“Dealing With Darkness”

Introduction

I’m going to be honest with you….I used to be scared of the dark, which probably almost all of us in this room used to be. I was absolutely terrified of the darkness that was in my room. Whenever it was dark in my room, I would pull my Spider-Man themed covers all the way up to my neck, because I was scared that if I didn’t, some type of monster would come and take me. The interesting thing about it is that I was so scared that I couldn’t even get out of my bed to turn the light on. Now as a fifteen year old young man, who’s gotten a little bit older and I’ve been on earth for a little longer than I was then, I realize that I am not afraid of the dark anymore, but I do realize that there is still some darkness around us.

There is a lot of darkness around us in the world that we live in today, so much so that some people have gotten used to, what my Pastor says, functioning in the dark. Maybe, as young Christians, there is some darkness around us in our own lives. We’re living in a generation where there are a lot of difficult things that us as young christians have to navigate. Maybe that’s toxic relationships, peer pressure, mental health, grades, etc. And there might be some people who have gotten out of that darkness, but maybe there are some who are still going through some dark times, and you don’t know how to deal with it, but we have somebody who is in our corner who actually knows how to deal with our dark times.

And that’s what I want to share with you today. This idea that sometimes, we go through darkness and dark times, and we don’t know how to deal with it, but we serve a God who knows how to deal with darkness. In fact, in the story of Jacob, God worked with the darkness of self hurt. In the story of Joseph, God worked with the darkness of pain caused by others. In the story of Jesus, God worked with the darkness of death. The good news today is that even though we may not know how to deal with it, God knows how to deal with darkness. And allow me to tell you about that for a few minutes.

Text Context

As we already know, the first chapter of Genesis is focused on the beginning. This is the creation. We have to note that God was already here before anything else was, and that is because he created everything else. John 1:1 says “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” This tells us that God was already at the beginning. Genesis 1 tells us all about the beginning and how God started the earth. God had a conversation with nothing, and somehow made nothing turn into something. something. God created the earth and everything in it.

Verse two starts to describe the process of the creation. We are in the part of the first day, where God creates day and night. Later on, God will create the sky on the second day, the land, seas, trees, fruit, and vegetation on the third day, he will make the lights and the stars on the fourth day, the animals and livestock on the fifth day, and lastly, he will create human beings on the sixth day.

In verse two, The earth is described as formless and empty. That means that the earth had no shape or form. That means that the earth was empty and literally in chaos. This makes me think. In verse one, God creates the heavens and the earth, but in verse two, the earth is formless and empty. This suggests to us that something happened between verses one and two. Now, we do not exactly know what happened, but we do know that whatever happened caused the earth to go from fully created and beautiful to formless, empty, dark, and in chaos.

But, verse two also says “..and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters”. This lets us know that despite what was happening, the Spirit of God was still moving and God was preparing to do something to bring order and light to the chaos that was happening.

Verse 3 starts the creation. In this verse, God says his first words: “Let there be light.” This verse shows us the power of God’s word. Whatever God says will happen, best believe that it will happen. Now I already told you that at this time, the world was empty, formless, and dark, but what God does is he speaks and commands light to come out of the darkness.

Lastly in verse four, God creates light and he sees that the light is good and darkness is not, so he separated the two. See, light is a symbol of holiness, goodness, knowledge, wisdom, but darkness is a symbol of unrighteousness, sin, and evil, and God knows this, so he separates the light and the dark. God will then go on to create more of the earth in Genesis 1.

Message

I believe that in these short four verses, some may look at them as creation verses, but I believe that these verses give us a clear description of how God can deal with the darkness that is around us and in our lives.

Body of Message

The critical question is though….How does God deal with darkness??

God moves in the midst of our darkness.(v. 2)

Verse two Says “Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.” At this point, the earth is dark. Something happened that caused the earth to become dark. It has no form and it is empty, but the text tells us something amazing here: that the Spirit of God was hovering or moving over the waters. This gives us the Idea that while darkness was on the face of the earth, God was still moving. The text is not only giving us information about the state of the earth, but it's also telling us something about God. The text says “Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.” There’s a change here. This verse moves from negative to positive. It starts off giving the bad news, that the earth had no form, was empty, and was dark, but then it gives us the good news, that the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters. Let me help you out. Earth was in a dark and chaotic moment, but in the midst of the darkness, there’s movement, and that movement is only coming from the Spirit of God. We have to understand that God moves in the midst of our darkness. What does that mean?? See, the idea that God moves in the midst of darkness is a belief that God is always present and at work, even when it's impossible to see or feel His presence. God is present and at work, even in the dark when we don’t see it. When we go through those dark situations, it’s hard to see if God is working. Sometimes, as young christians, we don’t know if God is working in the midst of our situation. We don’t know if God is up to something when we’re going through something, and that may cause us to become discouraged and lose hope and become afraid, and we shouldn’t become discouraged or afraid because (1) that is letting the enemy win and (2) God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power, love, and a sound mind. But when we don’t know what God is doing or even if he’s moving, it can cause us to become scared and even confused.

EX: I remember that when I was little, even though I was a member of the church I go to now, I sometimes used to go to a church in the country called New Zion Baptist Church. That church is in Frierson, LA. Some of y’all may not know where that is, but trust me, it’s the country. I would go there with my grandparents and I remember that I would come in and sit on the side with my grandfather, and I remember that I would hear some of the older church members (who have been going to church longer than you and I have been living) say some phrases and one of the phrases that they would say about God was “You have to learn to trust him, even when you can’t trace him.” What does that mean?? That means that even when we can’t feel his presence or even if we don’t know if he’s moving or not, we do know who we are as children of God and we know we belong to God, so that means that we still have to trust him.

God is always at work and is moving in our lives and in our dark times. Jesus said in John 5:17, “My Father is always working, and so am I.” God is always working, even in the dark. In fact, some of God’s greatest work is done in the dark. God Moved when he was dealing with the darkness of unfulfilled promises with Abraham, when he was waiting on God to stick to his promise. God Moved when he was dealing with the darkness of unrealized expectations with Moses, when he was working with Moses for 40 years. God moved when he was dealing with the darkness of pain caused by others, when Joseph’s brothers stole his coat and sold him into slavery. And the thing is all of those stories ended on a good note. God can move in the midst of your darkness.

God creates light in our darkness.(v. 3)

Verse three says “And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light.””

As we already know, The earth was dark, but God did not intend for it to stay dark. See, God already understood that the earth was dark for right now, but he did not want it to stay dark because he was going to create stars and lights for it. I believe that That is why God creates light in our darkness, because he does not want our lives to stay dark. Psalms 18:28 says “You, Lord, keep my lamp burning; my God turns my darkness into light.” This means that God is a light that can bring hope and joy to dark situations, and that God can give strength, peace, and joy. We were all born into spiritual darkness and sin, but God did not intend for our lives to stay dark, so he created light in our lives. Jesus said in John 8:12 “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.” No matter how dark it may seem, God is still with us to create light in our darkness. But the thing is, God will only create light in the midst of our darkness, only if you trust him. Isaiah 50:10 says "If you are walking in darkness, without a ray of light, trust in the Lord and rely on your God." I understand that it may be dark right now, but we as young Christians and children of God have to trust God in the dark and trust that he will move.

EX: Has anybody’s power ever been out before?? Surely, all of us have had those moments where we wake up one morning and the power is just out. I remember one morning, I woke up for school, and I got out of bed to go turn on the light, but the light wouldn’t work. I then went up to my ceiling fan light plug, and pulled it so that the light would turn on, but it didn’t. I went around to find every light switch I could to try and see if it was just my room, but no other light turned on, so I had to accept that the power was out, but I didn’t think too much of it, because outside in my garage is something called a breaker, which is a main switch that controls all of the lights, and I didn’t think too much of it, because all my mom or Dad had to do was go out and flip the switch.

The same thing goes for God. It may seem dark, but we have to trust that God is going to flip the switch. That is the mindset that we have to develop now. My grades may not be the best right now, my relationship may not be the best right now, my friends might be few right now, I’m stuck in a dark place right now, but God is going to flip the switch. We have to trust God in the dark. Trusting God in the dark means relying on God's goodness and faithfulness when things are difficult or confusing, or when you can't see a way forward. Trusting in God is all we have at times when we can’t see or make sense of anything. This means that when we go through through dark times, that is probably when we pray the hardest and call on Jesus the most, but when we trust him in the dark, we are showing a sense of confidence in God and that even though we may be going through dark times, we still trust in his goodness and his grace, even in our dark moments. But might I suggest to you that God does not just create light in our darkness, but God is the light in our darkness. 1 John 1:5 says “This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you: God is light; in him there is no darkness at all.” This means that the darkness may seem dark to us, but it does not seem dark to God because God is light. See, God is the light and creates light in our darkness, and because of that, we have to walk in that light. We live in the world, but we should not be of this world, so since God is the light of the world, we have to walk in that light. We cannot walk in the ways of the world, which is darkness, selfishness, meanness, hate, negativity, because if we walk in these things, we are giving glory and honor to God, but instead we have to walk in the light because God is the light and creates light in our darkness. God creates light in our darkness.

God separates your light from the darkness around you .(v. 4)

Verse 4 says “God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness.” At this point, God sees that the light is good, in fact he sees that it does not even compare to the darkness of the earth, and so God wanted to make sure that the light was separated from the darkness. The good and righteousness of light is always greater than the bad and evil of darkness.

But can I tell you that just as God separated the good of light from the bad of darkness, he separates the light that is in you from the darkness that is around you. God separates the light that he has put in you from the darkness that is all around you today. He separates us from violence, selfishness, hate, and other things. And God does this because he sees the light in you and sees that he has called you and chosen you to let that light shine for his glory, and that the light that is in you is greater than the darkness that is in the world around you.

But, brothers and sisters, don’t dim your light so that you can be on the same level as the darkness around you. What do I mean? Don’t try to dim or hide your light, so that you would be accepted by people, don’t dim your light just because it’s popular, because when you dim your light and not let it shine knowing that it is greater than the darkness around you, then God will take that light from you and give it to someone else. Don’t dim your light, but instead shine your light knowing that it is greater than the darkness. Shine your light, knowing that it is greater than gang violence, greater than cyberbullying, greater than toxicity, greater than hate, the light that is inside of you is greater than the darkness around you, and we have to let that light shine knowing that it is greater.

I believe that is why God separates us from the dark things around us. God separates you from those things, even though to you they may look cool. Maybe we see some people doing those things like stealing, skipping class, being disrespectful, vaping, doing things that they’re not supposed to do, and we may look at these things as things to help us fit in and make ourselves acceptable to people, but God separates us from those things. Maybe we have some people in our corner who we think are uplifting us and encouraging us, but whole time, they have these dark opinions about us and want to see us fail, and God separates you from those things and from those people. See, God separates you from some dark things and dark people, not to make you feel isolated and lonely, not to make you feel that you can’t have any friends, but because he knows that you have something that is on the inside of you that is greater than the things and people around you. That’s why God removed those friends from your circle and revealed them as enemies, that’s why God didn’t let you follow the crowd and do what everybody else is doing, because there is a light that is inside of you that is greater than the dark things and dark people around you. God separates your light from the darkness around you.

Conclusion

And do, to answer the question: How does God deal with darkness? God moves in the midst of our darkness. That means that we have to trust that God is at work and moving in our darkness. God creates light in our darkness. That means that even though it may seem dark right now, we have to trust God in the dark and trust that he is going to flip the switch. And then, God separates our light from the darkness around us. That means that the light that is in you is greater than the darkness around you. Brothers and sisters, it may seem dark right now, but you and I, even as young christians have the full assurance that God knows how to deal with darkness.