Jesus declares himself the light of the world, whoever follows him will not walk in darkness but have the light of life
12 Again, therefore, Jesus spoke to them, saying, “I am the light of the world. He who follows me will not walk in the darkness, but will have the light of life.”
briefly referenced at the close by the host: Jesus came to give life and life to the full measure
1 “Most certainly, I tell you, one who doesn’t enter by the door into the sheep fold, but climbs up some other way, the same is a thief and a robber.
2 But one who enters in by the door is the shepherd of the sheep.
3 The gatekeeper opens the gate for him, and the sheep listen to his voice. He calls his own sheep by name, and leads them out.
4 Whenever he brings out his own sheep, he goes before them, and the sheep follow him, for they know his voice.
5 They will by no means follow a stranger, but will flee from him; for they don’t know the voice of strangers.”
6 Jesus spoke this parable to them, but they didn’t understand what he was telling them.
7 Jesus therefore said to them again, “Most certainly, I tell you, I am the sheep’s door.
8 All who came before me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep didn’t listen to them.
9 I am the door. If anyone enters in by me, he will be saved, and will go in and go out, and will find pasture.
10 The thief only comes to steal, kill, and destroy. I came that they may have life, and may have it abundantly.
11 I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.
12 He who is a hired hand, and not a shepherd, who doesn’t own the sheep, sees the wolf coming, leaves the sheep, and flees. The wolf snatches the sheep, and scatters them.
13 The hired hand flees because he is a hired hand, and doesn’t care for the sheep.
14 I am the good shepherd. I know my own, and I’m known by my own;
15 even as the Father knows me, and I know the Father. I lay down my life for the sheep.
16 I have other sheep, which are not of this fold. I must bring them also, and they will hear my voice. They will become one flock with one shepherd.
17 Therefore the Father loves me, because I lay down my life, that I may take it again.
18 No one takes it away from me, but I lay it down by myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. I received this commandment from my Father.”
19 Therefore a division arose again among the Jews because of these words.
20 Many of them said, “He has a demon, and is insane! Why do you listen to him?”
21 Others said, “These are not the sayings of one possessed by a demon. It isn’t possible for a demon to open the eyes of the blind, is it?”
22 It was the Feast of the Dedication at Jerusalem.
23 It was winter, and Jesus was walking in the temple, in Solomon’s porch.
24 The Jews therefore came around him and said to him, “How long will you hold us in suspense? If you are the Christ, tell us plainly.”
25 Jesus answered them, “I told you, and you don’t believe. The works that I do in my Father’s name, these testify about me.
26 But you don’t believe, because you are not of my sheep, as I told you.
27 My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me.
28 I give eternal life to them. They will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand.
29 My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all. No one is able to snatch them out of my Father’s hand.
30 I and the Father are one.”
31 Therefore Jews took up stones again to stone him.
32 Jesus answered them, “I have shown you many good works from my Father. For which of those works do you stone me?”
33 The Jews answered him, “We don’t stone you for a good work, but for blasphemy: because you, being a man, make yourself God.”
34 Jesus answered them, “Isn’t it written in your law, ‘I said, you are gods?’
35 If he called them gods, to whom the word of God came (and the Scripture can’t be broken),
36 do you say of him whom the Father sanctified and sent into the world, ‘You blaspheme,’ because I said, ‘I am the Son of God?’
37 If I don’t do the works of my Father, don’t believe me.
38 But if I do them, though you don’t believe me, believe the works; that you may know and believe that the Father is in me, and I in the Father.”
39 They sought again to seize him, and he went out of their hand.
40 He went away again beyond the Jordan into the place where John was baptizing at first, and there he stayed.
41 Many came to him. They said, “John indeed did no sign, but everything that John said about this man is true.”
The message in order, in a few minutes of reading.
Steve Baldock brought the Awana council-time lesson upstairs so the whole Monday night group could hear it together. Using Proverbs 3:5-6 and John 8:12, he made the case that the world's confusion has a specific, identifiable cause, and that the Bible gives a clear answer to it.
What was said
Steve opened by naming what he sees in the world around us: confusion about marriage, identity, money, purpose and meaning. He told the room he was going to give them the solution before the problem, and he put Proverbs 3:5-6 on the screen. "Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways, submit to Him, and He will make your path straight." That verse, he said, is the solution to what he was about to show them.
The problem, he explained, is the human brain. He passed around what he called two brains borrowed from St. John's Hospital, cauliflower sealed in plastic bags, and made the point concrete: every adult brain weighs about three pounds and represents two percent of body mass. A shrew's brain, he noted, is ten percent of its body mass. His point was not about intelligence but about proportion, about the gap between what we carry on our shoulders and what we think it can solve.
With eight billion people on the planet, he said, you have eight billion three-pound brains all walking around convinced they are right. That, in his telling, is exactly why the world is so confused. Everyone is leaning on their own understanding, which is precisely what Proverbs warns against.
He added that the problem runs deeper than ignorance. The brain, he said, has a virus in it called sin, and it has infected everyone in the room. He pointed to Romans, where he said the Holy Spirit warns that without God, minds become darkened, and that professing to be wise, people become fools. You do not even know what you do not know, he told them, so figuring life out on your own is not confidence, it is insanity.
He then brought in John 8:12, where Jesus says, "I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life." Steve connected that directly to his own experience, saying that his marriage, his parenting and his work did not go well until he started asking God what He said about those things. The owner's manual, he kept saying, only helps if you read it.
He closed with the manger. He reminded the room that when Jesus was born, no one made room for Him, so Mary laid Him in a feeding box meant for animals. His challenge for Christmas was simple: make room for Jesus in your heart and mind, because that, not the gifts, is what changes everything.
Doing a Bible study?
Here is a guide we have prepared for you: the passages
in order, questions for the group, and room to write.
Steve said that God's word 'never goes void' and always comes out of us later on. When have you seen that play out in your own life or in someone else's?
Steve used the image of a three-pound brain to describe how limited our own understanding is. Where in your life are you most tempted to lean on your own reasoning instead of trusting God?
Speaker 2Hello, friends. Welcome to another Monday night. Very happy to see you. And a big thank you to Don Lacha's small group back there. So responsible for the meal, Diana, Don, Debbie, Jean, Susie, Marion, a group effort.
But, wonderful soups and homemade cookies. Thank you so much, ladies. And we're gonna do something a little different tonight. I've been hearing so many good things about Awana downstairs, especially the council time that I asked Steve Baldock, who teaches the Bible council time, if he'd be willing to bring it up here for a few reasons. Number one, we love these kids.
Very happy to see you. And can we give them a hand? And we believe in Awana, getting the scripture in the hearts and minds of kids. Number two, it gives us a chance to see what's happening because we're in this room. They're down there.
And number three, I love a short, simple gospel message. I really do. And Steve does a great job at that. So that being said, before they come up, how about we worship in song together? Some Christmas songs.
Christmas carols, Christmas carols. God, thank you so much for the joy that you bring and also bringing this joy in this room to this evening. In Jesus' name. Amen. Let's see.
Steve, are you ready to come on up? Well, fantastic. We're we're gonna let you. We're gonna let you. Yeah.
Yeah. I think they're ready to go. And they got a time a a tighter Check. Check.
Steve BaldockHey. Howdy, everybody. I need one of these downstairs, kids. This would be great. Anyway, my name is Steve Baldock.
If you don't know me, my alias is mister b, and I let I have the kids call me that because, it's easier to pronounce than mister Baldock. Anyway, so I'm mister Baldock, and Carl and I thought it would be fun tonight to have the Awana older people come up here with us tonight. So this is the Awana group here, the TNT's, which I hate to tell you this, but it was just last night I was making notes for this and I thought TNT's were T, the letter N, and T. And I always thought, well, that's strange. Why would you call a Christian youth group an explosive?
And then I had to look it up. I googled it, and it stands for what? Truth and Training. Truth and Training, and, which just amaze me. I never knew that.
I thought you guys were a bunch of dynamite or something. I don't know. So, anyway, before I get into my message, and I am oh, we got plenty of time. We got the rest of eternity. Right?
Pretty much. Except for you wanna play with your stuff. But I wanna tell you real quick about these young people, these young men and women you see here in this room. I gotta brag on them for just a minute. Iwana's consistent three parts.
We play games, and we do Bible lessons, and which includes memorization, and then we do counsel time or life lessons. That's what I do. These young men and women you see sitting around these tables are guarantee you. There are a lot of them that know more Bible verses than you do. They've put God's word into their minds and hearts, and I expect great things from these kids because God's word never goes void.
It always comes out of us later on. So let let's pray real quick because otherwise, it'll just be me up here blabbing away. But if we invite God to open our ears and our hearts, great things can happen. So let's just pray for just a minute. Father God, I'm so grateful that I can be here, except for I hate microphones.
But I have joy in my heart. We have joy in our hearts because you're our savior. And we just ask you to to take this time that we've got and help us open our minds and our hearts and change us to be more like your son. I ask in your name, Amen. Okay.
Great. Okay. So tonight is gonna be a review for some of you from last year. I apologize, but review is not bad. What's six times six?
Unprecedented. Got you, didn't I? What's five plus five? 10. 10.
Okay. Why do you know that? Because someone drilled go to school and we actually know more. That's right. And someone drilled it into your mind over and over and over and again.
So this is gonna be a lesson kinda like I taught a couple years ago, but I think it's really important for today in the world, particularly for you adults too, cause this world's kind of messed up. I don't know if you've realized it, but you will when I get done with you here tonight. So one thing you need to know about me and these these young men and women already do, When I come to you tonight and what I say, I need you to know something. I believe, like Jesus did, that the Bible is the inspired word of God. Every word from Genesis to Revelation, and it's totally adequate to train us up to be men and women of God and do great things and enjoy this life as crooked and broken as it is, that the best you can get out of this life.
So that's where I come from. It's the Bible. K? Alright. So where are we at?
Oh, yeah. Okay. I don't know if you've noticed, but in our world today, in my world, and you guys are learning about it in school by your kids and your parents and just the culture, Our world is extremely confused today, and it's extremely angry. We we have a hard time. We don't understand how to deal with marriage.
We don't know how to deal with our identities. We don't know how to deal with our money or our time. We don't know what our purpose is in life. We don't even know what we're here for. We're confused people.
And tonight, I'm gonna show and tell you why. And if I do my job well, actually, if the Holy Spirit teaches us something tonight, you'll know what the problem is and what to do about it. So first, I'm gonna give you I'm do something different. I'm gonna give you the solution first, then I'm gonna give you the problem. And by the magic of pastor Carl, Proverbs three six and seven, or somebody is on the screen.
Or if not now this comes from the Bible, and the Iwana kids know this is what I call the owner's manual. It only does you any good if you read it. It's just like that one out there in my Subaru. If I don't read it, it doesn't do me any good. This is God's owner's manual for your life.
Read it. Got some good stuff in there. So, anyway, we are terribly confused. Here's the solution to the problem I'm gonna present and tell you about tonight. It's in Proverbs three verse five and six.
And God says, trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways, submit to him, and he will make your path straight. That's the solution. Now now we get to the problem, and there is no way I can use this microphone. I gotta use my hands.
So can I can I talk loud? Can you come help me? Can you come help me? Okay. Now before you do anything.
Okay. Now since we're all Christians here, or at least I hope you are. If you're not, you better get to be one real quick. I want you to notice what I'm doing with my hands before I say the next little bit here. Okay?
Now thanks to the kind people at St. John's Hospital today, they loaned me two human brains that I brought with me tonight. Could you get those for me? Or at least one of them. Now be careful.
It's it's it's hazardous. It's biohazard. And they keep them in the plastic. Don't unwrap them. But I'm just gonna pass them around.
Okay? You can pass one that way. Okay? And you can just pass that one because I might hang on to this one. So this this wink wink is your brain.
It's your brain, and it's your brain, and it's your brain. And it weighs three pounds. So here's the problem, boys and girls, ladies and gentlemen. The problem is is you all think, Christians and non Christians alike, think that you can figure this whole world out with this three pound of gray matter that sits on your shoulders. Now that is foolishness, but that's what we all think.
Now this brain, I'll pass this one. I won't need it back for a minute. But now don't open that bag because if we do, we'll get brain gush all over here, and then the parents will never let me have their children again. So here's the deal. Your brain everybody brain weighs the same.
Now the when you're born, it's a little bit smaller and it grows, but every adult has a brain that weighs about three pounds. Now that represents 2%. I gotta uncross my fingers. Okay. Your brain represents 2% of your body mass.
Now before you start to think and you're super, super smart, you ever probably know what a shrew is? Shrew is a teeny little mouse with long nose. Looked pretty dumb. A shrew's brain is 10% of its body mass. So, yeah, you can sit down.
So, that's another way of saying you're dumber than a shrew. So, and remember though, you got your three pounds of, I'll give you a little hint, cauliflower sitting on your shoulders, and you think you can get this all figured out. Now, we'll give God a wink and we'll say, yeah, he's God, but do we really believe it? But it gets worse than that. Oh, I do need both brains back for a second.
Could you bring me that brain up for a second? Oh, well, it's it's kinda brainy cauliflower. It's kinda I had to do something. Okay. So here's k.
So so here's the bigger problem. It gets worse. So now you got your three pounds. In your infinite wisdom, you think you can understand this whole cosmos and universe. And then you got the then this guy here.
You hold your brain. Don't drop it. Oh, whoops. Oh, no. Dang.
Okay. So I got my three pounds of brain here, and he's got right over right over here. Right over here. Right over here. Over here.
So you got your three pounds of brain. Now my little brain says, I'm right. I understand everything. I'm I'm in control. I can figure this out on my own.
Now guess what your little brain's saying? Same. I can figure this life out myself. I don't have to listen to my parents. I don't have to listen to my pastor.
I don't have to listen to anybody. I can figure this out on my own. But it gets worse than that. Last month, we just hit the 8,000,000,000 mark, 8,000,000,000 people on this planet. Now we got 8,000,000,000 of these little suckers all walking around saying, we're right and you're wrong.
And that's why, my friends, our world is terribly confused because we all think we can do it right. Now what we need to do is we need to go back to God. He's the one that made us, and he's the one that can fix us. Because our problem is is our our little our little computer brain up here, it's got a virus in it. Right.
It's got a virus called sin, and it's infected everybody's brain in this room. You don't even know what you don't know. Think about that for a minute. You don't even know what you don't know. So how in the world are you gonna figure life out on your own?
That would be crazy. Right? That's insanity. So the Holy Spirit in the book of Romans tells us that without God, it warns us, without God, your minds are gonna become darkened and shriveled. And professing to be wise, we become fools.
And that's why today you see all this confusion in the world because we all think we're right and we forgot to guess the one that created us, God. Okay. So let's see. I got to flip my page here. Yeah.
So no wonder we're confused. What's this say? Oh, that's the problem. I hope you can understand the problem. It's pretty simple.
Right? Doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure this out. You got three pounds of brain. You're not all that. And this ain't all about you.
Let's go back to the solution. Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own three pounds of understanding. In all your ways, submit to him and he will make your path straight. The Bible is God's help me here. Hang on.
I had a little brain. That that three pound thing on my head kinda gets warped sometimes. It gets stuck. Owner's manual. Owner's manual.
God's word, the Bible, is the owner's manual. You need to read it. You need to memorize it. You need to study it, and you need to live it. I like I like something that Jesus said, though.
You know what? This is Christmas time, so I gotta throw a Christmas thing in here. Right? But Jesus understood our minds. He understood what we were like.
And what I like that he told us in where is it at there? John eight verse 12. This is cool. Then I don't have to it'd be pretty hard to do this one handed. Look at that.
I love I love the Lord Jesus because he does something for me that no one else has ever been able to. I've been confused a lot of my life until I started asking God, what makes this work? Everything I tried to do in life, my marriage, raising kids, working, it didn't work very well until I asked God. And Jesus, he comes along and the Lord Jesus said, when he spoke again to the people, he said, I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.
That helps my brain damaged mind a lot. I'm not alone anymore. It's not up to me. I have to all I have to do is look at the owner's manual, read it, and apply it to my life, and it's gonna work the same for you. It won't work for everybody because very few are those that follow the Lord Jesus.
But for those that do, life can be a wonderful thing. So, Jesus said he's the light of the world. I would strongly suggest to you to avoid all the confusion that you'll hear your children, your friends in school have and in the media, all that, remember who's talking to you. Now, you need to respect your teachers and your elders and whatnot. But, when everybody starts talking foolishness that goes against the word of God, You keep in mind what's on top of their head.
They ain't all that, but God is. Make sense? So, the solution, they you know when you go to the doctor, he gave you some medicine to get better? Yeah. Here's mine for you.
Go to doctor Jesus. Go to doctor Jesus and ask him to help you with your brain damaged mind, and he'll give you the light, and you'll never walk in darkness again. Good deal. We got just a couple more minutes. It's almost Christmas time.
I was sharing something downstairs, and I want I wanna share it with you really quick. I hate to tell you TNTers, but the kids downstairs got candy. No. You don't get anything now. No.
No. We're good. We're good. We're good. So when the Lord Jesus came here the first time, we what we did is we sang a song.
You know that song, a little yeah. Something night. Oh, okay. Yeah. We're gonna sing it together, and I'm gonna stop you when I'm on.
Away oh, come on. Away in the manger. No crib for a bed. Stop. K.
We don't know everything that went on at the time of Jesus' birth. Doubtful that he was born on December 25. But the world has decided we're gonna celebrate the son of God coming to earth at Christmas time. But what is true, we know because all the disciples talked about it, is when he was born, Jesus was laid in a manger. Now, a manger is a wooden box, and it's designed now, it wasn't very long back in those days because they didn't have any sawmills and whatnot like pastor Ray used to work at.
So, their boards weren't very long, but they made these wooden boxes, and then they put the straw and the hay in the wooden boxes. And then the oxen and the cows and the horses and the donkeys would come, and they'd put their nose in there, and they'd eat the stuff in the box. Now the first time that Jesus Christ came to this Earth, there was no place for him. Nobody made any room for king Jesus that day. And his mama took and wrapped him in swaddling clothes.
And all she could do was lay that baby Jesus in that manger because there wasn't any room for him. Now my challenge to you this Christmas, if you wanna have a really, really good Christmas besides all the toys because they'll be broke within twenty minutes. Okay? But if you wanna have a really good Christmas this year, you make sure that in your heart, in your mind, you make room for Jesus because that will change everything. And you can do that by the way you act and behave, love a lot, and enjoy Christmas a lot.
Okay. I need a really I really badly need a drink of water. So we're gonna stop there, I'm gonna pray real quick because I wanna bless you. And I thank you for your attention, especially you guys. Man, let's hear for these Iwana guys, and girls.
Sorry. Yay. You're great. So is it okay if I pray with them real quick? Please.
Please. Please.
Speaker 2We're just gonna sing a song.
Steve BaldockLet's pause for just a minute and talk about king Jesus. Only good little boys and girls get candy. Let's pray. Let's pray. Lord Jesus, you are adorable.
Like the song says, we adore you. You came to this earth to save us, and we are so grateful. Help us to love people the way you loved us, and help us to enjoy this season with our families and our friends, and go tell other people about you. Thank you, Lord Jesus. Amen.
Amen.
Speaker 2Do you guys have a a minute to sing a song with us to close? Yes. We do. You do? Yeah.
Fantastic. Well, this this song is called Nothing I Hold On To, but it is exactly what Steve, just shared from Proverbs three, five, and six. I lean not on my own understanding. My life's in the hands of the maker of heaven. And thank you.
Can we give Steve a a hand for bringing the word? And Lord, that we would make room in our hearts for you and not lean on our own understanding or just the understanding of others, but look to you as the source, the source of understanding and life. You say in John 10, I've come to give life and life to the full measure. You are the light of the world that anyone who follows you will not walk in darkness but will have the light that leads to life. Lord, thank you for that life.
May we find that life in you. In Jesus' name, amen. Would you guys stand with me? We'll sing. Let's sing this line again.
To. Nothing I hold on to. I hold on to. Nothing I hold on to. Lord, we make that our prayer and our song tonight.
Say we were created for the works that you prepared for us in advance. And, Lord, I pray for each person this young, in this room, each young person and older alike, Lord, that we would continue to follow you, to look to you, to look to wisdom that is beyond ours. Look to your wisdom. In Jesus' name, amen. Hey, would you guys read this verse with me one more time before we go?
Can we read it together? You ready? Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding in all your ways and he will make your paths straight. Iwana kids, thank you so much for joining us tonight here. It's so good to have you.
