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Light of the world

Light of the World
This message was preached in Tanzania, East Africa in 2008 but not as written; it was reworked in a word processor and some thoughts were added.
I looked around at you folks into your faces, and I could see that that there was peace in your hearts. I see joy in you, and I believe a deep desire to please the Lord.
There was a time a long time ago when I had wondered a long ways away from God, and out into darkness. I had no peace in my heart. I did not know where to find peace. I did not believe in God. I did not know what would become of me: I thought when I died that it would probably be all over and I would never be again; there was nothing but darkness before my eyes. I didn’t want my life to be over with at death; but I had no hope for it to continue.
I lived like many people around here must be living: many around here are living in darkness; without hope; and have no idea how to find it. I had a great big hole in my heart and thought about it for years: what could I put in it, that would fill that hole, and take away the darkness; but I saw nothing that would work. When I was a young boy I gave my life to God, and knew the peace of God at that time; but I fell away from God; I quit even believing in God; and I thought that my early Christian life was only my imagination, and that I needed it because I was weak, and needed something to lean against.
God sent a Christian into my life who led me back to Him, and when the infinite God came back into my life that hole that I could not fill, was instantly filled; I had then a hope for the future; and I received a deep peace, down deep in my heart. When God filled that infinite hole in my heart, and I experienced that deep peace, I said, “No one will ever get me out there again”.
Many here in Mwanza are in darkness with no peace or joy in their hearts, and Jesus sent us to be a light to them: this may be the only way they will find peace, joy, and happiness. The Bible says, “The wicked are like the troubled sea which casts up mire and dirt”. The troubled sea is always troubled: some days very troubled and some not so troubled, but always troubled. The wicked have very bad days and not so bad days but they are never at peace. The wicked never know rest.
Everyone is always looking for something: something that will bring peace, joy, and rest; they have no idea where to find it; nothing that they have ever tried has given it to them. On television every advertisement says, if you buy this product, you will be fulfilled and happy; but at no time has it ever worked. They look at rich people and think if I were rich, certainly I would be happy; yet no rich man has ever found happiness in riches, in fact some even kill themselves when it doesn’t bring happiness.
Those who try drugs, tobacco, alcohol, sex or even marriage cannot find it in any of those places either: you have the peace, joy, and happiness they are looking for, and if you’re light is not shining, where will they ever find hope? For those of you who are Christians: you need to spend the time to learn to love each other with the love of Jesus; because it is in the love of Jesus that you will find peace and contentment in your home.
God has many things He wants us to do, in us and through us. God wants us to meet with Him on regular bases, especially early in the morning, before the hustle and bustle of the day begins. We are married to Jesus, and we need to spend time with our husband; if you married a man, and spent as little time with him as you spend with Jesus, how long would your marriage last? Share the same love with Jesus as He shares with you.
I have been asked, if God wants me to live for Him, why did make me so I could fall? God could have made us as robots, and programmed us not to sin; but He wanted us to have a free choice for a reason. When my children were small, someone gave them a little keyboard, called a sampling keyboard: it had a little recorder in it, that would record about five seconds, and when you pressed a key it would play it back to you. One day I pressed the record button on the keyboard and said, “I love you”, and then I pressed a key, and just sat there enjoying as it said, I love you; it loved me so much that it would say it till the batteries died.
Actually no keyboard or robot know that we even exist: it has no conscientiousness of our existence at all; it only does what it is programmed to do without emotion. You married men, would you like a wife and children that would tell you they loved you when you press a button, or would you want them to tell you they love because they really do? Do you think God wants you to say, I love you because He pressed a button, or do you think He would want us to say it because we really do?
We need to meet with Jesus, and meet His need for real love, while He meets our needs as well. If we are to meet God’s need for real love, than He has to give us a choice, knowing we might just walk away from Him.
In church, we kind of program our praise toward God; but we need a time of unprogramed praise toward Him in our private time with Him as well. God has many things that He is preparing us for, and while we are blessing Him, we are being changed and prepared for the great work He has for us to do.
When God made Adam, He set over all the earth, and when he fell, the earth fell with him; now God is preparing the Sons of God to bring the whole creation into the glorious liberty of the children of God. Jesus in His high priestly prayer John 17: 6, “I have manifested your name unto the men you gave me”: there we see that Jesus was the first manifested Son of God, but there will be many in this end time bringing God’s creation back to Him. Can you see that our lives and what we do is very important? The reason God put us on the earth, is more important than we can realize at this time.
Matthew 5: 14-16, “You are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hid; neither do men light a candle, and put it under a bushel, but on a candlestick; and it gives light unto all that are in the house. Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven”.
Christians seem to soon get into a pattern; they live, and die, living out patterns, and having made only small impact for the gospel. It seems most Christians go about living for themselves: Getting many things, entertainment, and amassing wealth; they have their light under a bushel showing very little light: often when the world sees a Christian they see little to attract them, so few, are won to the Lord, and when they become Christians, and they hide their light also; repeating the cycle.
God called us to be lights in the world. We need to seek after God and only as much of the things of the world that we absolutely need, and can use to build God’s Kingdom. Every part of the world we receive needs to constantly flow through our hands, and we should never hang on to them. The person who gives away, or uses for God’s Kingdom what comes into his hands, will become very prosperous; but the one who hangs on to it, will become poor. God puts much into the hands of one who uses what he has for God’s Kingdom; but quits putting it into the hands of one who hangs on to it.
The one who meets with God regularly; using his material possessions to build God’s Kingdom; will also be a light to the world, and a testimony to the faithfulness of God: people will soon see that you have a different spirit about you, and peace, joy, love, happiness, and they will want that real kind of life. Love, Joy, Peace, Contentment, and more cannot be produced in our lives: they must come from God; so when you see these things in abundance in a person’s life, know this: that person spends enough time with God to receive them from Him.
Many people get discouraged when they get up early and then fall back asleep; their mind wonders; or it seems nothing is happening; but the person who would not be denied, but keeps right on will succeed: the work of God in our hearts, cannot be detected, and it is going on in spite of those things. Go before the Lord persistently, and in full surrender and commitment, and you will win; but if you get discouraged, you have much to lose.
God is putting peace, joy, and love in our hearts; things we can share with others; things that are a light that shines around us: the light that the people need, that will bring them to Jesus. God loves the whole world; He loves everyone around us; people who tried drugs, tobacco, alcohol, sex, and everything they could think of, trying to find something that would give them satisfaction: God loves them all, and wants them in His kingdom. God is Love, and He has the power to make what He wants out of anyone who will surrender, and put their trust in Him.
11 Corinthians 4: 6,7, “For God who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, has shined in our hearts, to give the light of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. We have this treasure in earthen vessels that the excellency of power may be of God and not of us”. When God created the heavens and the earth He said, “Let there be light and there was light”. When we were born again God said, “Let there be light and there was light”. God commanded the light to shine out of darkness, and it now shines in our hearts; therefore go forth, and let your light shine; let it illumine the way, that others may find the same peace that God gave you.
Jesus is the Way, the Truth, And the Life: never keep people under your authority: always take them to Jesus; they may have to be under you for a short time; but lead them to Jesus, so He can take them, and train them for the work that He wants them to do; just make sure that they are hearing from Jesus, and not some false spirit. God’s people have thought in time past that, keeping the people under the pastor is somehow going to keep them in unity, and do God’s work: this false teaching has pretty well swept the whole world; certainly you can come up with a semblance of unity that way; but it never will it be true unity.
True unity is when people hear directly from the head Jesus Christ: every part of the body is different, and one part cannot understand the others part; they cannot even understand their own part, or lead themselves, much less lead another; but Jesus knows each part perfectly, and can lead them perfectly.
The people of God have been to date almost no threat to Satan’s kingdom, because their unity has been based on the commandments of men; but the picture of true unity in Revelation 19 is, Jesus on a white horse, and the armies of God following Him also on white horses. Satan’s Kingdom will never be threatened, till God’s people follow Jesus precisely, as He leads, and wherever He leads them: the attempt to produce human unity, and the fighting that result from it, is only prolonging Satan’s kingdom on this earth.
Jesus has put His light in your darkness, and commanded it to shine, and bring many into God’s kingdom; but if you want to be a real threat to Satan here in Mwanza, then you must lead them directly Jesus Christ. Paul said, “We have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us. If I had a clay pot here, and dropped on a stone, it would break to pieces; but if now it contained the largest, most perfect diamond in the world: we would have a treasure in an earthen vessel. We are weak earthen vessels, and only know the way as we know Jesus, and when everyone is perfectly connected and following Jesus only, we will be able to push Satan and his kingdom right off of this earth.
Spend much time with Jesus. Learn to follow Him explicitly. Be a treat to Satan and his kingdom. Lead many to Jesus. Teach them how to follow Jesus explicitly. Everywhere you go in this world, you find people who are looking for something, that bring them peace and satisfaction; but they will never find it, until they find it in Jesus Christ. People have lost their way, and they will not know the way, until they know Jesus Christ: everything a person needs is found in Jesus Christ, and can be found nowhere else.
1 Corinthians 12 tells us about what is often called, the gifts of the Spirit. When Jesus ascended to the Father, He left behind a bunch of young followers called apostles: they had the enormous job of building, and establishing His church; but they were probably only maybe four or five years old in the Spirit, and you cannot build a large building with only four or five year old kids; but if you were God, you could give one the ability use a hammer, another a saw, another a tape measure, an another a level and thus you get God’s building built.
God has had to do this all down through history, because He has had to work with children, instead of men of God, so He gave them gifts. One of the great problems with the gifts of the Spirit is that they can operate completely without love: in chapter thirteen the first three verses, Paul says how little profit there is in the gifts operating without love, and so God is about finished working with His people through the gifts of the Spirit.
In 1 Corinthians 13 we find what mature sons of God do: they walk in Love all they do, is done through love. The gifts of the Spirit operate only at times; but the fruit of the Spirit works, at all times, and can never fail. Here in chapter thirteen, Paul describes Love, God, Jesus, and mature Sons of God: if you should read this passage and substitute the Name God for Love, Jesus for Love or mature Sons of God for Love it would fit perfectly.
It says in verse four that Love suffers long, and is kind; does not envy, or put itself forward: it is describing God, Jesus, and those of us, when we have become fully mature in Christ. In verse eight when it says Love never fails; if you try to heal someone, and they don’t get healed, then know you need to continue to grow in love.
The gifts of the Spirit can revert to witchcraft, and does so at times: the way you can tell witchcraft from the Spirit of God, is that it always tries to control the crowd (Jim Jones); Jesus never did that; it also appeals to the flesh; and when you look back you only see superficial profit, it is never real or lasting. There are other things which we will not get into here.
Satan cannot love; so if you develop Love, Joy, Peace, and other fruit of the Spirit, it can only come from God, never from Satan. God wants us to put away childish things (gifts of the Spirit), and become mature (fruit of the Spirit). The solution for every problem is always found in your time with God: Jesus is everything to us, and the way to put Him on, is to keep meeting with Him.
Jesus never operated in the gifts of the Spirit, only in the Fruit of the Spirit. Everything Jesus did for people, He did out of Love and Compassion. Works done in the fruit of the Spirit will never pass away. You can tell how mature you are, by your reaction to things people do to you: do you revert to force or love? Do you work redemptively or do get even? Can you suffer long? Are you Kind? Do you draw attention to the good works you do, or what someone else does? Do you seek your own profit, or bless others? Do you think evil of another person?
Seek to walk as close to God as you can, and continue to draw closer to Him: these are the things which are going to make you successful in winning this city, you cannot fail. Daniel 2, there is a stone cut out of a mountain without hands, which is going to roll down the mountain, and over the evil kingdoms of this world. Our joining to Jesus cannot be the works of our hands, if we are going to smash the evil nations to pieces with a rod of iron.
In Revelation 2: 26,27 the one who overcomes will smash the nations to pieces with a rod of iron just as Jesus is going to do it; as He received from His Father. The job that God has for you to do, is a very great job, and you are extremely important to God, and His plan; so be diligent, and go win this battle.
God wants you to first clean up your life; then the nations; and then bring the whole creation into the Kingdom. I want to thank you guys for your time; I enjoyed it very much. I am looking to see a people when I get back, well on their way, doing all God’s plan for this church. Win this whole city for Jesus. May God Bless You

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