SPEAKER_01 0:00

If you have a Bible with you, we're continuing our series in John, John chapter 8. We're gonna be in verse 12, and one of the reasons we're doing just one verse this week and last week, um, so one of the key things of how John tells the story of Jesus. Did everybody see Slum Dog Millionaire? Remember that movie? So, you know, the interesting thing of how the story is told, it's not really sequential. It's just about this kid, and every time he gets asked a question on a game show, you see the story of how he knows the answer, and right, that's the narrative line. It's built on the answers to the questions in the game show, right? John is not built as a chronological story of the life of Jesus. It's built on seven miracles, seven signs, and then seven I am statements. And we hit one of Jesus' I am statements. So we're learning about who Jesus is. Jesus is revealed not only through what he does, but through what he teaches. Um let's take a look at, it's just one verse, um, although we'll flip a few different places throughout the Bible. But John chapter 8, verse 12 says, Again, Jesus spoke to them, saying, I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life. Please pray with me. Jesus, I pray that you would open our eyes, ears, hearts so that we can truly grasp what this light is and how we can have it. In Jesus' name. Amen. Um, one time uh we were staying up at a friend's house in the mountains. Uh this was that they they weren't there. This was a good cheap family vacation over the summer up in Buena Vista. Not booney, guys, it ain't Booney. Um and uh and so we were staying up there having a great time, and and one night I got up because I had to you know go pee. And this house was so pitch dark, like it didn't have the ambient light of the city to which I'm accustomed. It was, it was couldn't see your hand in front of your face dark. And so I'm like, I'm I'm just kind of groping through this house trying to find the bathroom. And the first thing that went wrong is that I got attacked by a Lego creation. It was an airplane, it was a spaceship. At the time, Abe was at his peak Lego building, so it could have been a fully functioning power plant or something like that. And anyway, the the reason that I know it was big, even though I couldn't see it, is I stepped on it and broke into all these pieces, and it hurt terribly, and of course I cursed loudly, but then when I tried to step away from it, there was just more Lego dancing in agony on this thing, and I hear Sharon laughing in the distance. And so I get away from that finally, and and the next thing that happens is you know those like sliding track doors that kind of go over laundry areas sometimes, like one of those. Well, that landed on me somehow. I don't know what happened, but it landed on me and broke because I I touched it or something like that. I don't know my own strength. Like this is going terribly. And and finally, I get away from the atom trying to figure out where the bathroom is, still can't see anything, and I encounter a wall.

SPEAKER_00 3:21

And I say, Oh, there's a wall. So I turn to the right, but there's a wall there too, and no leg switch. I was like, Well, I'll go this way. I'm like, Wall? And so I just go backtracked, I'm like, wall!

SPEAKER_01 3:34

And I I literally, no, I was drowsy, but but I couldn't figure out how the heck I was surrounded by four walls, and when I had walked into this space, and I finally just sat down and gave up. I was like, there's nothing I can do. I live in I'm just gonna sleep here now. The darkness, right? What's it like to contend with darkness? Well, the answer is you you can't see. You get lost, you're disoriented. Uh uh one of the big themes in the Bible is darkness. What's used to describe three things: the lack of the knowledge of God. Right? We we see darkness manifested in that we worship all sorts of things throughout human history. You know, false gods in many places, but even those of us who don't worship, you know, actual statues of false gods will turn to all sorts of things that aren't God and give it our hearts devotion. That's darkness. There is also doing what is right in our own eyes. Just, we look around the world, we see a lot of that. And I'm not gonna say uh, you know, it's not that um no one's ever doing what they think is wrong. Everyone's always doing what they think is right, and yet our world is this way. That's darkness. When everyone's doing what they think is right and it's this, that's darkness. We live in a dark world that is beset by darkness. And of course, uh, something else that we see in the scripture and we experience in the world is the influence of spiritual forces opposed to God. All of these things combine to make darkness. In John chapter 8, Jesus makes an audacious claim. And just to give you the size of how audacious this claim is that he is the light of the world. Okay, so you guys remember from last week, we are at the festival of booths, which was a week-long uh festival celebrating how God brought them into the land. And that was the water of life last week, because they they used water in the celebration of this festival. Well, the on the last day of the of the festival of booths, it was week long, eight-day, uh more than a week, eight-day festival, and on the last day, what they would do, and and and this was like a famous thing, is they would, in the temple courts, they would light up four huge lanterns, like so so big and so bright that you would light all of Jerusalem with it. Now, that's no big deal to us because our cities are lit at night. Not in the ancient world. In the ancient world, the sun goes down, you go inside, it isn't safe outside. Okay? Darkness. And so what this was celebrating was the light that God gives to the world. You know, this was such a joyous occasion. They would like dance around with torches and things like that all night long. It was it was a party off the rails. And at this point, Jesus stands up and says, I am the light of the world. That's how audacious this is. He is seizing on the on all of the symbolism of light from the entire Bible and saying, it's him. Now, what is he saying? And we'll we'll go deeper into this. Light in the Bible symbolizes three things: God's presence, God's guidance, God's salvation, God's presence, God's guidance, and God's salvation. So we first have to ask, what is the source of darkness? Why is there darkness? Where does it emanate from? I want to show you guys something. I want to show you a picture, y'all tell me what's missing. What's missing? Water. Like a little water? It should be more damp than that. What's missing? The sea is missing, that's right. Um, this is not AI created, this is an actual picture of a desert over in Central Asia. This is the town of Monjak, um, where the Aral Sea used to be. Now, is it clear to you that there used to be a sea there? How do you know? Because every, like if you look around at the pictures of these towns like this, you'll see these ships that are just standing on sand. Clearly used to be water there. There's all of these fishing and seaside villages that are built with no sea. What happened? Uh well, the Soviets in their infinite wisdom had an irrigation project that involved redirecting the Aral Sea, and they ended up draining it. Um good job, guys. Central planning, go pull it bureau. Um what's clear is that this whole thing is built for the sea, and the sea is no longer there, correct? So it's gone, but you can see that it was supposed to be there. Our world is built. We are built for relationship with God, for a God who is present with us. But something happened that alienates us from God. Right? We do not experience God in the way that human beings were supposed to experience God at creation. And we see that that all over the place we're designed for it. Look at the fact that every culture in human history reaches for something beyond. A god or the gods or whatever. There's never been a culture that says, you know, that that starts with sort of a secular point of view. All reach to something beyond us intuitively. Or that all human beings have moral beliefs. Think of that. If you could somehow talk with a bear, which would be hilarious, I'm sure, and you asked it, you know, questions about right and wrong, I think you'd be hitting it at a blank spot. This is theoretical, no one can actually do this. But right, we are creatures who have a sense there are right things and there are wrong things. We don't agree on what they are, but every culture, every human civilization has moral beliefs of some kind. Or you could look at the sorts of stories that really resonate with us. Harry Potter, for instance, right? By far the most popular story told in the last 50 or so years in our culture. And it just so happens it mirrors the Bible exactly. Weird, right? Almost as if we're made for the presence of God, like that place is made for the sea, and there's something missing. That's the source of darkness. Right? We we've all heard darkness is not the opposite of light, it is the absence of it. So in this case, the darkness of our world, it is not a thing in and of itself, it is that we are cut off, we are alienated from God. What the first thing that Jesus is laying claim to when he says he is the light of the world, it's that he is the light of God's presence. And this is a major theme in the book of John. For those of us who remember chapter one, let's take a look back there real quick. What does it say about how Jesus comes into the world? It says in John 1 4, in him was life. This is the word. Remember, in the beginning was the word, the word was with God, the word was God. It says, In him was life, that life was the light of men. And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. Verse 9. It says, The true light, which gives light to everyone, was coming into the world. So the first way in which Jesus is the light of the world. Look, if if the source of darkness is that we're cut off from God, we lack God's presence, what is Jesus doing? He is God entering our world. He is the light in that he is God's presence. And what does Jesus want us to do with this light he gives? Look again with me at verse 12. It says, Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life. So the first way that we are to to we are to walk in the light of God's presence. We don't, we aren't consigned to darkness. We have the presence of Jesus. Not only that, right, the what you're gonna see in the in uh in the book of John is that the Holy Spirit comes. So we walk in the light of God's presence. Now, we might say, but isn't God kind of beyond us? You know, that a lot of people say, well, God is just a mystery. And it's true, God is beyond us, correct? Like there's a lot about God that's mysterious. But you know, since it's Mother's Day, here's the mother part. Alright, so picture a mom holding a baby and talking nonsense to a baby, as everyone likes to. As I like to. Alright. Does the baby fully understand everything about that adult? Like, especially, you know, like like little babies. They understand what it means to like have a career or be disappointed by your latest season of the TV show you like?

unknown 13:48

Right?

SPEAKER_01 13:48

No, they have no inkling of that, right? There's a lot that goes beyond a baby, but but when the mom or whoever is speaking to that baby in nonsense, is that baby experiencing something true about that person? Yes. Right? The baby knows the mom truly, but there's a lot more to the mom than the baby can understand at the moment. The same thing, right? Yes, God goes beyond us. God is inexhaustible. We are finite creatures, he is infinite, whatever that means. But that does not mean that what is revealed to us is not true, or that we can't know anything about God. Right? What's revealed through Jesus, through the scriptures, is real knowledge about who God is, that we don't need to walk in darkness. We can know the light of God's presence when we follow Jesus. Now there's a sort of a prime result of this darkness of alienation, and that's that's moral darkness. Everyone doing what's right in their own eyes. Because the thing is, is no one thinks they're bad. There's uh an old British comedy show called The Mitchell and Webblook, and um it's really funny, and um there's one uh famous sketch they have where there's these two uh Nazi SS soldiers and they're encamped and awaiting battle, and and you know, one of them comes up to the other and says, Hans, have you looked at have you looked at our uniforms recently? He's like, no, why? I've just noticed they've got skulls on them. Have you noticed that our caps have literally got skulls right on them? He says, so he's like, well, Hans? Are we the baddies? And he's like, you're listening to Allied propaganda. He's like, they didn't get to design our uniforms. He's like, well, what do you think of when you think of skulls? You think of death and beheading and cannibals and pirates. He's like, pirates are fun. I didn't say we weren't fun. But but fun or not, pirates are still the baddies. Are we the baddies? And the reason it's hilarious is because we know, right, this is not how people think. You can look at the most evil people in history, none of them ever said, are we the baddies? Right? You can you can look at the fact the Mongols, you know, Jengis Khan and all that. You know, they killed tens of millions of Chinese. Never once are they like, hey, could this be wrong? They thought they were doing something perfectly fine. You can look at the fact that uh, you know, the ancient Romans, Julius Caesar, one of the reasons you know his name, is because he committed genocide in Gaul. And did they feel bad about it? No, they threw a parade and celebration of it through Rome. You could look at the universal practice of slavery. Like people think that slavery is it was only in the US or something like that. It is worldwide throughout history, and no one ever stopped to say, could this be wrong? Are we the baddies? Right? You could look at the I just listened to a program on the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia. They killed a quarter of Cambodia, and they thought they were doing a righteous thing. They were doing what was right in their own eyes. You gotta ask, how would you know who the baddies are? And I don't mean in our modern use is oh baddie. I mean actual bad. Right? How do we answer this question? Because what our most frequent answer is, you know, I've got my truth, I've got my right and wrong, they've got their truth, they've got their right and wrong. And a lot of you might think that. But here's the thing, no one actually thinks that, really, when you press it. Because, you know, Jeffrey Epstein, he was doing what was right in his own eyes. He was gonna go live his truth, live his right and wrong, and we're like, no, not him. Why not? What gives us the right to condemn and punish someone like that? If you've got your truth and he's got his truth. Whose truth wins there? Why yours? Well, we say, well, okay, forget that. The way that we know what's right and wrong is our heart. Our heart is a guide. We look inside and we we know what's right and wrong deep in our heart. Of course, that comes from the philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau, who said that the foundation of morality is pain, it's your ability to feel the pain of others. Okay, now I like when people are empathetic, but it's not a good foundation for right and wrong. Here's why. He was looking in his own heart, and that is a very culturally conditioned heart. Right? If you had looked in the hearts of the ancient Assyrians, and you said, hey, what's right and wrong? They're like, hey, do you do ancient Assyrians, do you have any pity? They're like, uh, I do. You know what? I'm gonna dismember you after I kill you. There's pity. Like, they would not have come to the same moral conclusions as Rousseau. Also, this is a this is an interesting thing that I found out recently. I don't know if you guys know this. One in a hundred people are psychopaths. Look this up. One in a hundred people, maybe more, are psychopaths. Psychopaths do not feel pity. So you cannot base what is right and wrong on what's in the heart, because at least one percent of the population has none. Okay, that may be true. But humans have rights. The foundation of morality is human beings have rights, and you've gotta treat a human being a certain way. I agree. But here's my question. Where do human beings have rights? If human beings have rights, where are they? Where do they come from? Because if I ask you the question, do human beings have ears? You'd say, yeah, you'd show me your ears. I can see all of them, and now you're all self-conscious about your ears. As I am of mine. If you say do human beings have friends, yes, you can show me your friends. Do human beings have societies, cities, rules, all that. You can show them to me, right? Where are rights? And we're like, but doesn't someone say something about we hold these truths to be self-evident, that we're endowed with rights, inalienable rights? So so you guys all recognize that, right?

unknown 20:46

Like, okay.

SPEAKER_01 20:48

In what way are rights self-evident? If rights are their own evidence, that's actually a nonsensical statement. And if those rights are inalienable, meaning they can't be taken away, then why do so few people in human history have them? There is a reason for human rights, we'll get to it. You see, when we do not refer to Jesus, we're in darkness. We can't answer questions about how do we know what's right or wrong? How do we know that humans have rights, any of these things? We are left in darkness with everyone doing what's right in their own eyes. When Jesus claims to be the light of the world, he's also saying he is the light of God's guidance. Psalm 119, 105, it says this. This is one of the important ways that light is symbolized in the Old Testament. It says, Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path. Jesus gives the light of God's guidance. That into this darkness. We can all like, do you guys imagine what this is saying? It's a lamp to my feet. It's like me in that dark house. What did I need? I needed a light for my feet. I couldn't see where I was going. I stepped on Legos. By the way, I still have a scar from that. It cut me. We need, what does it mean for us to follow? It's that we walk in the light of God's guidance in Christ. It means that we look to the scripture to guide us. We say, how do we know what's right and wrong? Well, God reveals it. The creator reveals it. How do we, where do we base human rights? Well, here's the thing: it comes from the fact that the scripture says we're made in the image of God. And because every human being, whether poor or or rich or high status or low status or disabled or able, whatever, they're all, we are all made in the image of God and therefore have rights. See how easy that was? See how much sense that makes compared to just saying it, well, they just have rights. It's because this concept that every human being is valuable comes to us from the Bible. We've just forgotten it. So Jesus is the light of God's guidance. Not only is the entire scripture and what it teaches us about what's right and wrong, but also he says, anyone who is my disciple, someone who follows after Jesus, it's not only what Jesus said, it's what he did. He sets a pattern of life for us to follow. If we want to live a life that we don't regret, it's it's it's following this light of Jesus. What did he do? He didn't puff himself up, he laid his life down for others. He was all about God's kingdom. He showed mercy to others, right? And so it gives us light to live. We face real-world situations where we need the light of God's guidance. Someone's wronged you, wronged you badly. What do you do? Boy, it'd be good to have some guidance on that, right? It'd be good to have some light there. Someone, uh, you know, you're you're trying to figure out who to vote for, and someone that you're thinking about voting for has proposed a policy of solving a problem through intentional cruelty. I mean, you'd think that'd be a gimme, but not that much anymore. Is that something that you can vote for? It'd be good to have some light there. You get offered a job. And you make buo. Code workers are nice, but you just have to get people addicted to something and then profit from it. Is that something you can do? Is that okay? We need the light that Jesus gives, of God's guidance. You know, the another important part of darkness, though, it is not just the moral darkness, it is not just the lack of God's uh of relationship with God. But, you know, there's an ecosystem that comes with darkness. Uh, at our our prior house, we had a very creepy, very dark, very damp cellar. And those of you who are like, you should brew beer, you should brew beer.

SPEAKER_02 25:21

I'm not going down there.

SPEAKER_01 25:25

It low ceilings. It the there was a problem with the wiring, so the bulb would flicker when you would turn it on. I thought I would just, you know, turn and suddenly there's, you know, like eyes there or something like that. Gives me the heebie jeebies. And also, we know creepy things live in the darkness, don't they? Roaches and spiders and rats and all that. So there are things that live in the darkness. Darkness becomes an ecosystem. In the same way, we can't ignore the fact that what Jesus teaches us and what many have experienced throughout human history is there is spiritual darkness. There are spiritual forces that are opposed to God and opposed to his creatures and opposed to his creation. You ever wondered why is the world so full of misery and so full of cruelty? Why is it that it'd be very easy to have a world full of chaos and misery and very, very hard to get a world full of harmony? Why is that? Don't we all want that? Why can't we get it? Why is it so easy for you and me to do the wrong thing? It's very easy. Nothing could be easier. All you have to do is not try, and it's very, very hard for us to do the righteous thing, especially for an extended period of time. Why? There's something going on. We are all born into this ecosystem of spiritual darkness. And there are spiritual forces that are opposed to God that hold us there. And so, importantly, no less than the other two, when Jesus says that he is the light of the world, what he's also saying is that he is the light of God's salvation. One of the greatest hits of the Old Testament, Isaiah 9.2, says, The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light. Those who dwelt in a land of deep darkness on them has light shone. This is a future prophecy of the Messiah who is to come. What's he referred to? The one who saves as light. What Jesus does, he not only gives us the light of God's presence, he's not only God with us, he not only gives us the light of God's guidance so that we aren't just guessing and then doing what's right in our own eyes, but he is also God's salvation. He is the one who redeems us out of this spiritual bondage. The life, the death, and the resurrection of Jesus sets us free from the sin that the Bible says enslaves us to these dark spiritual forces. That what Jesus did on the cross and in his resurrection breaks the chains so that we aren't consigned to darkness. He came to save us. And not just us, but to renew the world. Like we read about, or confessed, I said read, my bad. We confessed with the Nicene Creed earlier. It's not just that we are saved, but that God is redeeming all things, making all things new. And Jesus is the light of God's salvation. And for us to walk in the light of that salvation, it's to walk in the certainty. It's to walk in the freedom that God has set us free in Christ by what He has done for us. That the Christian faith, it is not a you-go-do, it's a done. It's about what Jesus did for us. He brings the light of God's salvation into this spiritual darkness. We need to walk in the light of Jesus. As I was uh sitting there hopeless, surrounded by four walls mysteriously in the darkness. I really, I had no plan because I was defeated. And then a groggy wife says, What are you doing? I said, I can't find my way back to bed. And she clicked on the phone flashlight. It's a funny thing about light, how powerful it is to dispel darkness, right? And I was able to find my way back. This is the same idea. When you and I contend with the darkness, what do we need most of all? You're beset by it every day of every week. You need moral guidance. You need to be freed from spiritual darkness. You need the presence of God. Where can you turn to find it? Jesus says, to follow Him, to walk in the light of Jesus. Please pray with me. Jesus, I pray that we would walk with you, that we would find light this week and every week in following after you and being your disciple. That we would know deep in our hearts what it is that you have the life. That you have life, and that is the light of men. In Jesus' name, amen.