Series: Jesus Manifesto
Message: Getting Out of the Darkness
Preacher: Paddy McCoy
Reflection: Japhet De Oliveira
Live Wonder: Zan Long
Live Adventure: Zan Long
Live Beyond: J. Murdock
Live Purpose: Lydia Svoboda
Editor: Becky De Oliveira

Refresh: Begin with prayer. Ask for the Holy Spirit to open your heart to new understanding and for God’s character to be revealed.

Read: Colossians 1:11-14 in the New Testament for Everyone (NTE). Note 1–3 insights or questions. 

Reflect: David W. Jones shares this story in his book Illustrations: Stories, Parables, and Quotes for Preachers, Teachers, and Other Public Speakers: 

Leslie Weatherhead was an air raid warden during the terrible days of the London blitz back in the early 1940s. When the all-clear sounded, it was his job to go and survey the damage. One night there had been a particularly heavy bombing. When he went back to the surface, all he could see was smoldering ruins. As he walked, he suddenly heard the sound of a child’s voice crying. He went around some ruins and there to his amazement, he saw an eight-year old boy sitting and sobbing on what had been a building. Somehow the child had gotten lost trying to get up to the air raid shelter and had managed to survive staying on the surface. Weatherhead went up to the little lad and said, “Where do you live son? Where is home?”

The child pointed to a street where there was nothing left but rubble.

He said, “Where are your parents, your mother and father?”

The little boy said, “My father is in the navy. He is overseas. My mother was killed two nights ago.”

He said, “Where is the rest of your family, uncles, aunts, brothers and sisters?”

The child shook his head and said, “They are all gone. They have all been killed.”

At that point, Leslie Weatherhead stooped over and got eye level to the little fellow and said, “Tell me, son, tell me, who are you?

With that the little boy began to cry even more compulsively and then he said through his tears, “Mister, I ain’t nobody’s nothin.’  I ain’t nobody’s nothin.’”
(p. 89)

We all need to be loved. Even those hardened and bitter people who deny this truth publicly would admit in private. Everyone is in a better place simply because someone loves them. The Colossian church needed to be loved. We need to be loved today. Paul, understood what it is to be an outsider, and what it is to be accepted into the Kingdom. I believe that is why this letter is so inviting. We belong to Jesus. 

Recalibrate: Ever felt that you are “nobody’s nothin’ or observed someone else who clearly feels this way?” What did or could you do? 

Respond: Share a prayer of thanks to God for the gift of forgiveness. 

Research: Read your favorite Bible story of acceptance. 

Remember: “The Son paid for our sins, and in Him we have forgiveness” (Colossians 1:14, ICB).

Japhet De Oliveira is administrative director for the Center for Mission and Culture at Adventist Health in Roseville, California.

Just as it’s getting dark, play Spotlight with your little one. Put their favorite toys around your home or, weather permitting, outside in the garden. Give them a flashlight to hold and go find their toys together. Bring the toys home. Jesus is the light in the darkness. Shine His light wherever you go so all who are lost can find their way home.

Are you afraid of the dark? I was when I was your age. I would jump into bed, pull the covers up and get my mom to turn the lights out. I would try to fall asleep straight away so I wouldn’t imagine scary things in my room. Using a flashlight, go for a walk in the dark. Notice how much the flashlight lights up the darkness. Wave it around so you can see all around you. Love is like the light. It makes everything around you easy to see. This is why Jesus is my superhero. His love lights up the dark places so I can see where I’m going and I know that He is with me.

Lots of things are considered powerful. When you think of power, what do you think of? Maybe it’s the heavy pull of a wave crashing on the beaches of Hawaii. Or a tornado that swirls through a town ripping trees out of the ground. But in Colossians 1:13, Paul says that darkness has power.

Darkness? Really?

Darkness is what happens when the sun goes down. Not like it’s 200-miles-per-hour winds or a 40-foot wave of solid water. Nope, it’s just a place where light isn’t. How can darkness be so powerful?

The problem with darkness is that we don’t ever really know what’s out in the dark, as it’s hidden. When matched to our imaginations, darkness can get pretty scary. In the light of day, the sound of something falling in the next room can easily be inspected. (It’s almost always the cat knocking something off of a table.) But at night . . . . That same sound gets amplified because of the unknown. (Was it the cat this time? Or maybe it was . . . .) And now, we’re sitting in the dark trying to be quiet and still and hope that whatever dangerous something-or-other that is in the hallway simply moves on. 

Jesus is right. Darkness is mad powerful! Maybe not like the other powerful things, but powerful enough. Thankfully, the verse in Colossians says that Jesus rescued us from the power of darkness. So even when we are spooked, and our imagination says that we have reason to be afraid, we can speak the name of Jesus into the darkness, and light chases away the darkness. 

How cool is that?

He has saved you. He made a way through the darkness to move you out. He said, “I know what my law says. But it’s you. I have to make a way. I’ll do the impossible.” He took on mortality and claimed you enough. He finished the way and proved that He will stop at nothing to win you back. “All things are possible through Him who saved us.” The most impossible idea—the most powerful Being in the universe fighting for, becoming one of, and dying for the weakest—became reality.

Zan Long is GRC director for faith development for ages 0-17. She lives in Sydney, Australia, and serves at her local church in nearby Kellyville.
J. Murdock is associate pastor at Boulder Adventist Church in Boulder, Colorado, where he focuses on youth and young adult ministry.
Lydia Svoboda is a junior theology major at Union College in Lincoln, Nebraska.