Where There is Light, Darkness Cannot Be | Cornerstone Church | Pastor TJ McConahay

Thanks, mom. All right, guys, I was 12 years old, and honestly, I had no idea who I was. I had a rough childhood bouncing back and forth between grandparents and different moms and dads and stepdads and it was a tough time. Found myself in the fifth grade in San Jose, California. And something happened in the fifth grade.

Something happened to all the fifth grade boys. About halfway through the fifth grade, one boy at a time started to notice that girls started to look good. And you just watch it because what would happen is they would start to look better.

You know, they'd start to wear different clothes and have different shoes on and the craziest thing was they would all got different haircuts, okay. And so pretty soon once one guy started getting a haircut then the rest of the guys had to start getting this haircut and back in this time

the haircut that you got if you wanted to lure the ladies in was a haircut where you shaved the sides all the way around and you left the top as long as you could and then you took an ungodly amount of hair gel and just slick that stuff straight back. Okay? Straight back. It was like the 1950s was replanted in 1990s

for a second there. And so, as I told you, I didn't know who I was. So I was like, man, I want to fit in. Yeah, and so I went and got that haircut. And I put the hair gel in every day and I've been doing it for a couple weeks and I had no luck with the ladies with this haircut. But one day I woke up,

I flipped on the bathroom light and the light flashed and it went out. It was completely dark in my bathroom. What do you do? Because this haircut is not a haircut you can wear down. You look like a mad person with it down. So I decided I'm just gonna feel my way through this today.

So I took that ungodly amount of hair gel, I slicked it straight back and by the time I got ready that morning, I was late. I was running to school, running as fast as I could and I encountered the man that I encounter every day at this time. His name was Chuck and he was the crosswalk guard.

And usually he was kind of a jovial dude, kind of funny, but today he looked at me and he was horrified and then he started to laugh. What's going on? He goes, he looks down at me goes, son, I'm gonna help you out today. You don't know this

but you have a massive amount of hair gel just sitting right on the top of your head right now. I was embarrassed. I was humiliated. I ran ran. I didn't wait for him to cross me across the street. I just ran into the bathroom. No one saw me and I look in the mirror and he was right.

There was a gelatinous mass attached to the top of my head and I take it and I throw it and I slick my hair straight back and then I look in the mirror. And even though I had fixed it and even though I had avoided humiliation, I still felt humiliated. Because here's the thing is, I didn't like this haircut.

It didn't look like me and I knew that as I was even though it was fixed, I was scared because I had no idea who I was. Now, the hero of this story is for sure the crossing walk guard who told me the truth, but I was so humiliated I used a different cross section every day and I never spoke to him again

because I didn't know who I was. I learned three things from that story. Three things. Number one, the truth is kindness even when it hurts. The truth is kindness even when it hurts. Number two, if you make yourself look good in the dark, you will be humiliated in the light.

If you make yourself look good in the dark, you will be humiliated in the light. And the last one is this. You are most vulnerable when you do not know who you are. You are in the most vulnerable place when you do not know who you are. Now we are in the middle of a series where we're examining angels and demons and the forces

of darkness. And I told you guys the truth is kindness even when it hurts. Here's the truth. Evil exists. You, if you know Jesus, have an enemy and that enemy is seeking to kill and destroy and deceive you. This is happening at the exact same time that you're just living your life.

There are there is a spiritual realm where you cannot see but there's a battle going on in this place between good and evil and what they're trying to win is the souls of men and women. It's scary but it's true. And here's the thing is, if it is true, which I absolutely believe in, then we

have to prepare for it. And if we prepare in the dark, we will be humiliated in the light. So we have to prepare for this in the light of the gospel, in the light of God's word. So that we will not be humiliated by the forces of evil, by the forces of evil. And here's the last thing is, I believe this.

One of the best weapons that we have against the forces of evil is knowing who we are in Jesus. Our identity in Christ is the thing that helps us to stand when the forces of evil are at our door.

And so my hope in this moment is for you to understand if you know Jesus then what's already in you is the thing that's going to oppose the dark forces of this world. Let's jump into the text.

The question we have today is how do we prepare for the forces of evil? We're gonna look at John chapter eight, John chapter eight. If you have a Bible, just go right to the beginning of the New Testament, Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, and if you get there, we're gonna be in chapter eight and we're gonna read verse 44.

And so before we jump into how our identity helps us to fight the forces of evil, what we have to do is we have to look at the schemes of Satan. We have to understand who he is and what his strategy is. So in John eight forty four it says this, now here's the backstory. Jesus is teaching

and it's not going well. Not because Jesus is not teaching truth, it's because the crowd is opposing him. It's filled up with people who do not like him, who see his preaching and his teaching and his ability to do miracles as a threat to their power. Their religious institutions

and the authorities that are being there pushing back on him and they're asking him all sorts of questions. They're trying to trap him and Jesus looks at them and he understands exactly where they're coming from and he says this to them, you belong to your father the devil

and you want to carry about your father's desires. He was a murderer from the beginning not holding to the truth for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language. Underline that word native language. For he is a liar and the father of all lies. When you hear a lie, you should know where it comes from.

Lies are demonic. They're not just demonic. They're Satan's greatest strategy to kill, destroy and deceive you. So when you see it, whether it be in your life with people who are in who who are around you or on media or or from politicians or from powers, you know exactly where that comes from. Satan is using lies

to try to win this battle that he's having with God. He's trying to deceive you. Now we know this from the scriptures but and pastor Lynn did an amazing job last week of telling us that Satan is real. But one of the things he talked about was this, is that Satan disguises himself as an angel of light.

I told you guys this a little while back, I love the trinitarian theology. I love that our God is three in one and still one God. I love that about God. Now Satan tries to disguise himself as a trinity as well. He hits us in three different fronts.

In the same way that we have a father who's above us, and we have the son who is with us, and we have the spirit who is in us. We have three enemies who are opposing us on each one of those fronts, The world, the flesh and the devil.

And there is three ways on all three of these fronts that you are being lied to right now in your life. There are three lies in particular that this unholy trinity is lying to you about. The first is this one,

the lie of the past. You are too far gone. You are the sum of your worst moments. Your mistakes matter and that is all you will ever be. The brokenness that happened to you in your past and the brokenness that you participated in. Your sin is your identity and you will never recover from that. The lie of the past.

The lie of the present. Satan is smart. He knows he can't just beat you up so he tries to inflate your ego. So from that place of surrender when you go yeah maybe maybe I am the some of my worst moments. He tells you the second lie. He says this life is all about you.

Because you are so broken, the best thing you can do is just make life all about you. Seek pleasure, seek happiness, just be distracted over and over and over again so that you don't have to deal with how messed up you are. The lie of the present and then there's the lie of the future, which is this. You cannot change.

You hear it all over in our culture. People saying it this way. You were born this way, you you are what you what you do, what you participate in is your identity, your taste. Your your identity is is about the things that you desire and your pleasure is the middle of your identity. So you know what? You can't change that.

The lie of the future. Now

let me break the fourth wall real quick of sermons. When you write sermons, they tell you that one of the best ways to write sermons is to build tension, to have a moment where which causes conflict. And then what you do is you slowly resolve that over time to keep people's attention.

Now what this is here is it's building attention. Here's the three lies of these things. And so what I should do is I should let them stand right where they're at because that would help you to listen. But here's the thing is, I don't like lies.

I think our world is filled with lies. So I wanna relieve that tension because I think there's a moral obligation. Maybe it's not the best sermon but it's the best way to minister. When we hear a lie, we respond with the truth. So here it is, if you walked in here today and you said to yourself, hey, I'm too far gone.

What you need to hear is this, Jesus is a better savior than you are a sinner. Okay? Jesus died on the cross for your sins and that sacrifice is sufficient for you.

You came in you said maybe life is all about me. Maybe you spent last night making it all about you. What you need to know is this, if you live that way, that life is all about you. You will gain it in the end. You will gain only yourself and you will end up angry and alone

and bitter because no one will confess what you cannot confess to yourself which was this. You are not God, you are not.

Lie number three, the lie of the future, you cannot change. Guys, we wouldn't be Christians if we believe that. We serve the God of transformation. We serve the God who walked out of the grave, who called his friends out of the grave. So certainly he can call you out of the grave.

He breaks the chains. He says, I came to set the captives free and who the son sets free is free indeed.

Stop believing the lies, leave them at the altar today and let's take up the true identity which is ours in Jesus Christ. But I want you to notice the three things about these lies. I want you to hear them. Each one of these lies, the three lies, they're meant to do one thing, change your identity.

Satan is trying to write a story about your life that your creator, the author, the original author of your life never wrote about you. He wants you to believe something about yourself so you act in a way that will never honor God. He's trying to drive a wedge between you and God because he knows this is true. Who you are

is completely connected to who, whose you are, who you belong to. Who you are is completely connected to who you belong to.

The same year that I had the slick back hair incident, my dad got something that our family never got, a vacation. One of the people in his work gave him their cabin for the weekend up in Tahoe. So we invited the family and we went up to Tahoe for a family vacation.

My dad was feeling pretty good and he looked at his 11 year old son and he said, hey, do you know how to drive a stick? Now my dad my dad drove a 1989 Ford Mustang GT convertible. Literally the car that Vanilla Ice was singing about in Ice Ice Baby.

And I said, no, dad, I don't know how to drive a stick. Well, today is your day to learn how to drive a stick. My feet could barely touch the pedals as I climbed in red leather interior.

And he told me about, hey, you know, you gotta push the clutch down and you gotta let the gas and you gotta kinda just do this little move right here and then it's gonna go forward and and and and, you know, I killed it like four or five times, not killed it in a good way. The car actually died, right?

Four or five times, just not working, but my dad's being patient. And finally, we get that thing going. And there I am.

I'm 11 years old, and I'm driving in a Ford GT Mustang five point o. And this is this is the greatest moment of my life. We're going around the we're just going around in first gear over and over and over again. My dad gets bored with this. He goes, hey, stop here. We're at the cabin.

He gets out and goes, go ahead and just take it around a few more times, Tee. I'm 11 years old and I have three fifty horsepower at my disposal right now, okay? So I'm driving around there. Now my dad didn't teach me how to shift, But I'm looking at this stick shift and I can see that there is a number past one.

And I figured two is faster than one. So I got to shift to this other gear. Now I didn't know when to shift. So I just shifted like around a curve, you know. I didn't even get the gear. It just it just it just popped right out, like rejected it

and then went right into neutral. Car stopped going forward, rolled backwards into a ditch. Oh, no. So there I am, five point o Mustang GT convertible

trying to get out of this. So I'm doing exactly what said. I've started the car. I you know, got the clutch. I'm trying to get out of this position and I killed it. I killed it. I killed it. And one time I get it going, the wheel spin and I'm not getting there. Then all of a sudden, the neighbors notice

and they see me, 11 year old, in a Ford GT Mustang five point o and they realized this is not right. And they come across the street, and they start asking me all sorts of questions. Hey. Hey. Hey. What are you doing, kid? How how old are you?

I didn't even know how old I needed to be to drive, so but I knew I needed a lie. So I said 13.

They said, 13? You're not old enough to be driving this car. I then they started asking more questions. I didn't like the questions, so I rolled the window up.

This is a convertible with a top down. There's no escaping these these questions. They keep asking me questions, and I'm pretty sure they're gonna call the police. They think I've stolen this car. This whole thing happened, and I'm really getting nervous, and I see it.

My dad is walking around the corner of the block. He sees me right there. He's coming. He looks like a superhero to me. He's like, Tee, what happened? I go, dad, put it in the ditch. He's like, Well, move over. He, like, shoos the people away, opens the car door, they start asking my dad the question. They say,

Is this your car, sir? Yeah, this is my car. Is that your son? Yeah, that's my son. Is he old enough to drive this car? My dad looks at him and goes, he's old enough to drive my car. Pops the clutch, pulls us out of the pulls us out of the ditch. We go right back to the house.

I have never felt more connected to my father than that moment right there. Let me say it again. Let me say it again.

Who you are is completely connected to who you belong to. See guys, we have a God who fights for us. We have a God who stands as our superhero, who says to the world and to the doubters and to the devil and to the flesh that he is sufficient and he is he's he's going to win these battles.

If we're going to know who we are, then what we need to do is know who we are in Jesus. And what I want you guys to look up right now is just turn a couple pages back to John chapter one.

Here's the statement about identity that we've been driving at today. John one eleven through 13. I'm gonna give you a second to get there. John one eleven through 13 says this, he came to which was his own.

Who came? Jesus. He came to which was his own, but his own did not receive him. Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave them the right to be called children of God. Children not born of natural descent or human decision or of a husband's will, but born of God. Do you hear it believers?

When you receive Jesus, you receive a new identity. An identity that helps you stand at the gates of hell and not blink because in that moment you can look at the devil, can look at the world, you can look at your own flesh and you can say this, I am a child of God. Not born, not not descended from anybody special, not

not not because this but but adopted by God through the blood of Jesus Christ. I was born of God. I am his kid. In the same way I felt when my dad came around that corner and put those people in his place. That is the identity that we have in Jesus Christ.

That is what Jesus bought for us through his blood and through his sacrifice on that cross.

Remember how when Jesus was rebuking the crowd and he said, when Satan speaks, he tells lies and when he tells lies, he speaks his native language. He speaks his native language. Us as children of God, we have a native language as well.

We have a language to which we are supposed to speak and it should help us to identify. So the question becomes, how do we live out our identity as children of God? How do we do that? How do we live out our identity as children of God? We do this by learning our native language and our native language is the gospel.

Let me say it again, somebody looks sleepy out there. Our native language, the thing that we speak to the world about the world is the gospel of Jesus Christ. Now I want you to hear this because I think that sometimes we get confused about this, but I wanna just tell you a quick story. Here it is,

I was brand new to my call, I think I was two years old as a youth pastor and one of the elders of my church called me and he said, hey, I need your help today. Now, this is not an unknown situation.

Elders often called the youth pastor and said, We need help. But usually involve getting the youth group together to help somebody move something heavy. So I was like, All right, what do you need? How many kids? He goes, no, no, I just need you to come with me today. Oh,

what are we doing? Somebody from the community called our church and they want a pastor to go over there because they believe that they have a demon in their house. What? Yeah, yeah, so they want a pastor to come over and perform they want you to cast out a demon, TJ. Oh,

do I need to bring some like holy water or like a silver bullet, maybe some some crosses? He said, no, no, TJ, just bring your bible. I'm like, like, you've never done this before? I'm like, no. No. I have never, never done this. We go to this house and here's the crazy thing is, you could feel it. It was real.

There was a demon in that house. There was there was an oppression. There was an evil force there. And I gotta be honest with you, I wish wish I had more courage in that moment but I was scared. I just had my Bible and the elder with me. We knocked on the door and I started to feel it and we walked in and

there was evil there. They're really concerned because this demon had been talking to their six year old daughter and their six year old daughter had been talking back for months at this time. And so I figure what are we gonna do now? When is the wall gonna split open and we're

gonna be able to see this in this moment, the little girl's head's gonna spin around or something along this lines and it doesn't happen. I watched this elder start to work and he just starts to pray. Not in a screaming voice, he didn't yell, the power of Christ compels you.

He just started in a very small voice to speak the name of Jesus Christ in that house. So what he did and you could feel it as well. You could feel the tension lift as this faithful man said the name Jesus over and over again. Just a prayer like this, God, I know you're here

and I know that Satan has to be removed. So in the name of Jesus Christ, I pray that this house, this house would be claimed for him. Just through the hallways, we get to the end and we circle up

and he says, can I pray for you? And family said, yeah. And he started talking to the family a little bit more and he goes, hey, do you guys know Jesus? And dad said, well, I've been to church before. No, no, no. Do you know Jesus? Do you know the gospel?

He says, no, I don't I don't know the gospel. And I'd just been sort of a spectator in this whole thing. And then the elder looked at me and says, TJ, can you just tell this family what the gospel is? Yeah, yeah, I can do that. Now I've been trained

by the best nineteen ninety's evangelists there were about this thing called the four spiritual laws. And so I just gave them the four points, the four truths of the gospel. I looked at this family as we circled up,

I was holding on to the little girl's hand and I said this, there's the first truth of the gospel is this, you were created on purpose for a purpose. Here's the crazy thing is you could feel it. Even as I proclaimed the gospel, more started to lift in this room. I said that the second thing is this,

we are broken and sinful people. We've broken God's laws and so we sit separated from God. The third is this, Jesus came. Jesus died to redeem broken people from our sin. He came to redeem a broken and sinful people. And number four is this, and I looked at these family members, everyone has a choice, you must choose God

or not choose God. And then the elder looked at the family and says, hey, would you guys like to choose God today? They all said, yeah, yeah, we'd like that. And we prayed and you could, again, I'm telling you guys this, you could feel it. Here's the thing that I know is the bible teaches

that our bodies when Christ died on the cross, there was this temple in Jerusalem and when he died, the day that he died, the veil was torn. This big curtain that separated the Holy of Holies from every other part of the temple, it was ripped in half

and it symbolized the fact that the holy of holies was not going to be the home of the holy spirit anymore because of Christ's death and resurrection. That holy spirit was gonna have a new temple. What is that new temple? The bible tells us this, your body is a temple of the holy spirit.

So what do we do? We fill up our body with the holy spirit so no other demon can dwell in that place. And so for us, those of us who are redeemed by the blood of Jesus Christ, we cannot be possessed. That temple's already full. That doesn't mean that God can't that Satan can't oppress us. Doesn't mean that. But in our temple,

that's where the holy spirit lives. So I wanna say this to you. We need to start speaking the gospel to this generation. Can you can you put the four the four gospel truths back up there? Can can we put those back on the screen? There they are. Get your phone out and take a picture. This church

is, this is your native language. Now you have to know this guys, every issue that you face and what people will bring you in life is answered by one of these four spiritual truths.

Your friend comes to you and says, man, I'm I just feel just so lonely and desperate and without purpose. And you look at them, you say the first one, you proclaim it to them. You say, you were created on purpose for a purpose. And the reason that you don't feel connected is you're not connected to God anymore because

of your sin. Now, a person comes to you and says, man, I just it's too heavy. You know what I've done, and how can I be forgiven? You look at them and you proclaim. Number three, Jesus came to redeem sinners. Right? He is a better savior than you are a sinner. You can be set free into the world who hasn't chosen God yet.

And so they're so caught up in all the worldly issues, we proclaim this. Everyone, everyone must choose God or not. This is our native language. The challenge to you believers is this, try to get into a gospel conversation this week. I believe that the people in your life,

the ones that are having all sorts of hard times, they just need to hear the gospel.

I have a dear friend, and she was really struggling in her faith. And she's been going through a really hard time. And she wrote this to me, she said, man, I was just struggling during Christmas.

And then this guy got up there, and he was just a young guy, and he started preaching. And he just preached a clear gospel message, the four spiritual truths. She said, was crying. Now, I've been a Christian my whole life, but I was crying at just what the gospel meant.

I wanted to get saved again. I wanted to get baptized. I knew I didn't need to, but I wanted that. What was that, TJ? It's this. The gospel has power even for those of us who are saved. It's not a flesh and blood thing. It's a spiritual power. And when it is proclaimed, spiritual things happen. Miracles happen.

And those miracles are so big that only God can get the credit for them. Now, I know some of you guys walked in here and you don't know Jesus. So I wanna give you an opportunity. I want you to see those four spiritual truths and I wanna proclaim it to you again. God created you on purpose for a purpose.

You're broken and sinful and separated from God. Jesus died to redeem a broken and sinful people to make a way for us, and you in this moment must choose God. God doesn't want robots. He wants people who freely choose him. Now,

I'm gonna present the gospel to you right now so you can make that choice. If you are a believer in this moment, I want you to start to pray because I believe that miracle big enough only God can get the credit for is possible when good people, when righteous people pray. So start to pray for the people in this room who do not know Jesus. Everyone else, bow your head and close your eyes.

If you want to say yes to Jesus, just pray this simple prayer. God, I know that I was created on purpose for a purpose.

I know that I am sinful and separated,

but I believe that Jesus died to redeem me, a broken and sinful person.

And in this moment, I choose you, God. Now everyone keep your eyes closed and your heads bowed. If you said that prayer, I wanna tell you something. Welcome to the family of God. But here's the thing is I want you to be brave right now. It's only me looking up right now. Only person looking is me. But if you said that prayer,

if you chose Jesus today, I want you just to lift your hand in the air right now so I can see what happened in this room. Last night, 27 people said yes to Jesus. I pray that that happens in this room too. High enough so I can see it. One, three, four, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve, 131415.

High is sixteen, seventeen, 1819202122, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 3940. And I can't even see that back row, so we're just gonna have to give God the credit for that. God, I thank you for the 41 people who said yes to Jesus in this room. What an incredible moment, God.

Now, look at me, guys. God says this, if you declare me, if you confess me before men, I will confess you to my heavenly father. So I wanna take it a step further. If you're one of the people who said yes to Jesus right now as a declaration of your new faith in Christ and so that we can celebrate.

When I count to three, I want you to stand up. I don't want you to stand up because of performance, but I want you to stand up because it takes courage to follow Jesus. Now every single person here who knows Jesus,

we know that the angels celebrate when one sinner repents. So we're gonna celebrate in this room with you. Okay? So I want you to be able to do this. This is a safe place. But if you're one of those people who said, yes Jesus. One of those 41 people, would you stand on the count of three? One, two, three. Stand up.

Amen.

Stay standing. Stay standing. I wanna say this to you guys. Happy rebirthday. You are born of God. You are a child of God. And the gates of hell will never prevail against you.

Do one more thing with me.

Take out your phone right now and I know this is the part that feels kind of spammy but we don't wanna just plant seeds in vain. We want you to go deep in your faith and we believe that we have a discipleship track for you. Take out your phone, open up a text message, type the type the numbers 21999

and just write Jesus's name and send it. And we will get you connected to a community, to a small church that will help you grow in your relationship with Jesus. Family, let's stand together as we pray. God, you are so good to us, and we thank you for the strong work that you did today. 41 people this morning, 27

people last night. God, these are lives changed forever. God, I pray that you would give them not just the courage to stand up here, but the courage to show up, to be discipled, and to be made new through the power of your Holy Spirit. God, we know that you've already won this battle. It's not even close.

So we just proclaim to you in this moment, Jesus, be glorified. We love you, God. And all God's people said Amen. Amen. The prayer team will be up front if you need prayer.