The Two Things That Enable You to Overcome the Darkness Within

Do they have a secret network or something?  Is it built into the genetic code?  Could that be it?   Whatever it is, every kid seems to know all the techniques for delaying bed time.     In our house, there’s the whole drink of water excuse.   And of course, my son, Patrick has the one that is tried and true.  He needs to go potty.  But every night, something stands in the way of that last potty run.   It’s the darkness.   As much as he wants to go, he won’t go there until the lights are on, and on as brightly as possible.   That’s why he has to have the night light on too.  When it comes to the darkness, Patrick wants no part.  

Now people may deny it, but when it comes to darkness, Patrick isn’t the only one.   In fact, the older you get, the greater the fear becomes.   It just changes.   Before it might have been about the physical darkness, a dark room, a dark hallway, a dark alley.  And while that fear may still be there, now the fear has grown bigger.   It’s the darkness of the unknown.  What does the future hold for yourself, for your kids; your family?  The world can be a scarily uncertain place.   But beyond that, now you can fear the darkness not only out there, but in here.    Every human being has stuff in themselves, they’d rather not see, much less show to anyone else.   Who here would want to see a highlight reel of your darkest thoughts over the past week?   And those dark places, as much as you and I want to avoid facing them, they sabotage our lives.    They hold us back.  They limit us.   They wound us, and they wound others.  But how do you get free?  How do you find freedom from that darkness?  In these words, God shows the way.   Let’s listen and hear what God has to say.  

I John 1:5-10

Darkness can grip people’s lives; dark thoughts that bring resentment or fear, that lead you to lash out or to close yourself off; dark desires that can sabotage your health, your relationships, your life; dark places that lead you to doubt yourself, to fall into despair.   How do you break free of that darkness?  How do you bring the light in?   Here God tells you.   Freedom comes only when you face the darkness rather than deny it.  Only when you face not only the darkness in you, but the darkness God faced for you will the light come.  Only then will the light conquer the darkness.

You see.  That’s why John tells you that if you say that you have no sin, then that’s a sign of just how 

in the dark you are.     It’s not facing the darkness that will destroy you.   It’s denying it. 

Years ago, I saw a joke t-shirt that went something like this.   I don’t have a problem with alcohol.  I drink, I get drunk, and I fall down, no problem.   But I gotta admit.  I didn’t find it all that funny.   It came too close to describing people I actually knew.

Last year, distributors sent over 700 million oxycontin and percoset pills to just one state, West Virginia.     That’s 443 pills for every man, woman and child in that state.   So now, you’ll see in West Virginia parents pass out from a drug overdose at their kids’ baseball games.  Or maybe they’ll do it at the wheel of their car, like Tiger Woods did this past week here in Florida.   

But the drugs only point to the deeper problem, why people take them in the first place.   They take them often not for some real physical pain but because they don’t want to face the pain inside them.    So the drugs deaden the pain.   They help them avoid facing that darkness.   But, it never works.    No, the darkness just takes over more and more of their lives.

But you don’t have to abuse drugs to find a way to deny the darkness.  You can eat too much.  You can indulge in way too much TV or the escape of your phone.   You can fill your life with so much distraction and activity that you never have to face your darkness.   Heck, you can even use your religion to deny it.  But whatever it is, it will never work.   Denial never does.

That’s why you won’t find in the Bible people who lived morally exemplary lives.  No, you’ll find people, who yes, often showed great faith, but at the same time, failed in stunning ways.   But when they did, they faced their darkness.   They didn’t deny it.    And when they faced it, they found the way to freedom.  

That’s how you can tell someone has found the light.   When they discover a fault or failing within that they never realized before, it doesn’t crush them, it liberates them.   Sure, seeing a painful truth about yourself doesn’t feel good.   As the preacher, Bill Coffin put it, “To paraphrase Jesus “The truth may make you free, but first it makes you miserable.”   But that misery only leads you to be grasped by the greater truth, the truth that no failing will ever have the final word.  God’s love has that. 

On the other hand, someone may have been coming to church their entire lives, but when they face a moral failing, a painful truth about themselves, it does crush them.   They can’t get past it.  Or they expend enormous energy to deny it is even there.  You see.  They may have sung about the light, but they still find themselves in the darkness.    Inside they still believe that they have to be worthy of that light, rather than simply willing to receive it. 

But to experience the freedom means not only facing your darkness.  It means facing Jesus’ too.   That’s why John says that it’s the blood of Jesus that cleanses from all sin.    When you see the darkness Jesus faced for you, it gives you the strength to resist your own dark places.    And even when you fail, Jesus’ darkness gives you the assurance that your failure will never have that final word.

How does the darkness Jesus faced give you strength to resist?

Well, As I shared a few weeks ago, I had a car accident, one I could easily have prevented if I had been less distracted.    And since 11-year-old mini coopers aren’t worth a lot, now we are looking at getting a new car, a few years before we planned.   Yet my family has been great.  My wife has been understanding.   My son has been sympathetic.   My in-laws have loaned us their car until we get a replacement.   And since my phone was part of the distraction that caused the accident, I have committed to put it away while I drive.  And that has not been easy.   It will begin to ring or a text will come.   I’ll be tempted to pull it out at a long red light just to check something.   But you know what keeps me faithful.   I remember how my carelessness cost my family, how gracious they have been.   And it moves me to put the phone away. 

Do you see how that works with Jesus?  When you see what it cost Jesus to rescue you from your darkness, to bring you home, it gives you the strength to resist.    You think.  Jesus gave up everything for me.  How can I go there to that dark place?  How can I look for satisfaction in something so empty, when I know Jesus emptied himself to fill me?   How can I judge that person or hold that resentment after Jesus has forgiven so much?   When you see how Jesus faced the darkness for you, it gives you the strength to resist your own darkness. 

And when you do fail, that same blood saves you again.   After all, what kept Jesus on that cross?   He could have walked away.  He could have ended the agony.   Why did he endure it? The Bible says that for the sake of the joy that was set before him, Jesus endured the cross and disregarded its shame.    And what was the joy that was set before Jesus?  You were that joy.  You are that joy.  So, do you think after Jesus endured that, that your darkness will drive him away?   Do you think there is anything in the universe that will turn away his love from you?   That’s the power of the cross. That’s the power of God's sacrificial love.    That’s the power of the blood, of the God who bled for you.   As the song we’re about to sing says it so well.

Would you be free from the burden of sin?
There’s pow’r in the blood, pow’r in the blood;
Would you o’er evil a victory win?
There’s wonderful pow’r in the blood.

So, come and share in the power of this blood, the power of the One who bled and died for you, whose love no darkness will ever overcome.