I ask you to take your Bibles and turn with me this morning to the Gospel of John. We return to our study, our series of expository sermons through this fourth gospel, and we come in that study this morning to John chapter 3, and our text is verses 19, 20, and 21. John 3, verses 19 to 21. Reading from verse 18, he that believeth on him is not condemned, but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world. And men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. For everyone that doeth evil, hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved. But he that doeth truth cometh to the light, that his deeds may be made manifest, that they are wrought in God. Consider with the Lord's help, verses 19 to 21. Why is it that many people, men and women, boys and girls, can sit under the sound preaching of the everlasting gospel over the course of weeks and months and years, and yet, having basked in that marvelous light, turn their faces and walk as it were into the darkness. How is that possible? This is a very practical question. It's a practical question for me as a minister of the gospel because my heart longs for the conversion of our congregation, my people. It's a practical question for parents who after many ardent prayers and much labor in family worship, perhaps twice a day, and Christian education and catechism and giving to their children spankings and all the other blessings that come to children in Christian homes. How is it and why is it that some of them do not turn to embrace the light. It is a practical question. And the fact is that God gives the Christian insight into the souls of men that we would never be able to have without the Bible. God sees and knows all things. And when he gives us the scripture, he then enables us to see and know some things that we would otherwise never be able to know and never be able to see. The Christian has some insight into the souls of men, so there can be an unconverted person. And there is a sense in which a Christian may know more about their soul than they know about it themselves. because God has told us something about it that they have not understood. Here we are in John 3, and we find ourselves in the flow of a conversation between Jesus and a master, a teacher, a doctor, a scholar in Israel, a man named Nicodemus. And we have been working our way through this dialogue. And now we come to the culmination, if you will, We reach the culmination of this conversation. And after all of the truth that's been given to Nicodemus and to us by the Holy Spirit, all the truth that's been given to us about the new birth, all of the truth that's been given to us about the necessity of faith, all that's been given to us about the exhibition of the saving work of God in the world, all that God has undertaken to do, and the sending of His Son for the salvation of sinners. After all of that, Jesus comes to the end and He says, listen, having told you all these things, understand clearly, the cause of condemnation The cause of condemnation for those who persist in their sin and in unbelief lies entirely with sinful men. It lies entirely with sinful men. Men remain in sin because they love sin. and they refuse to come to Christ because they hate the light. This is the reason that some, though brought under the light, nevertheless turn to darkness. It's because of the love of sin. And so the culpability lies with men. Well, let's look together at this this text seeking the Lord's help. Three things that I would especially highlight for you out of these words. The first thing that we see is that light is come. The beginning of verse 19. Light is come. And this is the condemnation that light is come into the world. This is a statement of fact, of historical reality. God has not left the world to be cloaked in darkness. Light has come. The Lord Jesus Christ is Himself the light of the world. And He has come, as we've seen in these early chapters of John, as the Word made flesh. He has come and dwelt among us, and He has given Himself as a final sacrifice for sin. And He has then taken the good news about who He is and all that He's accomplished, and He sent that gospel as light into the length and breadth of the world. And so the gospel light is being sent out through the world. We're told by Paul that we come to know the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of the Lord Jesus Christ. And He has given to us His Word, a revelation from heaven as a light that shines into our minds and upon our souls. And so light has shined into a dark world. It has shined into a dark world. It's not, children, like this. It's not like taking your flashlight out of your drawer and then going out in the middle of a May day in South Carolina, like we've had this last week, at noon, with the sun high in the sky, and then turning on your flashlight. What happens? You turn on the light and you can't see it. It doesn't illuminate anything. Because the atmosphere of the world is already full of light, already permeated with light. The Lord says, it's not like that. The world is dense with darkness. Thick darkness envelops the world. And it's into that context that God has shined his light into this thick darkness. And the light illuminates. The light illuminates. It helps us to see what we would never be able to see left to ourselves. We would be left in the dark, ignorant and dead and blind, groping about without any ability to see ourselves, to see the reality of a salvation provided from heaven, to see with clarity all that lies ahead at the judgment to come, and much more. We would be groping in the darkness. The light illuminates. Christ and his word helps us to see what we would be unable to see. But it also sweetens and comforts us as well. You think of those periods. Perhaps you're a parent who has sat with a child who is desperately sick throughout a long night. Perhaps you've been desperately sick yourself. The night is long. The night is absolutely miserable when you're sick. Everything is worse lying there in the dark. And then finally, after what seems like days that have passed, a glimmer of light begins to come over the horizon and through the window. And there's something that just raises your spirits. That in itself. And as the sun comes up and shines, there's something that refreshes and sweetens and alleviates some of the burden comforting our hearts. It would be the same for You know, someone in a ship on the sea in the middle of the night and a horrible storm has lost their way. All of the sudden, they finally catch a glimpse of the lighthouse on the shore. What blessing that would bring to the sailor. The Lord has sent his light to fill the whole world. The light wasn't just sent to a little tiny corner where it is kept, but it is light that is being sent out through the entire world. And this light shows us something about ourselves. There is condemnation that comes as a result of this light. The fact is there is no limit to the evidence that can convict any one of us in the court, in God's court of justice. The evidence is so full. The evidence is so copious. that it would astound us to have to face it. All of the evidence of our past record, all of the evidence of our thoughts, of our words, of our actions and attitudes, all of the evidence against us from the time of our conception to the present moment, mounts like a gigantic mountain over our heads. The evidence against us to convict us as guilty before the Lord. But what's highlighted in this text is one thing in particular. Among all of that multitude of things, there is one thing. And Jesus is highlighting it. It is chiefly this. How do you respond to the Lord Jesus Christ? How have you dealt with the Lord Jesus Christ? He, the light, has come and shined upon you in His Word and in the preaching of His Word. And how have you responded to Him? This is the most damning. the most condemning of all things. The light has shined upon us in the Lord Jesus. Well, you think of what is the natural man's inclination. News is brought to Herod. We have, after all of these centuries, at last the day has come. A king has been born. A king like no other. He has been born in Bethlehem. You would have thought that Herod would have blown every trumpet that there was within his kingdom and that he would have gathered every resource that he could have mustered in order to provide for and to bring forward this unparalleled king who would reign with glory. But what does he do? He hears the news of the birth of this king and he plots and he plans. And he says, in order to ensure that we kill this king, we will murder every male child within that geographical area. That's the natural inclination of those who hear of the Lord Jesus Christ. There is Christ and He heals the sick and He casts out demons and they sit under the most heavenly glorious, powerful preaching that the world has ever known in its history. Jesus comes preaching the truth in all of its clarity, demonstrating all of his glory in the works and miracles which he has accomplished. And the crowds, having ate the bread that he multiplied, having received the blessings that he had bestowed upon them, what happens? They turn and cry out, let His blood be upon us and our children. Crucify Him. Crucify Him. Crucify Him. That's the inclination of the natural man. Well, we need not reach, as it were, back into ancient history to furnish examples that are familiar to us of the response of the natural man to the Lord Jesus Christ because we have examples sitting in front of us this morning. There are those here who have sat under the light of the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ and would not have this king to reign over you. What has the Lord Jesus Christ done for you? What could you bring to level against him this morning? Truth be told, not a thing, young people, not a thing. Christ has withheld nothing. He has showered upon you abundance of goodness and mercy and all sorts of kindnesses. He has shown to you what few in this world have enjoyed. And yet there are some who though coming in contact with the light will not bask under it. You know, there are degrees of culpability, the heinousness of rejecting Christ. Jesus makes this point himself when he's rebuking Chorazin and Bethsaida. He says, listen, if Tyre and Sidon had a fraction of the privileges you had, they would have repented a long time ago. You have been given more light, he's saying, and therefore your condemnation is greater because of the light that has been given to you, sinning against the light. The fact is that there are no excuses. There are no excuses that are to be found in God or in the Lord Jesus Christ. We are accountable for the privileges that have been given to us. We cannot, not a single person in this room this morning, can plead ignorance. That's been taken away long ago. There is no ignorance which can be pled. There is accountability for privileges. There is no excuse. And yet it is the temptation of men to blame shift, to always turn, and to ultimately blame it on others. Adam says from the very beginning in Genesis 3, this woman This woman is the problem. I'm not the problem. The woman is the problem. But what was true for him is true for every one of us. And that is our aim in all of our blame shifting never terminates on other people. It terminates on God himself. This woman whom thou hast given to me. It's ultimately God who is being blamed. And in all of our blame-shifting, my parents, and my circumstances, and my siblings, and my background, and our financial difficulties, and the education, and all these other problems that I have, and all of the physical difficulties that I've had, and the other trials that have been coming into my life, and so on. And for all of the blame-shifting that we want to engage in, don't be fooled, my friend. The aim is ultimately nowhere lower than the throne of heaven itself. And the facts contradict your excuses. Christ has given you light. This is why we recognize the utter folly of seeking to attract the masses by bringing entertainment into the church. You know, the idea is if we can just connect, I mean, if we can just make church in a way that will make people from outside in the community feel more warm and excited and attracted and so on, then that will do it. And so we can turn the church into a circus, and we can bring all this other entertainment in. And if you just tweak the worship, don't stick to these simple little means that God has given, you've got to embellish it in order to extend an influence over the community and so on. What's happening there? You can see it in this text. Someone who thinks along those lines has missed the point entirely. And it is a basic point at that. The problem is not that the context of church is not suited to be attractive to people and so on. The problem is within the souls of men. It's a moral problem. Men, what they need is the light to shine upon them. And the problem is not more entertainment that's needed. If they've got the light, the problem is that they are hating the light. They're turning away from the light. And so that brings us to our second point, which is the love of darkness. Secondly, the love of darkness. Look at the end of verse 19 and verse 20. And men loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil. For everyone that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved. Here we see the love of darkness. Jesus reduces the problem to something very simple. He says it all boils down to this. What does a person love? It all comes down to this. What does a person love? In verse 19 he says, the unbelieving love darkness. In verse 20 he says the opposite. They hate the light. They love darkness and they hate the light. That is to say they are loving sin. They are loving ignorance. The fact is, for everyone here this morning, every single person can be put to a simple test. Either you love the Lord Jesus Christ and you hate sin, or you hate sin and you love the Lord Jesus Christ. Right? You can't love Christ and hate sin at the same time. You can't love Christ and love sin at the same time. You love Christ, then you hate sin. If you love sin, then you hate Christ. This is what Jesus is saying. It's a matter of love. But He's showing us the utter folly because it is a love of darkness. For the Jews, they want to love the dark shadows that they have without the fulfillment of those shadows in the person of the Lord Jesus. The Gentiles, they want to love their ignorant superstitions rather than come to the light of the truth. My friends, it is not sophisticated. The world out there makes it sound sophisticated. People try to employ intellectual concepts and highfalutin vocabulary in order to explain away why they don't believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. And they'll concoct all of these ideas and all of these reasons, and they'll say, this is why I think Christianity isn't true, and I'm not going to bow to Christ and receive the Savior, and so on and so forth. It's not sophisticated. Jesus says it is a love of darkness. It's a love of ignorance. A person would rather remain blind, deaf, and dumb, dead in their sins, and still have their sins, than to receive the light that God has given. It is utter folly. It is to love ignorance. It is to love the sickness that kills you. It's coming and saying, you are shot through with four different types of cancer. And saying, the best part of me that I love is cancer. You'd say, this is insanity. It is spiritual insanity. People love their sinful sickness, as it were. They love slavery. They're coming and saying, I love my shackles. I love the lash. I love my bondage. I love slavery. when Christ preached is offering freedom. Jesus is saying, do you see the folly of loving darkness? Some of you say, well, I lack information. There's people here, no doubt, who are saying, I lack information. There's still some blank spots I'm trying to fill in. Or I'm still not sure. You know, I'm still not fully convinced of the credibility of this or that or so on. And your excuse this morning is that you lack information? What a bunch of nonsense. Do not hide under such a thin veil. Your problem is a moral problem. Your problem is that you love sin. The problem is that you don't want to give up sin. There have been some people who have been forthright about it. One thinks of Huxley, right? Well-known, influential person, writer, and so on. He set it straight. He said, we taught and believed a philosophy of meaninglessness. because we hated morality. We didn't just want freedom from political stuff and economic freedom and so on. We wanted freedom from the moral restraints on our sexual liberty. Huxley said it that straight. We had to have a philosophy of meaninglessness in order to justify not dealing with our sins. That's the truth. That is the truth. The sun is shining and men have pulled the curtains and jumped in their beds and covered themselves with all of their covers and sheets. The sun is shining. The problem is not with the light. The problem is with those who are shielding themselves in the darkness. Jonathan Edwards had it right. He said, listen, a person's will is inextricably tied to their nature. They can only choose what is in accord with their nature. If they have a fallen, sinful nature, then they're incapable of choosing, willing anything other than what is sinful. A person has to be given a new nature. They have to be regenerated. They have to be given a new heart in order to love and choose what is good, to be capable of receiving the gift of faith, and so on. And so men love darkness, and they will make a shipwreck of their souls. Well, the question is, why? Why love darkness? Jesus tells us. Why do they love darkness? Because, he says, their deeds were evil. In the next verse, verse 20, last his deeds should be reproved. This is why they love darkness. Their deeds are evil and they don't want them checked. They don't want them reproved. That's why they love darkness. Their actions are sinful and they don't want those actions to be reproved. Light would rob them of their opinion of themselves, of the flattering of themselves. Their consciences would be tormented. There would be an exposure. They want to be concealed. They don't want to have to face shame and fear. And so, because men are resolved not to change, therefore, they are resolved not to see. They are resolved not to change. They love their deeds and don't want them reproved, and therefore, they will not see the light. The Lord says, therefore, they are condemned. We can sin against knowledge. We can also sin away knowledge. We can sin in the face of knowledge that we had. We can also sin away knowledge that we might have had, having less than we would have had. Here's the problem. The conviction of sin without repentance is utterly unbearable. To have the light shine from God's word and for men to be exposed to their sin and not to respond with repentance is unbearable. Something has to give. Either a person says, I am going to forsake sin and flee to the Savior. and thus relieve the pressure, or men are going to say, I'm going to forsake the Savior and flee to sin and therefore relieve the pressure, as it were, which is a joke because the pressure is not relieved in such case. But here you have the conviction of sin without real repentance, without turning from sin to the Lord Jesus Christ. He says they do evil because they hate the light. There's nothing less than that. You know, we can't candy coat it. We can't smooth it over. We can't make it into something pretty. People do sinful things and remain unrepentant in that sin because they hate the light that would liberate them. That's the truth. And so in that sense, you need more than knowledge. You need more than having your catechism memorized backward and forward. You need more than to be able to pass a test, having sat under hundreds and thousands of sermons. You need the illuminating ministry of the Holy Spirit. You need to be brought to the end of yourself. You need the Spirit to give you a new nature and to give you faith and to bring you to Christ to receive and lay hold of him as he is freely offered in the gospel. And so the question under all of this, the question we have to face is, what do you love most? What do you love most? What is it that you love most? The exhortation here is do not cherish sin. Do not cherish sin. To cling to sin would be like swimming out in the ocean and someone handing you a hundred pound rock and clinging to that rock. It will sink you to the bottom. It will destroy you. What is it that causes you, keeps you from not coming to the Lord Jesus Christ? Jesus says, let's be clear, the cause is placed squarely at your own feet. If you're not coming to the Lord Jesus Christ, the problem is found with yourself, not with the Lord Jesus Christ. The light is sent to show you your sin and to reprove it. But the light is sent to show you your sin in order that you might see your need and thereby being able to show you the Savior and to be brought to Him to find relief for your soul. You know, some of the brightest lights are the ones used in surgery. They take you, they wheel you into the operating room and knock you out cold. And then they put on these incredibly bright white lights so that they can see absolutely everything. and the scalpel is applied, and as they begin to extract whatever it is that has to be taken out of you, they are able to see clearly. Well, surgery is not fun, but those lights bring blessing. They are part of the healing that God has intended. For some of you, the question is, what sin is keeping you from Christ? I want you to stop and reflect for a moment. I want you to examine your own hearts under the light of God's Word and ask this question. What is it that I am reticent to abandon? What sin is there that is keeping me as it were from coming to the Lord Jesus Christ? Sin promises you all sorts of pleasure and produces all sorts of pain. Right? The devil has never, ever, ever told the truth. He is the father of lies. And all who have bought his lies have suffered as a result. Sin comes and says this will be fun, this will be pleasurable, this will be beautiful, this will give you all sorts of benefits and so on and never a soul in the history of the world has tasted a lasting morsel from it. It is destructive, it is poison. And so will we have saving knowledge or will we have damning ignorance? He says, Jesus says, the problem is this love of darkness. But then that brings us thirdly to longing for the light. Verse 21, longing for the light. But he that doeth truth cometh to the light, that his deeds may be made manifest, that they are wrought in God. He that doeth the truth cometh to the light. There are those who long for the light. There are those who are not living a lie. who are not living a lie in their outward life, not loving a lie in their inward life, but rather are longing for God's light. Those who have a changed life, who are genuinely walking with and before the Lord by the Holy Spirit under the power of His gospel. This is what it means to be a Christian. We read it in Ephesians 5. We who once were in darkness have been brought under the light. And now we are recipients of the light. And he says, therefore, walk as children of the light. Walk then, as God has made you, as children of the light. We love the light of God's countenance. We love the light of his holiness. We love the light of his word, his promises, as well as the convicting influences of his word. We love it. I mean, children, think about, there's two different types of bugs. Some of you interested in bugs, right? You can go to those, you go out into your yard and you pull back a big rock. And there are bugs, as soon as you pull back that big rock, what do they do? They run as fast as they can down into the ground to get away from the light. They want to be in the dark. And then there are those, when you go out into the mountains here, up to Jones Gap or somewhere, and it's July and it's a hot summer, and you're out in a tent in the woods, surrounded by nothing, and you turn on the lamp outside your tent, and what happens? A hundred million bugs all of a sudden swarm. You know, all of the bugs in upstate South Carolina are around that lamp. It seems like there's just a mass of them swirling around this. They're attracted to the light. The Lord is telling us the Christian are those who are drawn to the light that God has given to us. We are drawn to it. The godly welcome the light. The truth seeks no corners and it seeks no cover. The Christian has nothing to hide. There's something real about them. There's a reality. They genuinely love the Lord, genuinely are delighting in Christ, genuinely trusting in the gospel. Yes, there is plenty of sin that is there. But it's not approached with dreading the scrutiny. No. The Christian hates their sin more than anyone else hates their own individual sin. The Christian says, I want to find what's in there, what sin is in there, and I want to see it rooted out. I want to see it mortified. I want to see it killed. I want God to come and to be rooting these things out of my heart. Yes, it's painful. Yes, it's unpleasant, just as surgery is. But I'm going to bring myself under the light and the scalpel and say, Lord, find it, identify it, convict me, humble me, break me if need be, but discover the sin in order that by the Holy Spirit it might be sanctified. There are those who raise a complaint against Reformed preaching that's searching and that's discriminating. This will this will hurt people's assurance. You know if you if you preach in this sort of way. It's not true. It's not true at all. It actually confirms the assurance of God's people. When you test gold to see if it's real gold, the gold isn't damaged by the testing, it's proved by the testing. And when we are examining ourselves under the light of God's Word, it's actually strengthening the assurance of God's people and ought to, but it does convict as well. And so it will expose where there is hypocrisy and convict But it's merciful in driving them to Christ. But it also confirms and comforts. It also confirms and comforts. It boils down to what is a Christian? What is a Christian? Is a Christian a person who is baptized? A Christian a person who comes to church every week? A Christian someone who holds to a certain world and life view? Is that what a Christian is? Is that what the Bible defines a Christian as? It's certainly not what our Reformed fathers ever defined a Christian as. There are a lot of people who know a lot of things about a lot of the Bible, but who nevertheless love darkness, don't love the holiness of God, and don't love the light of Christ and delight in Him. The Christian comes to God's word and says, here's a light to my feet and a lamp to my path. And the Christian comes to God's word and says, not my will be done, thy will be done. We start before opening the Bible. Not with here's what I want to believe and what I want to be true and what I want to how I want to live and the conclusions that I want for my direction and so on. No. The Christian comes and says I am going to bring myself submissively under your divine authority. I will be silent and you will speak Lord. Not my will. Not what I want to be true in terms of doctrine or practice or standards of godliness or whatever else. What you say. must be what I will receive and believe. And then we get done reading the Bible and we say, that is what I'm going to submit myself to, what the scriptures teach. This is what a Christian is. The Christian comes to the light and says, Lord, show me, show me myself, show me my sin, show me my ignorance, show me what I'm to believe, show me yourself, Show me the glory that you've promised in the future. Give me all of these blessings. I want the light to shine upon me. It means that a Christian is one who is ready to confess their sin rather than cover their sin. If you cover your sin, you will not prosper, the Bible says. You hear me? God says it, not me. God says if you're covering your sin this morning, there's no way you're going to prosper. But if you confess and forsake them, you will find a mercy. This is what the Lord says. A Christian is one who comes not full of themselves and their pride, ready to confess sin. Ready to say when sin is exposed, not it's something in my past's fault or someone else in my life's fault or something in my body's fault or something else that's at fault. We own it. We acknowledge it. We confess it, we repent over it, we take it to the Lord and we say, this is who we are. This is who I am. And Lord, I'm coming to you with my sin because you are a savior and a deliverer and you alone are able to forgive and you alone are able to give me help with this sin. Christian confesses it. Those who love darkness cling to sin. There are good deeds. He that doeth truth cometh to the right. Not just knoweth, but doeth. Not only hearing the word, but doing the word. There are good works that God produces in his people. Good works are defined by the rule being God's word, scripture, and the end being God's glory. The Christian's good works are imperfect, but despite all of their blemishes and imperfections, they are received by God, acceptable before the Lord, delightful to the Lord, and rewarded by the Lord. despite all their imperfections. You go back and look at the chapter, brilliant chapter in the Confession on good works, and you see it. It says in paragraph 6 when it's talking about a person's, a believer's good works. It says a lot of other things, just bring it down to this point. It says, he is pleased to accept and reward that which is sincere, although accompanied with many weaknesses and imperfections. There is gospel fruitfulness that glorifies God, that God Himself is producing in His people. And that fruitfulness comes from walking in the light. You take your house plant and you set it near the window and what happens? The house plant turns to face the sunshine. Sunshine's coming through that window. And all the leaves or the blossoms, whatever, they're not facing inside the house. They're facing outside. They're going to the light. And as the light comes and shines upon them, it's part of what makes them beautiful and thrive and be fruitful. The Christian comes and says, I want to glorify God and enjoy Him forever. We have to bask in the light, under the light of Christ's countenance, under the light of His Word, walking in fellowship with Christ as children of the light. Thereby we will thrive and be abundantly fruitful to His glory. We will grow, grow up in the things of Christ. And so for the Christian, there is a magnetic attachment to the light. Whenever the light is found, we're drawn to it. We want more Bible. We love family worship. We want to be in the public means of grace. We're thankful for the reading and singing and preaching of God's word. We're drawn to it. We've got to have it. We want to be near it. We want to be brought under it. This is the blessings that God gives those who long for the light, the means that God has given to us. by which we're blessed, that his deeds may be made manifest. Here we see God comes and says to the Christian, the best parts about you are not seen. Do you believe that? There are the spiritual exercises of soul. They produce outward fruit that can be seen in your Christian service and worship and walk with the Lord and holiness. There's a lot that goes unseen, both inside the soul and even that which is done outside, but unseen by the eyes of men. How much of what a God-fearing mother does in her home is seen by men? a fraction of what there is to be seen. The Lord says, I will make it manifest. Even what's done in secret, the Lord will reward openly. The Lord is going to say to his people on the last day, look at all that I've done in you and with you and through you and it will stagger us. We will be left breathless. Lord, we had no idea all of the good wrought by God through the souls of those who walk in the light. The Lord Jesus makes it very, very clear to us. Now, there are some here this morning, I hope, that have been brought under conviction. I hope that there are some here this morning who are saying, Pastor, everything you're saying is right. I can see it in the open Bible in front of me. It's true. It's absolutely true. I have been sinning against light. God has given me abundance of many, many blessings. And I have been loving the darkness because I have been loving my sin. What about me? I've been called out. The Lord's exposing me. I see myself for where I am. I've been, I'm the one, I'm the one being named. I've been sinning against the light. I have good news for you, my friend. The light is still shining this morning. The light is still shining. The Lord is still causing his light to shine into your soul. And by God's grace, you can flee the shadows and come out, as it were, under the light of God's countenance and lay hold of the Savior. and say, this is the one who is fairer than all the sons of men. This is the one my heart desires to have and to hold. This is the one who can redeem me from all of the sin that I have loved and from all of the ways in which I have been wicked before God. He can redeem me to the uttermost. There is hope. We ought to all be thankful for that. You know, it's possible for congregations to sow sin away the light that God removes the candlestick, takes away the means of grace altogether, right? He says so to Revelations 2 and 3, the seven churches in Asia. But God has shown us mercy. God has given us blessing. God is near to us in His Word. God is showing to us something of His grace. After all we've heard in this particular chapter about the new birth, and about the necessity of faith, and about all that Christ has accomplished, God has done in sending forth His Son for the salvation of a sinful world. May God grant us help to not leave this chapter. clinging, as it were, to the shadows, but rather receiving the light, basking in the light, and bringing forth the fruit of gospel grace to the glory of God. Let's stand together for prayer. Almighty and ever-blessed God in heaven, we bring our hearts and humble ourselves before you. We confess that you are holy, holy, holy, and we would worship you in the beauty of your holiness. We thank and praise you, O gracious God, that you have caused the light to shine from heaven, that you have sent that light through this dark world to our own doorsteps, and that you have brought us under it. Who are we to receive such privileges and blessings? We, O Lord, are not worthy of such tender kindnesses. And yet we pray that your spirit would so accompany your word as the light is shining, that your spirit would come irresistibly into the souls of men and women and boys and girls and cause us, O Lord, to rejoice in the light of Christ crucified. and that we would be turning our faces away from sin to the Savior. Bless your people as we seek, O Lord, to walk before you day by day. Make us children of the light, walking in the light. Cause us, O Lord, to delight in your grace, to delight in your fellowship, to delight in your ordinances, to delight in your word, your Sabbath, your people. Give us, O God, hearts which are growing in greater love for the Savior. We cry out to you for all of these things, asking it in Jesus' name and for his sake. Amen.