JESUS SAID, "i AM THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD"

Scripture Reading--

Old Testament Psalms 27

New Testament St. John 8:1-12

Responsive Reading-- Seventeenth Sunday

First Reading--Christ the Light Pg. 582

Jesus had just completed His remarkable interview with the adulterous woman she was brought to him by a crowd of eager Pharisees who proposed she be stoned to death. He had just finished saying..."Go and sin no more" when he declared, "I am the light of the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life".

Jesus said emphatically "I am the light of the world", but he also said, "Ye are the light of the world." There is no contradiction here. We can be the light of the world only because He is the light of the world and because He, being in us shines out through us.

Jesus said, "As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world," Almost I hear him continue, and when I am no longer in the world, I must rely upon you. Then you must be the light of the world.

I do not know what darkness of doubt or uncertainty, of grief or disappointed, may surround you, but I do know that Jesus is the light and that He can make plain a way ahead for you.

Friends often advise and cheer us, friends comfort and strengthen us, but the best advise a friend could ever give us is to put our trust, our life our all in the keeping of the One who said, "I am the light of the world, he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life."

Here if I may, I want to interpose a parable. Imagine with me that I have a friend who is a jeweler. Let us imagine that he has just been promoted and is in charge of a very fine shop of which he is very proud, and that he says to me, although it is late, I want to show you my shop. So although it is dark and late, I go with him and we enter the shop, and I wonder why he keeps me waiting in the dark so long. Well, he is removing the covers from the show cases before turning on the light. Then suddenly he turns on the electric light. In a fraction of a second a thousand reflections reach my eyes from the shining silver and jewels in the cases before me. They have no light of themselves, but as soon as he turned the light on, every one of them leaps up at me with this message: "Though we have no light within ourselves we reflect the light that is above us."

Let us remember Jesus not only said: I am the light of the world." He also said, "Ye are the light of the world." When we begin to think of some of our Christian friends, the people who have made life rich and meaningful to us, we realize that though perhaps they have no spiritual light of themselves, their lives are beautiful because they continually reflect His light. They fling back into this dark world a radiance they get from Him.

It is part of my message this morning that we can do this too. Can He count on us to reflect Him, or have we become too tarnished, to dusty to care. "Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father who is in Heaven."

There is yet something else about the light in the jewelers shop, it not only reveals the splendor of the jewels, but also the things that ought not to be there at all. A cobweb, or a dusty shelf, paper on the floor.--trays in disarray.

While darkness reigned in the shop these things were not apparent, but as soon as the light is turned on they can be seen-- Jesus is the light in this sense also. Men walked in darkness and did not always know what the darkness covered. When Jesus "Blazed" into the world, men knew that certain things they had always accepted and done were wrong. "This is the judgement", says John, "that the light is come." (John3:19)

Electric power is a wonderful thing, with it we can light up whole cities. It is the dynamo from which we get electricity to light up cities, yet the dynamo does not create electricity, it just lets it break through. It is the same with the spiritual energies that are within us. We do not create them but we can let them break through and shine forth as lighted lives. We are candles of the Lord. Have you ever stopped to consider how many candles can be lighted from one feeble little candle.

Just suppose for a moment that all the workers on a building site said: "Let's forget the blue prints Let's each work out our own ideas!" When you saw the finished house (if it was ever finished), you'd laugh and say don't tell me there's a designer behind all this.

That is what has happened in the world for a good many centuries, and is still happening today.

What proportion of all the people in the world do you suppose, are following the Designer's blueprint? A pretty small number I dare say. Many, of course, don't know about it, many don't bother to consult it, and a lot of people prefer their own ideas. If the results are chaotic can we blame the Designer?

This blue print is found in the New Testament. There we can read of a God who broke through from the real and permanent world into this life of time and space by becoming a Man. He was thus able not only to give men the blueprint for living but to live it out in person. Among us in fact, you might say that he personally was the blueprint. And it becomes pretty plain as you read that if only men would live according to that design, the world would quickly recover and become infinitely better and happier place.

At present there is only a mere handful who have studied the plan and are trying to cooperate with the designer.

What about you? Do you say, "Who need the blueprint" and then try to shift the blame for all the mess on God, the designer? Or are you daily seeking to live according to God's Plan.

Consider the influence of the life of Jesus. It has been said He never wrote a book. He never held an office. He never owned a home. He never had a family. He never went to college. He never traveled two hundred miles from the place he was born. He had no credentials but himself. Yet, We are well within the mark when we say that all the armies that ever marched, and all the navies that were ever built, and all the parliaments that ever sat, and all the kings that ever reigned, put together, have not affected the life of man upon this earth as powerfully as has this one solitary life.

Jesus you see identified Himself with the great idea: He lived for a supreme objective :The Kingdom of God". He says," To this end was I born and for this cause came I unto the world, that I should bear witness unto truth." (John 18:37)

Here then my brothers is one way to make a simple life truly influential. It is to serve God instead of gold, to invest yourself in men instead of markets. It is to live for the long term instead of temporary values. It is to put the Church first instead of last. It is to identify yourself with great causes instead of petty satisfactions.

Do this and one solitary life, one small candle, however humble, becomes great in stature and matchless in it's endless influence among men.--

Jesus said,"I am the light of the world, he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life."

"Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father who is in heaven.

Let Us Pray.

Our dear Heavenly Father we pray that thou will keep us in the center of thy will. Help us to shine for thee in a mighty way. Increase our vision - lift our horizons - intensify our zeal, that we might in all times seek they face: That we might love our neighbors as ourselves. -That we might live lighted lives. -Amen

used at Nottingham - Methodist

used at Collinwood Methodist 8/19/62

used at Zion & Union Ave 8/7/65