The Light Has Come

Greeting

Good morning Lighthouse Church!

Before we begin, turn to your neighbor and ask them, “Are those some new threads? Because your fit is on fire!”

We’re stepping into week three of our series, The World of the Generous, and I am so excited to share with you what God has put in my heart today. Let’s begin by going back to our verse for this series, and for our Light Up The City campaign.

Reading

Isaiah 60:1 NIV

“Arise, shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord rises upon you.

The Light Has Come

Introduction

When you become a parent, you developed skills you didn’t event know you had, right?

I think one of those skills is not waking up s sleeping child at any cost. When your child is asleep, you do anything to now wake them up. When my kiddos were asleep in their car seat, I wouldn’t even take them out of the seat. I’d take the entire seat out and keep them comfortable so that they would stay asleep.

How many of you did this ninja trick as well?

Another thing we do is learn to walk in the dark… if we get them to bed and then need to find our way out of the room we don’t turn on the light, we navigate in the dark like a Navy Seal with night vision, don’t we?

I want you to think about those days and ask yourself, this question. Did things change or move when you turned on the light?

Nope.

The light showed you what was there.

Transition

Now I want to use that as an analogy to our lives when we move from living in darkness, away from Jesus, to the moment when we begin walking with Him; or what we can living in the light.

Living in the light is like turning the lights on of a dark room, and now suddenly seeing everything that was always there.

Text

Over the last two weeks we have been churning through our scripture, dedicating one week each to each of the first two words, Arise & Shine. Today, I want to look at this phrase “for your light has come.”

Now, in order to do that, we have a lot of theological work to do that is going to take us all the way back to the book of Genesis, and then into John’s gospel, but before we do that, I want to make sure we just sit with what it meant to the writer and the hearer of this passage.

Interpretation of 60:1

Isaiah is writing to God’s people at a time when they were taken into captivity.

If I could give you a fly over the history of Israel it would be this:

Called by God to Abraham to be a holy nation and set apart from all other nations of the world to show them who the one true God is.

The entire nation is taken into forced slavery in Egypt as the nations turned against them.

They are delivered from slavery in Egypt and were on a 40 year journey to their own land once again

After inhabiting the land, they failed to keep their covenant with the Lord as a holy and set apart nation

They are once more taken into captivity by nations that turned against them and this would go on for 70 years

This is the time that Isaiah is living and writing in when he writes 60:1. His words are prophetic; meaning that they are pointing to a future time and in essence is telling them, “Chin up! I know it’s not good right now, but the light is coming and the glory of the Lord is going to rise among us!”

These words were going to encourage them that this slavery would not last forever.

As a matter of fact, there were prophets who were also writing to them in slavery telling them that this was intended for a moment of time, but eventually God was going to lead them out of captivity and they would be allowed back to their own land and could resettle once again.

Who is the Light?

Now, back to our phrase, “for your light has come.”

This statement is packed with depth that I want you to fully understand this morning. The writer uses the word “light” to describe what they had to look forward to, and it was a word that we see at the very beginning of time.

Genesis 1:1–3 NIV

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. 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. And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light.

Many people will read this verse and think that in this moment God created the sun, S-U-N.

However, if you continue reading Genesis 1, you’re going to discover that this could not have been the sun, S-U-N, because on the fourth day God created the sun and the moon.

Genesis 1:16 NIV

God made two great lights—the greater light to govern the day and the lesser light to govern the night. He also made the stars.

So, if it wasn’t the sun, S-U-N, that was created on the first day, then what did God speak into existence on that day?

I think the best way to understand what is going on here is to leap forward all the way to John’s gospel.

John’s gospel is called the Second Genesis because his gospel doesn’t begin with the birth of Jesus, he goes all the way back to the beginning.

John 1:1–4 NIV

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind.

Let’s pause right and look closely at what John is saying about the beginning:

“He was with God in the beginning.”

“In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind.”

But John is not done yet…

John 1:6–8 NIV

There was a man sent from God whose name was John. He came as a witness to testify concerning that light, so that through him all might believe. He himself was not the light; he came only as a witness to the light.

The writer John is writing about John the Baptist, who is not only the cousin of Jesus, but he is also the forerunner of Jesus. Look at what the writer John says of John the Baptist:

“He came as a witness to testify concerning that light.”

And then the writer John leads the readers to who the light was…

John 1:14 NIV

The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.

So at the beginning of creation, when God said let there be light, he wasn’t talking about the S-U-N, he was talking about the S-O-N.

From the very first words ever spoken, God was revealing His Son — light wasn’t just a product; it was a person.

Your Light Has Come

So when the Prophet Isaiah tells God’s people that their light has come, he is getting a supernatural revelation of the future, and that the son of God would step out of eternity, and into time, on a mission to rescue and reconcile the sons the God back to the Father.

John 3:16 NIV

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.

Isaiah saw the Jews in their captivity as the very near and present struggle with nations that wanted them in bondage.

But prophetically, Isaiah saw all of us in the future in a very real and present struggle with sin that wants to keep us in bondage and separated from the Father.

And just like the nation of Israel looked forward to a Savior who would come, we look back to a Savior who has come; and His name is Jesus.

Jesus died to forgive you of your sins.

Jesus died to reconcile you back to the father.

Jesus died not just for you, but Jesus died as you.

Now, can I give you good news this morning?

He who the son has set free, is free indeed!

You don’t have to earn freedom because Jesus has already given it to you.

You just have to walk in freedom because gone are the chains that were holding you.

So if light was Jesus… and that light was spoken before time began… that means redemption wasn’t God’s backup plan — it was His original design.

Already Done

Have you ever been asked the question, what would you do if you knew you could not fail?

It’s a thought experiment on identifying the things that hold us back from living a greater life of impact and significance.

While it’s a thought experiment in the natural, it is actually a spiritual reality that we live in.

Hang with me…

When God said “let there be light…” he was already making room for me and for you in his presence.

In the last book of the Bible, John drops this line in Revelation 13:8

“… the Lamb who was slain from the creation of the world.”

John who saw not just a vision of the beginning, but also of the ending, gives us this little nugget about the Jesus, the son.

He calls him the lamb slain from the creation of the world.

The Apostle Peter echos this in his letter when he writes this:

1 Peter 1:19–20 NIV

but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect. He was chosen before the creation of the world, but was revealed in these last times for your sake.

Here we go, let’s connect these verses and make it make sense…

When God spoke light into existence, he was setting in motion his plan of redemption to bring his sons and daughters back home.

God in his omniscience knew that sin would separate us from him. Sin would cause us to turn our backs to him and pursue a world that we create, not the one that He created for us.

So even before we messed up and made our mistakes, there was forgiveness available to us.

[Transition]

Can I give you a Bible story for this?

God tells Abraham to take his son Isaac to the top of the mountain and to sacrifice him there as an act of obedience and worship to God.

As they are walking up the mountain, Isaac knows that they have everything that they need for the sacrifice, with the exception of the animal.

God tells Isaac in that moment that the Lord was going to provide a sacrifice.

As Abraham ties his son down to the altar and is about to pierce a knife through his son’s chest, the Lord stops Abraham and tells him that all of this was just a test.

But don’t miss the most important part of the story - on that mountain behind a bush was a ram that was caught in a bush. Even before Abraham and Isaac got on top of that mountain to sacrifice, the sacrifice was already there waiting for them.

This story perfectly illustrates for us that the son was the lamb chosen before the creation of the world, and the son was waiting for Abraham and Isaac on the mountain.

[Transition]

So when you know that there is already a provision for you… that let’s me know that I cannot out run the love of God. He keeps on chasing after me over and over again.

Let me say it this way, you are not better at sinning than God is at saving.

Conclusion (The World of the Generous)

Let’s go back to Isaiah… for your light has come.

Lighthouse, Jesus has come and he is at work in this very moment reconciling the world back to the father.

I was thinking about our series title The World of the Generous, and I wanted to flip it on it’s head a bit…

We’ve been talking about our generosity these past weeks, but today I want to remind you — before we could ever give anything, God gave everything.

There is no one more generous than our heavenly father. He lavishes on us his love when we don’t deserve it. He lavishes his grace on us when we did not earn it. There is no one more generous than our God. And because of that, this world is his.

The World of the Generous is saying to us that this world belongs to Him, our God and our King.

The Bible says this:

Psalm 24:1 NIV

The earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it;

Psalm 118:24 ESV

This is the day that the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it.

Stop trying to boot strap your way to salvation and through this life here on earth that you are living and know that you serve the God who is above all and through all and He is in you all!

Call

If you’ve been walking in darkness — in confusion, guilt, or shame — today you can step into the light of His forgiveness and freedom.

I want to make a call for every person here who has not given their life to Jesus and have not began to live in the Light of who He is.

It doesn’t matter what mistake you made, there is forgiveness here today. There is provision here today.