he is a father. So we're gonna look for a moment at the infinite fatherliness of God. What does it mean that God is a father? He loves being a father, and he willed, that means he wanted to make us his little children and to be our father. He invented the whole idea of fatherliness, and so he's gonna show us what that fatherliness is, and he does it through his grace. The first thing I'm gonna point out is that there's a difference between earthly fathers and a heavenly

God’s Fatherly Care And How Prayer Works

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father. In Matthew chapter 7, Jesus says, You have earthly parents, and they disciplined you as seemed best to them, and you paid them honor, but you have a heavenly father who will discipline you because it's what he knows what's best for you, but he'll also give you good gifts. And Jesus contrasts the gifts. He says, Would you if your child asked for an egg, would you give him a scorpion and say, Bah! There you go. Of course you wouldn't because that's weird and hateful. Why would you give something dangerous to your child? But he says, when you ask your heavenly father for something, he cares for you infinitely more than your earthly father, and he will give you what's good for you, and he will not give you something that's dangerous for you. He takes through he cares for you as his children, which means he takes the responsibility for your life with love. He truly loves you, and he's gonna supply what you're need, what you need through something he calls prayer. So he says, as my children, I want you to grow in praying for everything, to ask for everything, to be in prayer constantly and coming to me and allow me to be a father that gives to you what you need. He will supply to you what you need. He will teach us to live by faith and simple trust in him and trusting in his free gifts that he gives. And he will he will break us of, as his children, he will break us of our addiction to supplying our own life or figuring out, figuring out our own way to live life. We have an addiction to like, I have to figure out my way, I have to know what's coming, I have to know where my rent is coming from and where this is coming. We have an addiction to this control, and he will break us of that. He will not allow those things to be fruitful when we trust in them because he says, I am your only father, I am your heavenly father, and our relationship matters. And so the second thing that he's teaching us is that he wants us to understand the power of childlike trust through prayer. So when we pray, it's gonna flow from a deep revelation of God as our tender, loving Father. He's not a distant judge that's like, have you earned my favor today? Have you earned my grace today? It never works like that. He is constantly inviting us into a relationship where there's no distance. There's, I feel like in a lot of Christians' relationship with God, there's this unchildlike distance where we're like, I'm an adult. God wants me to act like an adult. No, he doesn't.

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He wants you to act like a kid. You say good, yeah. He wants you to depend on him as a kid and be not child-ish, but childlike.

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Okay, filled with love and trust in him. So he doesn't want us to have this distance. We accept and receive this relationship of father-child by humility and faith. That's how we walk in this father-child relationship. We ask him for what we need, we ask him for what we want. And when we're hurt or confused, we run to our father, and he is our counselor, and he is our comforter. And all of these things that we're describing is called constant abiding. Believers should not just ask their father for their request when they need something, but be going to him in everything. And I know the thought that pops in our head. Well, I have prayed and he didn't answer me. That pops in our head, doesn't it? And just know that thought did not come from the Holy Spirit inside you, it came from the enemy of your soul who will accuse God of things that God is not guilty of. And he will make you think you thought that thought when you didn't think that thought, that thought came from his thoughts. God asks us to live in his presence as his child, and that makes a life of answered prayer just natural. Every day God is answering prayers.

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Right?

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And then the last little vignette of his fatherliness I want you to think about is grace over performance. As God is your heavenly father, he is not measuring your performance against other people or against this imaginary standard that you may put on yourself.

Grace Over Performance And Freedom From Sin

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He relates to you only and exclusively based on grace. He knows your weakness, and he knows what his grace has already forgiven you of everything, and he's working in you to transform you and change the things that need changed. He takes responsibility for that. He says, your focus should be keep your eyes on me, keep this relationship, number one, and I will transform the way you think and the things that you do. He's not he knows you because he's your father, and he is not disappointed in you.

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Let me say it again. He is not disappointed in you. And then God, my father, has washed that shame away.

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He has washed all the shame away. And when he looks at me, he does not see my failures, he sees the righteousness of Jesus Christ in me, living through me. And he that's the reality of who I am in him. We could go around this room and list the sins that we have been set free from.

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It would take a while.

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And if anyone is still struggling with those issues, he's coming to rescue you also, probably today. Because God's children must and shall go free. God's children must and shall go free. Why? Because their life source flows from the source of all freedom. He is the light. So his grace and truth will surely make all of his children free.

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It works. Free from what?

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From sin. Are you preaching sinless perfection? No, that's not what we're talking about. But we are freed from the penalty of sin. So you will not face the penalty of sin and the power of sin. Sin will not have power over you. We see this in Romans 6.14. The Bible says, sin shall not have dominion over you, for you're not under the law, but under grace. What does that mean? It means grace, the fatherly relationship of God that we have, is the total solution for all sin problems. There's never something you have to do that you're responsible for, except bring your sin to God and lay it at his feet, freely giving it to him. The only sin that will keep hold on you is sin that you keep hold of. And you don't allow, just let go and bring to him. The only sin we're not free from is the sin we're trying to hide or hold on to for later. That's the only sin that can overcome us. Because grace is so powerful, it changes our very identity from children of darkness to children of light. And by his scars, by his blood, by his cross, we are transformed from rebels of darkness to children of light.

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Father, we love you. We love you because we have been loved first by you.

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And Father, there's um a resistance in us from believing that you could be a good father. Maybe it's because our earthly fathers were not always a good example of love and faithfulness and

Closing Prayer For Trust And Purity

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gentleness and support and all the things that we need. But Father, your word tells us that you are a good father, and that we become your little children as we believe in the name of Jesus Christ. We believe in his identity, we throw ourselves under his blood at his cross. Set us free from all sin, Jesus. Help us to live purely devoted to you and your kingdom and living with our Father in perfect fellowship, unbroken at all times. And teach us to pray, Jesus. In your name I ask. Amen.