It’s not often that one sermon reminds me of two songs! The other song I thought of whilst listening to John’s sermon this morning was Phil Wickham’s ‘Holy Light.’

‘We have come
And now we will wait
For Your love to move
For Your light to break

Start a movement here
As we call Your Name
Let Your glory fall
Like a holy rain

Dead arise
Hearts be awakened
In this life
Earth will be shaken.

God who reigns over earth and sky,
Flood this world with Your holy light;
Start a fire that will never die;
Flood this world with Your holy light.’ (Holy Light’, Phil Wickham)

One of the most powerful songs I have ever heard based on the passage featured in this morning’s sermon (John 8:1-12) is Michael Card’s ‘Scribbling in the Sand.’ The Bible does not tell us what Jesus wrote in the sand; this is obviously unimportant from the point of view of understanding the story, though many have speculated on the topic! It is interesting that Jesus took the time to write before He spoke and that when He did speak one simple sentence (‘Let any one of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her’), this was enough to cause people to slink away. In the song, however, Michael Card talks as well about how the arts create a space and time when we can hear God.

‘It was silence; it was music;
It was art; it was absurd.
He stooped and shouted volumes
Without saying a single word

The same finger
Of the strong hand
That had written ten commands
For now was simply scribbling in the sand.’ (Michael Card, ‘Scribbling in the Sand’)

John preached this morning from John 8:1-12, looking at the subject of walking in the light and using the word itself to highlight points about that light: it is Living, Illuminating, Growing, Holy and Testing.

The scene which ends with Jesus proclaiming He is the light of the world begins with scribes and Pharisees dragging a woman caught in the act of adultery to Jesus. They were trying to catch Jesus out and were not really interested in the woman herself or even in the law (for if they had been, the adulterer would also have been brought, as prescribed by the law.) Jesus, the only sinless One present, did not condemn the woman but instead reminded people of the light He brings into the darkness.

Living Light

Those who follow Jesus will have the light of life. In order for us to flourish, we need light and illumination. The light illuminates and illustrates the way we should go (see John 14:6-9) and shows us the way. It is a reflection of God’s presence and power.

Illuminating Light

We each have an individual choice to follow Jesus and His word is a lamp to our feet and a light to our path. Sometimes we will need to look down to our feet, for the terrain will be rough; on other occasions, we will need to look up to see the path we must take. In the mining industry, the only way a miner survives in the darkness is to have an individual lamp on his helmet. We need the light of Christ to illuminate our path in exactly the same way that the miner needs a lamp!

Growing Light

1 John 1:5-9 reminds us that God is light and in Him there is no darkness at all; moreover, it shows us that if we claim to know God, we need to walk in the light and therefore have fellowship with God and with one another. We need ongoing cleansing from our sin and can know God’s forgiveness, refreshing and renewing in our lives. As we grow, we will become fruitful. (John 15:1-2)

Holy Light

The forgiveness and cleansing we receive from God enables us to live holy lives, reflecting God’s holiness. (1 Pet 1:15-16) Holiness is not the same as self-righteousness, but is to do with our relationship with God, with each other and with the world. Isaiah’s vision of God’s holiness (Is 6:1-7) is described in terms of light, for the seraphim covered their faces from the brightness of God’s glory and holiness. Moses’s face shone when he had spent time with God (Ex 34:29) and since God is light, our faces should reflect this light. It’s a bit like the Ready Brek glow in the advert – visible!

Testing Light

Continuing the theme of adverts, John mentioned the ‘Daz window test’, where all washing had to be held up against a window and bright sunlight to test if it really was clean! Jesus is the Light of the world, but in Matt 5:14-16, He made the astonishing statement that we are the light of the world too and that as others look on us, they will see the source of that light. We are to reflect God’s light to others, just as Elijah’s cloak was passed on to Elisha. Jesus did not condemn the woman, but offered her forgiveness and a new way of life. Similarly, we are to be agents of grace and compassion towards other people, not condemning them or excluding them, but reflecting God’s radiance to them.

Last night’s Bible study looked at 1 John 2:12-14, John’s ‘reasons for writing’ as the heading in the NIV calls this section. Here, John writes to three main categories of people: ‘dear children,’ ‘young men’ and ‘fathers’, but rather than taking these words literally, we looked at how they symbolise the three main ages (or stages) of our Christian walk: being a new Christian, growing in the faith and becoming more mature. We have to go through all these stages (none can be omitted; there are – alas! – no shortcuts to maturity), but in some ways, we can exist in all three stages at once, being more mature in some areas than in others. We thought of this rather like a music equaliser, where the levels are different, allowing for different volumes of different frequencies, so that we may be more advanced in ‘faith’ (for example), but still struggling with ‘patience’.

The ideal (in Christian terms, but not necessarily in musical terms, of course!) would be for all the sliders to be at the top, meaning we are fully mature in all areas of life and faith, but as our series ‘Growing Up In God’ has discussed, this will not be until we see Jesus face to face! In the meantime, we are all works in progress.

John writes about different aspects of understanding and growth associated with the three different stages. Firstly, he talks about forgiveness of sins on account of Jesus’s name. Accepting God’s free gift of salvation can be hard for us to believe, inured as we are to the world’s maxims that ‘if it seems too good to be true, it probably is!’ and ‘there’s nothing free in this world.’ We may start well, but often fall back on the belief that we have to earn God’s approval or forgiveness, instead of understanding that the basics of the faith – salvation through grace, forgiveness of sin, God’s unconditional love for us – remain true throughout every stage of our walk with God.

As we grow and mature, we encounter opposition and attacks from the enemy. The devil, unlike God, is not creative or inventive, however. His tactics and strategies remain predictable (and sadly their predictability alone is no guarantee of our overcoming them, for they are effective and we are often weak!) As we journey through life, we come to recognise these tactics, however, and learn strategies from God to overcome the evil one. Knowing and applying God’s word is crucial in this (see Ps 119:9, Prov 30:5, Is 40:8, Luke 11:28, Eph 6:17, 2 Tim 2:15, Heb 4:12) We overcome the evil one ultimately because God’s Word lives in us; just as Jesus used the Word of God to defeat the enemy in the wilderness temptations (Matt 4:1-11), so too as we grow and mature, this becomes our weapon.

Knowing God is, according to John, the pinnacle of maturity: the fathers ‘have known him who is from the beginning.’ John Stott says this speaks of a ‘deeper, ripened communion.’ The more time we spend with someone, the more we know them and this is true of our relationship with God as well. We know their characters and their characteristics; we know how they act and react and can predict what they will do in particular situations. The more we know God, the more we can assess and judge whether something is ‘like Him’. That does not mean we can ever entirely predict how He will work (for He is eternally creative and far greater than our capacity for understanding!), but we can see His hand of love and mercy even in difficult situations and circumstances. So often, we think of knowing God as being at the start of our Christian journey, but eternal life is all about knowing God and Jesus Christ (John 17:3) and so this knowledge remains essential to maturity.

A group from church went to the ‘Big Church Night In’ on Wednesday in Bradford (arranged by the organisers of the ‘Big Church Day Out’, which this year will be on 24 & 25 May in Sussex) to sing along to Matt Redman and Christy Nockels. The meeting was held at the large Life Centre in Bradford and was attended by approximately 1200 people (based on Garry counting rows of chairs and estimating those standing, so this figure could well be wrong, though his estimates concerning numbers are far more likely to be reliable than mine!)

Matt Redman


Christy Nockels


Singing ‘Blessed Be Your Name’

For those who are interested, the set lists were:

• Our God
• Sing & Shout
• Here For You
• Holy Spirit (chorus added & merged with Here for You)
• Waiting Here For You
• Healing Is In Your Hands
• Oceans (Where Feet May Fail)
• Let it be Jesus (new song written by Matt Redman, click here to listen)

Beth Redman on video spoke about the work of the A21 campaign to abolish slavery in the 21st century and the second set list was:

• Blessed Be Your Name
• You Never Let Go
• Mercy
• Revelation Song
• One Thing Remains
• We are the Free
• Dancing Generation
• Benediction
• 10,000 Reasons

During the evening, Matt Redman spoke about magnifying God in worship. He said there are two kinds of magnification: that by microscope, whereby we take something really small and make it look bigger and that by telescope, whereby we seek to see something so vast and large that we cannot glimpse it on our own. So often, we take the microscope to our problems and blow them up out of all proportion. In worship, we need to magnify God, gazing at someone so glorious, so vast, so immense that we cannot possibly come to the end of His greatness.

Yesterday was a first aid course. By the end of it, hopefully we were more proficient than the photos imply…