Episode Transcript
WEBVTT
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Let's turn to God's word. Turn
our attention to God's word in First John,
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First John Five, chapter one,
verses five through seven. These verses,
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John tells us something very, very, very important about God and what
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it means for those who have fellowship
with him. First John One, versus
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five through seven. This is the
message we have heard from him and proclaimed
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to you, that God is light
and in him is no darkness at all.
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If we say we have fellowship with
him while we walk in darkness,
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we lie and do not practice the
truth. But if we walk in the
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light, as he is in the
light, we have fellowship with one another,
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and the blood of Jesus, his
son, cleanses us from all sin.
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You may be seated. May God
bless his word to us. Well.
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The Apostle John doesn't Delia, dilly
dally, a raw a Lah around
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with a long introduction, so I
am not going to either. There is
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a message, he says, a
message to be delivered, a message that
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you need, a message you need
to receive. He says it's been given
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by Jesus himself and it's coming to
you. This is the message he says
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in Verse Five. This is the
message we have heard from him and proclaimed
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to you. And it's this three
simple words. God is light. That's
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Jesus's message. God is light in
him. There is no darkness at all.
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It's the apostolic message that is proclaimed. It's my message this morning and
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the message of every Christian preacher that
God is light. That message is we
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will see in versus six and seven, has implications for US humans, for
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those who walk in the light and
for those that don't. So, Michael,
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this morning is to help you understand
the message, what it means that
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God is light, the message of
verse five and the implications of that message
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that are described and versus six and
seven. My if I'm successful, you
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will leave this morning knowing what it
means that God is light and what that
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ought to mean for you. So
let's start with that message. God is
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light. Here God tells us something
about him. That is true. He
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tells us something about himself. But
when we meditate on who God is,
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and honest essence in particular, we
have to be very careful for a few
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reasons. One is that we're sinners
and we're apt to exchange the truth about
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God for a lie. That's what
we do. So we have to be
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careful when we think about God,
when we think about the things that he's
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told us, we have to be
careful that we stick very close to scripture
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and not our assumptions or our imaginations. The second thing that we have to
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remember is that we're finite, created
people incapable of comprehending the infinite, uncreated
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God. These are things that just
don't match up. A finite thing cannot
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create our comprehend an infinite thing.
We might apprehend it in a way,
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we might understand it in part or
as God gives it to us, but
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we can't comprehend it, we can't
own it, we can't possess the knowledge
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of God as he possesses it of
himself. To help us avoid these things,
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there's a few things that I can
mention that I think will be helpful.
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First, when God says he is
light, he doesn't mean that light
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is God. He's telling US something
about himself that can't be reversed. Now,
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you know that sometimes the word is
does mean, does equate two equivalent
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things. Right, one plus one
is too. You can flip that right
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around. Too is one plus one. Right, we can say them of
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each other. There's a kind of
identification any an equal identification. That happens.
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So, for example, in John
Five, Jesus says that he is
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the son of man, and that's
equally true. The other way around,
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the son of man is Jesus.
You can say it either way and it's
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equally true. But other times,
as is the case here, the word
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is doesn't make things equivalent. So, for example, if I say a
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city is pleasant, that mean doesn't
mean I can reverse those things and say
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that pleasantness is city. Right.
Doesn't make a lot of sense, and
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we also know that's not always true. It's true when we speak of Jesus
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in this way as well. So
we have to be careful here, because
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usually when we think of light,
we think about the thing that God created,
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the thing that we see, the
thing or by which we see,
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the thing by which plants grow,
the thing by which we can now communicate
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even but God is not a created
thing. This is always our danger,
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and you should remember this whenever we
think about God. There's a temptation to
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take what we know of creation and
attribute it back to him, or what
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we know of ourselves and attribute it
to him. But God is not a
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created thing. So I have to
be careful. Light is not God.
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That's not true. We are not
pantheists. We don't believe that the Creator
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is the creation and that the creation
is the creator. No, instead,
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we make, according to scripture and
according to the true nature of God,
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a very clear distinction between the things
that have been made, on the one
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hand, and the one who made
them on the other hand. We,
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as Christians, refuse to exchange the
glory of the immortal God for the secondary
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glory and reflective glory of the things
that he has made. So when Jesus
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tells us that God is light,
Jesus is not confusedly falling into idolatry.
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Do Jesus is not telling us that
light is God. So what does Jesus
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mean? Instead of making light and
God as two equivalent things, Jesus is
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saying something about God, just like
he might say God is strong or God
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is holy. But what about light? What does that really mean to say
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that God is light? There's I
want to address three main ways. Scripture
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talks about light. Scripture talks about
light in terms of life, in terms
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of knowledge and also in terms of
morality, and these things are all rightly
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predicated or attributed to God. Let's
think of the first one in terms of
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life. Think of the way that
John Speaks of Jesus in the opening verses
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of his Gospel. He says all
things were made through him, and without
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him was not anything made. That
was made in him was life, and
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that light was the light of men. Do you see what John Does there?
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He equivalent, he makes equivalent light
and life. He puts these two
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things together. Perhaps you've learned kids
about the sun. You've learned about the
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way that the sun, the sun
and the sky, gives light to our
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world. It passes light into the
world and this by this energy which then
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plants take into themselves. And there
are a lot of plants. We can
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see something right outside there. There
they are actively taking in the light of
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the Sun. Animals eat those plants
and other animals eat those animals, and
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on and on it goes. And
by the sun the life of the world
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is sustained. God uses this analogy
to help us understand him, but it
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is only in analogy, for whereas
the greater light of the sun sustains all
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of the life on the earth,
it's through the son of God, Jesus,
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the Child of God, that the
earthly Sun itself is created and upheld
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again here John's words. He says
that all things, including the sun,
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were made through Jesus, and without
him was not anything made. That was
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made in him was life, and
that light was the light of men.
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The creation of the world from the
father through the sun, is taught in
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other scriptures, Colossians one six,
for by him all things were created in
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heaven and on Earth, or Hebrews
one too, for in these last days
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he has also spoken to us by
his son, through whom he also created
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the world. God said in the
beginning of the world, let there be
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light, and there was light.
He the author of the Hebrews saying is
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that word that was spoken, that
active word, let there be light,
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was the son of God. Mysteriously, somehow, when God speaks, he
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speaks in the word of the son. He speaks to us through his son,
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through whom he is created the world. That's why John Calls Him the
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word. And the beginning was the
word, and the word was with God,
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and the word was God. He
was the life and the light of
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all men. This is highly,
highly significant. It means that when Jesus
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reveals the message that God is light, this is the message we have heard
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from him and proclaimed to you.
When this message is revealed to us,
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he is revealing something not just about
the father, but about himself. The
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light and the life that is in
the father is also in him. Again,
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those same words from the beginning of
John's Gospel. In him was life,
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or from John Twenty six. For
as the father has life in himself,
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so he has granted the son also
to have life in himself. This
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verse reminds us how attributing light and
life to God is only an analogy,
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where our essence as human beings is
not dependent on our lives. In other
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words, we may die and yet
still exist. In a way, this
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is not true of God. Our
life is something that is dependent upon God's
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life. It is upheld by God's
life, but God's life is upheld by
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nothing, not because it's about to
fall apart, but because it's infinite.
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God is infinite. If another himself, he has life in himself. We
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do not have life in ourselves.
Our life is given to us, our
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life is taken away from us.
We can die, we can be raised
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up. Not so with God.
In him is life, and just as
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the father has life, Jesus says
in John Five in himself. So he
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is granted the son to also have
life in himself, and eternally. So
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God's life is not accidental to himself, and what's true of the father is
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true of Jesus. This, of
course, speaks to the divinity of Jesus,
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but it also tells us the reason
for our salvation. So, again,
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going back to the Gospel of John, John Twenty Five, Jesus says,
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I am the resurrection and the life
whoever believes in me, though he
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die, yet he shall live.
Though you die, yet you shall live.
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How could such a thing be possible? It's possible because of our union
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with the son, who is light, who is life, because of the
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revelation of the son and the flesh
and because of his spirit working in us
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through that word, through that revelation, to redeem our flesh. Even we
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who die can share in the eternal
life of God, not by becoming God,
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but by God becoming us. When
the father speaks through the son,
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in the power of the spirit,
he brings about light which gives light to
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the world, both the created world
and the plants and the things that have
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been made, but also in the
world to come. As the author to
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Hebrew says, God has spoken a
second time, a second time, and
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in this time God has created.
He has spoken of word of grace so
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that the world and we who have
fallen into sin can be lifted up,
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brought up into eternal life and live
under the light of glory of the Sun
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in the age to come. We
can say much more on this, but
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let it rest at that. For
now. God is light, and that
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means that from the father, through
the son and by the spirit, the
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world has life. Light, it
means life, and those who believe in
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the sun, though they die,
will have eternal life in him. This
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is why John says we have fellowship
with God, to fellowship in the light,
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to walk in the light, as
he himself is light. Okay,
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second thing, a second way we
understand God is light is in terms of
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knowledge. Right in your bulletins.
If you look at the prayer that comes
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right before the sermon, it's called
the prayer of illumination. Right, it's
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a light term. You turn on
the light, something happens so that you
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and see. Now this isn't just
Greek metaphysics, it's biblical terminology as well.
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Light reveals things, it shows things, it uncovers things. Just as
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the rays of the sun give energy
to creation and life to the world,
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they also bring revelation. The same
is true for God. But we can't
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separate these things in him. It
is because it is through the revelation that
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we have the energy of life.
We come to know God in the revelation
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of Jesus Christ. In other words, there's no light or no life in
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God apart from the revelation of the
message. Right, you can't access life
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in God apart from him revealing himself
in the word. God is light because
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God reveals things, he shows things, he says things, he speaks things,
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and in Christ he reveals his law
and he reveals his Gospel and he
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shows the relationship between the two.
For those of us who would have eternal
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life in Christ, we come to
see so clearly exactly how holy has law,
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law is, and the penalty for
our sins. When we see Christ
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on the cross, we come to
understand, we come to realize and be
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enlightened to the fact of how deep
God's love goes, of how much we
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have failed in his love. And
now he was lifted up on a cross
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to bleed and die under a curse
that we deserved. That's knowledge, that's
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life saving giving knowledge, because not
only is the law revealed there, but
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the light, by the light of
the Cross, the grace of God,
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is also revealed. We come to
see that there we have salvation. Now
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some people hate this light, this
sort of revealing light. Jesus says to
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Nicodemus and John Twenty, for everyone
who does wicked things hates the light and
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does not come to the light lest
his works be exposed. Everyone who does
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wicked things hates the light, he
doesn't come to the light lest his works
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be exposed. Now you might think
that, based on this, that a
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kind of reverse thing would be true, in other words that those who love
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God are those who love the light
and come into the light. That's not
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exactly what Jesus says. Let me
read the next verse and will I'll read
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them together. For everyone who does
wicked things hates the light and does not
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come to the light lest his works
be exposed. But whoever does what is
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true comes to the light so that
it may be clearly seen that his works
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have been carried out in God.
Isn't that fascinating? John doesn't say the
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wicked person hates the light, and
so, like a rat, you know,
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scurries away from it, tries to
keep away lest it be exposed.
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But the good person comes into the
light so that all can be revealed and
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he can be declared justified. Now, he says, the person that loves
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the light comes into the light so
that it can be clearly seen that his
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works have been carried out in God, God who is light. By this
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we come to learn that walking in
the light therefore requires enlightening and enlivening power
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of God in us. Before we
can be enlivened in Christ, though,
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we must first die with Christ.
Our justification on the cross comes before the
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regeneration of our lives. Otherwise there'd
be no way to come into the true
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light. This is extremely important and
for understanding what John says here, in
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verses five through seven, he says
if we walk in the light, as
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he is in the light, we
have fellowship with one another, and the
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blood of Jesus, his son,
cleanses us from all sin. This is
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true, but it doesn't mean that
we are cleansed from our sin because we
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have come into the light. What
he says is that these things go together,
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that those who walk in the light
are those who have fellowship with one
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another, are those the blood of
Jesus has cleansed. Our works, are
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those that have been carried out in
God, Jesus says, because of our
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justification. Our relationships of the light
changes because of what Jesus does on the
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Cross. Instead of hiding in the
darkness, we come boldly into the light,
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not on the basis of our works
or our great love of the lights
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and of knowledge and of God,
but because of what Jesus has done,
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because of his works, his revelation, the word that has been spoken into
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the world. Or, to put
it in this way, our relationship changes
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to the light, not because we're
better people, but because of God's grace,
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which is, Paul says, in
Second Timothy, one hundred and ten
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God's grace has been manifested through the
appearing of our Savior, Christ, Jesus,
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who abolished death and brought life and
immortality to light. Through the Gospel
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reveals right, Jesus is the revelation
of God. It's not a pure sort
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of knowledge thing, though. It's
an enlivening thing, a change that happens
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as we trust and believe in him. Now this glorious revelation, this glorious
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revel revelatory light of Christ, does
come in a veiled way. Under the
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cross, you don't see Jesus shining
with the glorious light of God. Instead,
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dark clouds covered up the sun as
he died. Indeed, in the
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preaching of his word, as Jesus
is being shined forth to you even this
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morning, this is me, this
is just you and this place. In
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word and in sacrament, these things
are veil. But one day, the
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Bible promises, this revelatory inlivening light
will not be veiled but will shine on
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all things. Revelation Twenty One and
twenty two tells us that in the consummated
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creation, in the age of glory, quote, the City of God will
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have no need for a son or
moon, for the glory of God gives
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its light and it's lamp is the
lamb in heaven. In the consummated creation
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there's no need for a son because
we will have the son of God himself,
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no longer veiled but shining forth with
the radiance of God. We're told
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in the scriptures that right now we
live in a life where we see through
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a glass darkly. You know those
glut glass things that people have in doorways.
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You know you can't quite see in
it's veiled, you can't you sort
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of makeing out shapes. One day, says we will see face to face.
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He doesn't mean with the essence of
God as he is in himself.
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He means with the glory of his
revelation in Christ, not through word and
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sacrament, but immediately there will Jesus
be shining intensely and giving you all light
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and salvation and immortality forever. But
Dear Christians, know that the same glorious
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light which will shine in the consummation
shines right here, right now, on
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Earth, wherever Christ is preached,
the word shines forth, wherever he is
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offered in baptism, the word shines
forth, wherever the Lord Supper is received,
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the word shines forth. And not
only here, outwardly in the means
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of grace, but inwardly in us, inside, as he lives in us.
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Listen to what Paul says in Second
Corinthians four six. For God,
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who said, speaking of creation,
let light shine out of darkness. For
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God who said let light shoune out
of darkness, has shown in our hearts
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to give the light of the knowledge
of the glory of God in the face
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of Jesus Christ. This is one
of my favorite verses, so I'm going
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to read it again. Second Corinthians
for six. For God, who said
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let light shine out of darkness,
has shown in our hearts to give the
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light of the knowledge of the glory
of God where in the face of Jesus
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Christ? Well, this takes us, then, to the final thing I'll
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mention today concerning this message that God
is light. Light not only refers to
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the life that is in God and
the revelation that is from God, but
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also to a way of living that
is an accord with the enlivening knowledge that
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we have received in Christ, and
I hope you're already seeing the connection.
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Let me go back and read from
first John. This is the message that
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we have from him and have proclaimed
to you, that God is light and
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in him there is no darkness at
all. If we say we have fellowship
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with him while we walk and the
darkness, we lie and do not practice
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the truth. But if we walk
in the light, as he is in
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the light, we have fellowship with
one another, and the blood of Jesus,
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his son, cleanses us from all
sin. The Light of God and
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the message and the fact that God
is light. Is Not this that not
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only this grand truth, as I've
been trying to say. It comes into
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this world in a way that changes
us, it affects us, unites us
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with God. He has shone in
our hearts, he has revealed himself and
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done so in a saving way.
The one, in other words, who
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has been enlightened and therefore enlivened by
God is the one who has fellowship with
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God. He no longer walks in
the darkness, he comes into the light
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so the world may see the work
of God in Him. Christians therefore walk
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in a very different way then the
world, which is covered in darkness.
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I had a friend once who got
stuck in a one of the lava tube
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upon flagstaff, this long underground cave. It's about a mile long. He
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got left a sad story. You
got left behind. He made it out
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eventually, but he got left behind
and he didn't have a flashlight. There
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was a kind of miscount at the
numbers of you were in. He spent
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the rest of the day, hours
and hours, crawling through this cave,
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hurting himself, getting bumped on his
shins, just trying to feel his way
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along the walls until he finally made
it out. And of course he didn't
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make it out into the light of
the day. It was now night and
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darkness, and then he had to
wander through the forest until he finally found
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the highway. This is what it
is like to walk in darkness. It's
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to be constantly getting hurt, to
not walk according to wisdom, to constantly
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be bumping into things, making a
fool of yourself, getting hurt. The
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person who walks in the light,
however, walks a clear path. They
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navigate, they move easily. This
is true when we walk in the light
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that has been given to us.
Christians, therefore, are honest people.
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They walk confidently and with integrity.
Just doesn't mean that they do not sin.
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But John goes on to say that
even when they do, since they
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walk and act as though in the
light, like the rat, they don't
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skarry away away from the darkness,
they come into the light. The Christian
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who has been enlivened and enlightened and
by the light of God, freely admits,
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confesses their faults, repents to the
Lord. Those who have fellowship with
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God walk in the light. They
don't hide their sins. They don't cower
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away. They know the truth,
but they don't just walk or am sorry,
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they don't just know the truth,
as John says here. They do
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the truth. In certain ways of
Western thought we often separate sort of knowledge
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and obedience. They are separate categories
and of course, but in Christianity they
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always go together, and this is
one phrase that expresses that. Do the
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truth right you can't. To really
know the truth is not simply to have
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an intellectual knowledge of it and then
to walk in blindness. That's not knowing.
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We do in the same way,
or rather that is because we don't
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merely know Christ. We know Christ, we just don't we don't just know
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about him. We know him because
he's been revealed to us in this saving
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way. Here's the thing. If
you hear John's statement and you recognize yourself
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as someone who cowers in the darkness, someone who hides, someone who's afraid,
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someone who walks according to darkness,
know that in hearing this message that
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God is light, your deeds are
already exposed. Your deeds are not hidden
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to God. The open secrets of
your soul are open to God. He
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knows you. But in revealing these
things, in bringing conviction for our sins.
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He has shown to you, not
only in harsh judgment, but also
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in the happiness of hope, in
shining to you in the message and in
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the knowledge of Jesus Christ, instead
of scampering like a rat back into the
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life, he promises us that when
you trust in him as he has been
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revealed to you, you can walk
out boldly and know that everything's going to
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be okay, because he is light
and we have fellowship in him, not
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as a rat but as a child, as an image bearer, as a
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lovely one. Let us pray
