I watched a television program this week that made me very happy. I don't see a lot of TV that makes me happy anymore. I see some good TV from time to time, but it's usually sad good. This was happy good. It was just good good. It reminded me of the stories that I used to read and follow when I was a kid about noble knights who would try to do the right thing, even when it was costly or hard. That kind of storytelling has been out of vogue for a while, or at least it has been until the last few weeks when this show, I'm not going to tell you the name of came out. You can go figure it out. You're smart. I'm not going to recommend the show because it happens in a very gritty world where there is very real darkness. And there are a few scenes in there that if you I told you what the name was and you wouldn't watch the show. You'd like, for example, at the beginning of episode two, you'd be like, I cannot believe that man who does the Bible program recommended this because look at what is taking up the majority of my screen right now. Look at that. How can that why is when is it over? Oh my goodness. No, don't get me wrong. I'm not saying this is a perfectly wholesome program that I watched, but in a way it was. And here's why. Because there's a good knight, and he's a hero. He's not perfect. He doesn't know everything. He's not the best at being a knight, but he has integrity. He understands the point of being a knight. Protect the innocent. And he was mentored by a not so great knight, a compromised knight. But the one thing that compromised mentored old knight got right is he passed along the good stuff about being a knight, the light. He passed that along to his young protege, and he somehow didn't pass along all of the icky stuff about his character. And so then this young knight he goes and wanders into a den of great darkness, a medieval style tournament filled with compromised nobles and compromised knights who do not care about things like integrity. And they operate in the shadows and do things that ought not be done. And along comes this simple, basically homeless knight who proves to be a ray of light and truth and goodness in the midst of this dark place. And what do you know? The darkness can't help but notice. And it's very threatened and irritated and upset by the presence of this character who, though imperfect, represents light. It was so refreshing just to have a good character who you can root for, but who's still believable, who goes through incredibly difficult things. I man, I really, really liked this program. I just watched Let the Reader Understand. But you can see where I'm going with this. John chapter one and all of this language about Jesus being the light and the life. And yeah, I talked about yesterday I had my buddy Destin jump on. We do a podcast together called No Dumb Questions, where we talk at length about all sorts of things. We've done it for a very long time. It was kind of weird to only talk with him for 10 minutes in a podcast setting, but he was great. I thought he did a good job of explaining the very basics of what light is and how it works. And at the bare minimum, based on perception, it sure looks like darkness isn't a thing. It's not a rival to light, it's just the absence of light. And when light comes along, it can't help but illuminate the darkness. Darkness flees, shadows retreat. That's very much what I just saw in this cool show about this night that I watched. And that's what's described in John chapter 1. I've read you the language so many times, but I'm not going to stop. I'm going to keep reading you the language. It goes like this Through him, Jesus, all things were made. Without him, nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it. There came a man who was sent from God. His name was John the Baptist. He came as a witness to testify concerning that light, so that through him all men might believe. He himself was not the light, he came only as a witness to the light. The true light that gives light to every man was coming into the world. He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband's will, but born of God. So working backwards through that passage, you have this beautiful outcome. The people would go from a position of darkness and death to a position of being honored sons and daughters of the great king, children of God. That's an amazing outcome. That's what we want. That's fantastic. How did it happen? Well, Jesus came into the world and he was life and he was light. That light is the light of men, and there is life in it, not just for the people who are around at the time of Jesus, for you and me, for you listening to this, even if you think that all of this sounds like it's for somebody else and you don't do religious things. It's for you too. Jesus as illuminator of the world and there being life in that illumination is just a central theme throughout all of John. So keep that in your brain. Theme number one, light and life. And then over here, keep this also in your brain, a theme we've discussed a bunch already, which is that Jesus is God, God in the flesh, fully God, fully man. These two themes interweave throughout the course of the book of John, as Jesus makes these seven very important I am statements. I can't remember if we talked about this early on or not. Maybe we did, maybe we didn't. I'm still going to explain it like it's brand new. There are seven statements in the Gospel of John that start with Jesus saying I and then am. These statements are claims to divinity. It's not even hard to tell what's going on. Now I understand that you might be thinking to yourself, well, I'm not claiming to be God, and I start a lot of sentences with I am. So how do we know that this is what Jesus is doing with these statements? Well, again, the opening line of the book makes the claim. In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was God. The closing thesis statement of the book makes the same claim that you would believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name. Right before that, Thomas calls Jesus my Lord and my God, and Jesus affirms him. It's all over the place. Jesus absolutely was claiming to be deity, and that's part of why John gives us his prologue. Also, when we read this stuff in context, you'll see that that's what's going on. Here are some examples of some of those statements. Jesus says in John 6, I am the bread of life in chapter 10, I am the gate. Later in chapter 10, I am the good shepherd. In chapter 15, I am the true vine. And that phrase, I am, popped so much for the original audience, and it should for you and me as well, because it's the name God revealed for himself all the way back in Exodus to Moses in the burning bush. If you don't remember that story, that's all right. We'll talk about it more when we get further into these I am statements down the road. The point is, God didn't first and foremost reveal himself in the Bible with a name like Chad or Terry or Doug or Leland or Braden. Like those are people names. God is bigger than that. He doesn't even have like a pagan God name like Thor or Odin or Dagon or Baal. His name is it's just I am, I'm being essence intoned in all of that as he's the maker and sustainer of all things, the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and end. So when Jesus uses those two words coupled with something that is demonstrative of the power of the role of God, yeah, yeah, he's claiming deity. And frankly, he's doing so very overtly. But before we're done today, I want to read you the three I am statements I haven't already read to you, because they all flow right out of John chapter one, with this idea of Jesus being light and life and light being a metaphor for truth. So check out this I am statement in chapter eight and verse twelve. It goes like this. When Jesus spoke again to the people, he said, I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life. I mean, I'm gonna read you the next too, but my goodness. Could that be more smoking gun, more on the nose, more directly tied to the language of the prologue in John 1 that we've been working on? So now we know it's not John just making things up and kind of ascribing it to Jesus. Jesus himself said, I am the light of the world. Then we turn the page over just a little bit to chapter 11. Here, one of Jesus' friends has died. He's buried in a dark tomb where there is no light and no life. Jesus is going to flip that. He's gonna call this guy back to life. His name was Lazarus. The stone's gonna be rolled away, and light and life are going to prevail. And Jesus says one of these I am statements in that context, right here, John 11, 25. Jesus said to her, I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live even though he dies. And whoever lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this? Again, life and light married together in the person, in the power, in the deity of Christ. And then a couple pages over, in one of the most famous verses in all of John, John 14, 6, Jesus answered, I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. Look, in the same way that you do not have to be a brilliant literary scholar or film critic to watch that sweet little show about a medieval night that I just watched and see that one of the great themes is the disruptive power of light when it comes into a dark place. So you do not have to be a great biblical scholar to detect the theme as Jesus as the light of the world and life for humankind. It's on practically every page of John's writing, and it's just worth putting a pin on that right here on the front end because we're gonna keep seeing this theme again and again. It's it's a product of the marriage between the point John is making that Jesus is God, God in the flesh, and that Jesus is light and life. Who would have the power to bring light and life? God and God alone. Well, it's a good thing Jesus is God then. Tomorrow we're gonna take a peek ahead at more of the stuff that John wrote in this book and in other books of the New Testament to see how this life and light theme plays itself out so that we can have our antenna attuned properly here on the front end. Sorry I didn't tell you what the name of the nice night show is. If you do try to thwart me and go figure out what it is and watch it, know that you've been advised. You that's your choice. You might really like it. You might see in it what I saw in it, but do not bring the kids. All right, that's good for now. I'm Matt, this is the 10 Minute Bible Hour Podcast. Let's do this again soon.