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Sermon:
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I hope everyone had a lovely Thanksgiving. I know many travel over the holidays, and so I'm sure many of you may have had a similar story to the one I will tell you.
I was driving to spend time with my family this Thanksgiving, going on a road I had driven many times before. But the sun is setting sooner than normal, thanks to Daylights Savings, and I'd never driven this way at night. Foolishly, I thought I had quite a bit longer to go, and I wasn't really paying attention to/trusting in my GPS. By the time I heard the "go left", it was too late.
Fortunately, I was able to turn at the next spot, where I finally recognized where I actually was. And it was good that I did have my GPS on to help guide me in the dark, even if I was a little slow to actually listen to it.
No matter what kind of journey we take, we all need some illumination to get us through, and we all certainly need some guidance. That's where Jesus comes in.
We've heard a great deal about the kingdom of God this morning. It's not a kingdom of this world, as Jesus has told us. It's not one of power or Jesus would have an army ready to defend Himself against Pilate, which He does not. What Jesus tells Pilate is that His kingdom is about one thing: Truth.
After this passage, Pilate asks Jesus "What is Truth?" But we, as Christians, don't have to ask that question. Jesus has already left us with a roadmap in His last conversation with the disciples, shortly before this passage in John. There Jesus tells us that Truth is the Word of God. And the word of God can be summed up in Jesus' new commandment to the disciples, "Love one another, as I have loved you", or even in His words "No one has greater love than this, to lay down one's life for one's friends."
This is our illumination in our journey, our GPS. We are called to love with the same love Jesus has for us, the love of one who was willing to die so that all of us might live, and the love of one who "loved the whole world that He gave His only begotten Son to the end that all who believe in Him might not perish but have everlasting life." We are called to share that love that Jesus has for us with others by loving them the same way Jesus loves us.
This is the only light we need to guide us along the way: Jesus. If we have His light, then even when we miss our turn, we will be able to find our way back. With His light, we can make it to our final destination.
There are a lot of leaders in the world, as well as in the church. Some of those leaders are good, some of them are not. Scripture is very clear that we are only ever to follow Jesus as our guide. But sometimes we will find a leader who is following Jesus, and who takes seriously the values of sharing the same love Jesus has for us with others. When we find that leader, we don't follow that person, but we do walk with that leader so that we too may follow Christ Jesus.