So what is our theme for our study
today?
Walking in the light.
In 2 Corinthians chapter 3, Paul said, some
people's eyes are blocked, they are blinded, so
that they will not see the glory of
Christ that is on His face.
It is like the sun is shining bright
in the morning time or noon, and you
close your eyes and you put a blindfold
and you can't see one thing.
So Paul says, Satan has blinded the eyes
of some people so they will not see
the glory that is on the face of
Jesus.
It is like parents, they lock a room
door with two or three locks and inside,
unbelievable amount of attractive toys, writing pens or
whatever the children want, but the problem is
that they stand outside, the door is locked,
they cannot walk in and they don't see
it.
It is all inside.
So, it is a sad thing.
And so one of the things that should
cause these people, I think should say, it
is like several times, demon possessed people, I
asked the question when I was praying for
them, do you want to be free in
the time of that few seconds of sanity
they have?
And the answer always was yes.
And so this individual should be praying, Lord,
honestly, honestly, I don't fully understand Christ.
Please, whatever is hindering, remove from my eyes
that I may see him.
That could be a prayer and God answers
prayer.
When, think about this other sentence, let this
mind be in you that was in Christ
Jesus.
Now, as far as our mind, if you
don't ask questions, we just say mind, but
as far as it is concerned, you think
the details, you are processing information, you go
to buy a sari or buy a cloth
or a pen, you are thinking, you are
looking at it, you are studying it, and
you look at the name, where it is
made.
You see, all those details go into it,
buy a vehicle, that is true.
And let this mind be in you, and
Christ obviously had two minds.
One was he had the mind of God
as a man, he walked on earth as
God, also as a man, he walked on
earth as a man, and he had to
make choices.
It was not a make-believe, fooling people,
God walking on earth and pretending to be
a man.
No, he was fully a man.
So we are the children of Adam.
So when he says, let this mind be
in you, that was in Christ Jesus, that
means there is a choice we make, also
it is evident, there is a choice, there
is a choice.
Even the voice that you hear from the
innermost core of your conscience says no.
But your flesh and the externals cry out,
it is the best opportunity, grab it.
But the choice now you must make is,
a faint, hardly can hear, the spirit whispers,
don't.
But the attraction, the immediate benefit of saying
yes to that is so loud, and so
many around you saying do that.
And then you say no, based on although
the faint, hardly can hear the voice is
there.
Process this.
And then look at this statement.
Jesus said, I am the light of the
world.
I mean, we read that.
As long as I am here in this
world, I am the light of the world.
What does that mean?
You think he turned into sun and moon?
So we just say I am the light
of the world.
So what?
Was he a flashlight?
Or sun or moon?
Or street light?
What does that mean?
Of course we read another statement.
In him was life, and that life was,
anybody remember?
The light of men.
That's what we read about Jesus in the
gospel.
So here you have light and life.
So in him was life, and that life
was the light of men.
By the way, just give a little help.
That life you're talking about, the word is
soy.
That means it's uncreated, untouched.
It is of a different world.
It is God's life without tainted with sin.
And in him was the pure life, unfailed
like Adam.
And his very life became the light of
men.
What is light for?
To figure out which way we are going
to go, and what we are going to
do, and what we are going to see,
and all these things.
So his life becomes the light of men.
What does that mean now?
Think about it.
Okay, all of you are making decisions about
a thousand things.
Logic is very powerful, such as 2 plus
2 is 4, 8 plus 8 is 16,
right?
20 plus 20 is 40.
And of course, there are variations when you
get more complex situations.
But generally speaking, logic remains stable.
But then, here is a problem.
You are dealing with something so absolutely rational,
perfect, reasonable, scientifically proven to be the right
thing to do.
But somehow, when you pray, saying, God, what
do you want me to do?
All of a sudden, there is a conflict
within you that looks like that is not
what you are supposed to do.
And then you are stuck.
So why?
Because the choice you make will have far
-reaching consequences.
And I do not know about the future,
you don't know about it.
But he knows where that road is going
to lead.
So you see, it becomes quite complicated when
you try to figure out how do you
listen to it?
What do you do with that?
Then, you have the statement in the Old
Testament that says, your word is a lamp
unto my path.
The written word of God, the unadulterated, the
pure word of God, the 66 books you
have in your Bible, it is light.
So what is light for?
For us to live by, make choices.
Your word is a light.
In your light, I see where I need
to go.
So, here you have the word which says
it is a light unto my path.
But then, you also have, in the Gospel
of John, the word became flesh and dwelt
among us.
You remember John chapter 1 verse 14.
The word became flesh and he tabernacled, he
lived among us.
That's what the life of Jesus is described
in John chapter 1 verse 14.
Then, for the coming of Jesus it is
said, those who sat in darkness saw light.
So what was the light?
These people didn't have any torch and flashlight
and no way to figure out what to
do.
No, it was much more than that.
It is talking about the lostness, the darkness,
the hopelessness and don't know what to do.
All of a sudden they are able to
figure out the way to go and what
God intended for man to be.
C.S. Lewis said something quite strange and
interesting, quite interesting.
That is, he said we can either look
at the beam of the light or we
can see through the light.
Now, our theme remains we are called to
walk in the light.
So the question again comes back, what does
that mean?
What does that mean?
We just say that what does that mean?
So, looking at all this, there are lots
of words, other words I can tell you.
For example, 1 John chapter 2 verse 6
says our call as people of God, we
are supposed to live today and walk as
Jesus actually lived on earth.
And we give up a lot of reading
of the Bible by saying, no, I don't
understand that.
So, trying to find out the meaning of
walking in the light and how to make
it practical.
Let me now take you through the history
just briefly about it.
When Jesus said, he is the light of
the world, I understand.
But when he said, you are the light
of the world, how do we figure that
out?
See, this is where we need to understand
Christian life or following the Lord is not
memorizing Bible verses and say, okay, that is
a guideline, okay, flash, press the light, okay,
then I will do that.
Okay, should I forgive him or no?
No, okay, what about this money I will
do?
No, it is not like that.
It is a totally of being immersed and
embraced by God that we are infused with
his very life and then there is no
dichotomy, no segregation, but basically it is one
life.
So he says, as the father sent me,
so sent I you.
So our life is not separated from him,
but part of him.
But in the first century, the early fathers,
they knew very well, if you read the
writings and all that, you will understand.
But the church began to face from the
very beginning for about 1500 years, I would
say.
If you read anything about church history, you
will find the enormous struggle, the continuous strive
and fight of all the heresies.
Now we just read the creed of the
church, right?
I honestly don't think hardly anyone properly understand
how significant that is.
The several creeds that actually was developed by
the church fathers became the most important element
in terms of the church's understanding of who
Christ is.
Oh, by the way, listen very carefully.
All the heresies, all the controversies, all the
fight, all the false doctrines, all the debate,
starting from A.D. 30 throughout A.D.
1500, now and then happened to be only
on one subject.
Not two.
Only on one subject.
That was about Christ.
Christ, Christology.
That is, is Christ God?
How can he be?
He was a man.
How can that be?
Did he have two minds or one mind?
If he had two minds, how can he
be?
And then go on.
There are heresies by, I mean, so many
of them.
I don't have time to go through all
that.
But what was happening, Lucifer and all the
billions of demons were trying to take something
that is so precious and twist it such
a way that Christ will be placed to
the side and they will become more and
more able to explain.
So the Enlightenment era or the time of,
the age of reason that happened in A
.D. 1700 or so didn't happen just then.
It was a continuous slow sowing of the
seed of independence of man's mind.
But let me move very fast because of
time.
Then, 1500 to 1900, what happened was the
time of reformation and the results of that.
That was Martin Luther and his people, they
really, really, really, honestly, they wanted to recover,
discover, go back, get back the early church
fathers' understanding of Christ and who he is.
Not doctrines.
If you really want to know what they
were after, they were trying to find out
who is this Christ, how do we relate
to him.
That was the agony.
But, unfortunately, soon, things began to go astray
after the reformation.
From 1900 to 2000, the whole thing, the
church history began to get meddled up.
That is what we call dysfunctional church.
All of a sudden, it began to surface
everywhere.
And forgive me for saying that, but there's
no other way to say it.
The charismatic movement kind of became one of
the more demonstrative factors of the confusion that
took place.
What is Christ?
Who is Christ?
Christ became a means to achieve blessings and
get things for themselves.
He was not someone that actually he is
the one we get lost in.
And it's more of a crisis.
You may want to study these things and
it will be good.
And comes to AD 2000, the post-modern
revolution, the new age philosophy.
Now, one of the biggest crisis, I hope
I'm not wasting my time on this, but
the biggest crisis taking place in Europe, in
America, and everywhere, and then they're exporting some
of the stuff here, what is going on.
Basically, it's a mixture of all the religions,
syncretism.
I mean, all religions teach love one another.
Everybody says, be kind to others.
Everybody says, forgive.
Does any religion teach, go and kill someone?
We are all together one people.
Don't fight with others.
Let's have peace.
Let's have harmony.
And then all of a sudden, the peace,
unity, and well-being, and the horizontal survival,
whatever way peaceful we can, religion began to
contribute.
I can give you 100 gatherings in the
last two years all over the world.
Top religious leaders like Dalai Lama and the
new age Hare Krishna movement, and even Christian
liberal thinkers gathering to discuss this.
Life and history, religion, education, policies, they all
involve hundreds of things.
But one thing remains unchanged, never will change.
That is the story of God.
And the story line is this.
God Almighty, no man can understand or comprehend,
who dwells in light that no man can
approach.
Out of his wisdom, he stretched out his
hands and created the universe, seen and unseen.
And he picked the earth and created man
with free will for him to love him.
Garden of Eden.
And the first atom.
And they failed.
And God in his mystery and plan decided
that he will reclaim and get back what
he lost.
But he could not violate his own rule
and justice.
So he decided he will come to this
earth and be the sacrifice in Christ to
die, buried and rise again.
And reclaim what Adam lost by his humility
and his death and his resurrection.
This is the story of God.
There's millions of religions out there, millions of
holy books say the same things maybe, but
everything of God focus on single one point
that is Jesus, Jesus, Jesus and Jesus.
There's no one like him.
You know the chorus that says there is
something about that name.
You know, I tell people, you may be
a Hindu, you may be a Muslim, whatever,
you know, we're all brothers, but would you
pray for sick people?
And pray to God, but when you pray,
end the prayer saying, in Jesus' name.
Because Jesus said, the Father will answer when
you pray in my name.
And so, let me conclude by saying, walking
in the light, please don't be deceived, it
is not 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6,
7 things I do so I can have
a better life or I can make a
better decision.
No.
Have you thought about that?
Can darkness be light and light be darkness?
I read a massive amount of stuff about
the science of light and I got confused.
That is the light we talk about, it's
a whole different world.
The Lord is my shepherd, I will want
nothing.
Few steps further, he says, though I walk
through the valley of the shadow of death,
I fear no evil.
So the calamity, the downtimes, the pain, the
loss, factory burned down, reputation ruined, what happened
to the light, which was the shepherd going
before me and showing me which way to
go.
All of a sudden it turned into utter
confusion and such chaos.
I cannot even figure this out.
That's the reason the Bible says even darkness
will be light with him.
So, when we are immersed, embraced by the
divine, what happens is the worst experience in
our life becomes the brightest light in the
light of eternity.
Did you know in heaven there is no
sun?
He says in heaven there is no sun
because there is no need of sun for
he is the light.
Why?
Heaven is heaven only because of Jesus.
If there is no Jesus, there is no
heaven.
And so when we see him, what's going
to happen?
We shall be like him.
So this is kind of mystery, I don't
understand, of the merging of our being with
Christ, how it is, I don't know.
When we see him, we shall be like
him.
Is it two entities or one entity?
What's going to be?
I have no way to process this.
Jesus didn't say, I will show you the
way.
He said, I am the way.
Jesus didn't say, I will show you light.
He said, I am the light.
He didn't say, I will show you the
door you will walk through.
He said, I am the door.
So there is a kind of veiled meaning
of some entry point.
We are not outside.
And it's a mystery.
John, gospel chapter 6, he said, unless you
eat my flesh and drink my blood, you
have no part in me.
And I am the bread that comes down
from heaven.
Not like the bread Moses gave to his
people.
This is life.
So the bread and the wine, impregnated, infused
with the risen Christ, the almighty.
And he says, as long as I am
in the world, I am the light of
the world.
But I am leaving.
But I want to do something.
That is, as you partake of my body
and my blood, it is nourishment that goes
through your body and your blood cells.
And the reason why I did what I
did becomes meaningful for you to become more
like me and understand.
And you become the supernatural individual that you
don't recognize, that you become the light.
So you may not understand everything I said,
but I do believe God has given you
this opportunity to think and follow the rest
of your life, and I can assure you,
you will never, never regret if, listen close,
if every day you remind yourself a hundred
times, I do this for my Jesus.
I am for my Jesus.
No other God beside him.
He alone is God.
Even if the whole world says all gods
are the same, I say my Jesus is
my only savior.
I have no one else.
I am his and he is mine.
And I am not looking for blessings and
healings and all these things.
Let there be wonderful, but that is not
what I am looking for.
I hold on to him tightly as I
can till the end.
That is all you need to worry about.
All the rest will be autosomatic.