Eph 5:8, "For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light"

For light to be effective one needs a light source. Secondly a light is most effective when it is very dark around it.

We are surrounded by darkness. In our personal lives and as a church satan's attacks are launched against us. But the darkest hour this world ever experienced happened almost 2000 years ago. Then our Lord was lead to the cross because of our sin. He was forsaken even of God - imagine what that must have meant to Him!

But it was in that darkest of hours when the Light of the Son of God broke through and dispelled the darkness.

We live in a very dark time. Government wants to remove prayer and Bible reading from schools and replace them with a pledge of allegiance to the Constitution - a constitution not based on the Word of God which contains aspects which a majority of the people of the country disagrees with, like abortion on demand and same sex marriages.

In America the hollywood popstars called "idols" are the role models for the youth. A newspaper article claimed that there are already more Muslims than Protestants in Germany. And we can go on and on.

We must wake up before it is too late. We are living in a very dark time.

But we do have this advantage. The darker the night the brighter the light shines, if indeed our light does shine. The darkness only prevails because of a lack of light.

God is Light. If we want to be carriers of the Light we must be connected to the Light source. We must walk in God's Light. No immorality, greed, filthiness, silly talking or course jesting must be found amongst us. Silly talk and course jesting is not fitting for a Christian. They are works of darkness.

Most people love darkness rather than light. Darkness hides sin and spots, but the light reveals the smallest blemish. However a child of God rejoices when the Lord corrects him or her.

The story is told of a women who was stuck in traffic and late for an appointment. She got very agitated. Finally at one traffic light the man in front of her stopped when the light turned yellow. That was just one too much. She blew her top, threw a tantrum in her car and yelled and screamed. While she was performing there was a knock on her window. It was a police officer and he arrested her on the spot and placed her in a cell. About an hour later he went to her cell and apologised profusely explaining that he was following her when he saw what happened. However there were two stickers on her back window. The one said "What would Jesus do?" and the other "Follow me to Sunday School". When she performed as she did he was convinced that she had stolen the car and therefore arrested her.

You see the devil doesn't mind if you call yourself a Christian as long as you do not live, act and behave like a Christian.

Alexander Papaderos, when asked a question about the purpose of life related the following story. He took a small mirror, about the size of a quarter, out of his pocket and explained:

"When I was a small child during World War II, I found several broken pieces of mirror on the road where a soldier's motorcycle had been wrecked. I tried to find all the pieces and put them together, but it was not possible, so I kept only the largest piece. This one. And by scratching it on a stone I made it round. I began to play with it as a toy and became fascinated by the fact that I could reflect light into dark places where the sun would never shine -- in deep holes and crevices and dark closets. It became a game for me to get the light into the most inaccessible places I could find. I kept the little mirror, and as I went about growing up, I would take it out in idle moments and continue the challenge of the game. But, as I became a man, I grew to understand that this was not just a child's game but a metaphor for what I might do with my life. I came to understand that I am not the light or the source of light. But light -- truth, understanding, knowledge -- is there, and it will only shine in dark places if I reflect it.

I am a fragment of a mirror whose whole shape and design I do not know. Nevertheless, with what I have, I can reflect light into the dark places of this world -- into the black places in the hearts of men -- and change some things in some people. And perhaps others will see and do likewise. This is what I am about. This is the meaning of my life.

Jesus is calling us to reflect His Light. Our mirror may be small -- yet we reflect the light of Christ."

(more detailed notes of the sermon here)