The Word as Light and Life

John
Written By Steve Estes

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Speaker: Steve Estes
Scripture: John 1:4-5
December 4, 2022

John 1:4-5: In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

Sermon Outline

1. In him was life

  • The Word is the reason any life existed

  • The Word is the reason any joy in life existed

  • The Word is the reason any spiritual life existed

2. That life was the light of men

  • Makes things possible

  • Brings joy

  • Shows things as they really are

    • Better than we think

    • Worse than we think

3. The light shines in the darkness

4. The darkness has not overcome it

  • Definition of "overcome"

  • The point

Steve Estes

Steve Estes has been senior pastor at Brick Lane Community Church in Elverson, Pennsylvania, for over thirty-five years. 

Steve’s books and other writings began with his longtime friendship with Joni Eareckson Tada. As teenagers, they grappled with why God allowed Joni’s paralysis in a swimming accident in the Chesapeake Bay. Steve left for college . . . they kept in touch . . . she liked the style of his letters. When her 1976 autobiography Joni spawned thousands of reader responses, she asked Steve to join her in crafting a follow-up. The result was A Step Further in 1978.

Later, Wycliffe Bible Translators commissioned Steve to write the biography of former college friend Chet Bitterman, a Wycliffe linguist who was kidnapped and murdered by political terrorists in Colombia in 1981. Other books and articles followed, including When God Weeps (with Joni) and A Better December (a giveaway book for non-Christian friends at Christmas.)

Steve was educated at Westminster Theological Seminary, Columbia Bible College and Jerusalem University College in Israel. He has taught homiletics at Westminster and is a board member of the Christian Counseling & Educational Foundation.

But Steve would say his most significant life achievement was persuading college classmate Verna Stoltzfus to marry him in 1974.  They now have eight children and more grandchildren than can fit in a van.

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