The Light of the World

We are in a wonderful sermon series called the Ministry of Jesus. We are looking at different episodes in the life of Christ. Let me get here on my computer. Today, our topic is a wonderful, wonderful promise from Jesus Christ. It is I am the light of the world. And so as we look at this, we’re going to go ahead and read these nine verses. As we read it, I want to ask you, I encourage you to be attentive to God’s Word as we read through this. We’re going to read through it once, and then we’re going to go back and dive deeper. Amen. So let’s read God’s Word together.

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 have the light of life. The Pharisees challenged him, Here you are appearing as your own witness. Your testimony is not valid. Jesus answered, Even if I testify on my own behalf, my testimony is valid for I know where I came from and where I am going. But you have no idea where I come from or where I am going. You judge by human standards. I pass judgment on no one. But if I do judge, my decisions are true because I am not alone. I stand with the Father who sent me. In your own law, it is written that the testimony of two witnesses is true. I am the one who testifies for myself. My other witness is the Father who sent me. Then they asked him, Where is your Father? You do not know me or my Father, Jesus replied. If you knew me, you would know my Father as well. He spoke these words while teaching in the temple courts near the place where the offerings were put. Yet no one seized him because his hour had not yet come.

As I already mentioned, here’s what we’re going to do. We’re going to go back over this text. We’re going to dig a little bit deep and then we’re going to apply it. And so we’re going to dig a little bit deep and we’re going to apply it. And so we’re going to be going from the head to the heart, heart to the head. And we’re going to be doing that as we walk through these nine verses. So we’re going to go through the text highlights, and then after we get done going through it, we’re going to pull it together and we’re going to focus on the main themes in this text and apply it to ourselves. Are you open to being challenged? There’s Alana again. She always so enthusiastic. So there might be times where I’m going to seem a little bit negative or challenging. I am not trying to be negative. I’m trying to be helpful. There’s some challenging concepts in this text, and so I just want to ask you to open your heart to these things. We’re going to be catching some sub points along the way to the main points, but you’ll see that it all funnels down to two main themes that even those two themes come together in one idea, and it’s going to call us higher.

Our text is organized like this. Verse 12, Jesus makes this wonderful, amazing claim that he is the light of the world. Then after that is basically a heated argument like a disagreement between Jesus and some of the Jewish rulers in the temple courts in Jerusalem, the Pharisees. Now, what’s going to happen here, you’ll see this if you haven’t already as we review it, is they question the status of Jesus and Jesus flips it to questioning the status of the Pharisees. You’re going to see this. There’s no one like Jesus when it comes to anything, but especially we get to see it in public debate.

Let’s pray just for a minute for God to bless this process of examining this scripture. Father, we are so amazed by your word. We’re so proud of you and we want to honor and worship you, Father. And we want to be responsive, Father, to what you teach. Open our minds, humble our hearts. Help us to be able to see rather than not being able to see and to hear rather than not being able to hear. Help us to become more pleasing to you, more insightful into your Word. We pray in your Son’s name, Amen.

When Jesus spoke again to the people, he said, I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness. They will have the light of life. The Pharaohs challenged him, Here you are appearing as your own witness. Your testimony is not valid.

So to start off with, here’s the two main themes of our text today. It’s the phrase I am, and then the phrase the light of the world.

Now, I am is a perfectly normal thing for anybody to say in any language. So if you say, I am an accountant, which Colin Lindsay is an accountant, or you say, I am hungry, or I am thirsty, that’s very normal. That’s not what’s happening here. The pharisees know it. When Jesus uses this phrase, I am, and I’m going to show you this more clearly in a minute here. When he says, I am, it’s making them tense. It’s the thing that for them would make the hair on the back of their neck stand up like they were supercharged on this particular issue. This conversation is not happening in a vacuum. These guys have talked before. There’s background and there’s history here, and I want to unpack this a little bit.

First of all, I want to look at this idea of the phrase I am. As many of you know, it comes from the Old Testament when Moses sees this bush that would not burn up, he goes to the bush. God says, Take your shoes off because this is holy ground. Then Moses has a conversation with God. We’re just going to read verses 13 and 14.

This is how that conversation goes. Moses said to God, Suppose I go to the Israelites and say to them, the God of your fathers has sent me to you and they ask me, What is his name? Then what shall I tell them? God said to Moses, I am who I am. This is what you are to say to the Israelites, I am has sent me to you.

First of all, I think there’s something powerful, appropriate about the fact that God doesn’t pick a particular name. His very name, I am, speaks to how transcent… What are we going to call him? Fred? Right? Barney? Is God going to be Dagon? Is he going to be Bail? Is he going to be Chimosh? His name speaks to the fact that he’s not confined to a name. His name is the greatness that fills the universe, that created the universe, that sustains the universe, that is the source of life. What an appropriate term. There’s another place in the scriptures where somebody asks the angel of the Lord representing God, what is your name? And the guy says, don’t ask me my name. It’s too wonderful for you. And that’s just the nature of our God. Amen.

And so this name, let’s geek just for a minute. We’re going to geek out just for a minute. So the name of God, a lot of you know this in Hebrew, comes out of four consonants. And this is called by scholars the tetragrammaton, the name of God. It comes from these four consonants in the ancient Greek that did not yet have vowels. The yh, wh, or the YHVH, a lot of people used to think it was pronounced Jehovah. Now we’re thinking it’s probably more correctly pronounced, YAwe. This is the name of God. Jesus does something with his name, but he does it not in Hebrew, he does it in Greek. The Pharisees are watching this. In about 300 years before Jesus, a group of Hebrew scholars, 70 Hebrew scholars, translated the Greek Old Testament along with the name of God, but the entire Hebrew Old Testament into Greek. And it’s called the Septuagint. They did it in Alexandria, Egypt. And it’s often, even in academic papers, it’s abbreviated with the Roman numeral LXX, which means 70 because of those 70 scholars. There’s not a lot of information on exactly when it was written or how it was done, but it became very common about the middle of the third century BC throughout the ancient world because Jews were no longer speaking Hebrew.

Jews were speaking Greek or Aramaic or Egyptian. Wherever they lived, they were beginning to lose the use of the Hebrew language and speak in Greek. And so when they translated this into Hebrew, it’s this word. Yes, this is Greek. It’s Greek to me, I know. This is pronounced ego ami, and it means I am. And Jesus uses this repeatedly in John 8, John 6, John 10, John 11. He’s using it all the time. And the Pharisees are keyed into this very, very much. Isn’t that a funny sound? Ego ami. I put this for you. Hopefully you guys laugh. Eggo amy? It’s actually the emphasis is on the second syllable, so it’s more appropriately pronounced ego ami. Ego e me. That’s how you say it in the Greek. Jesus was saying it. I want to show you, here’s what I wanted to show you. In verse 12 of our text, Jesus said, I am the light of the world. But further down, we’re not going to read this today in our text, we’re just going to take a look at this right now. But down in verse 58 and verse 59, Jesus, still talking to the Pharisees, he says, Very truly, I tell you, before Abraham was born, I am. How did they react? At this, they picked up stones to stone him, but Jesus hid himself, slipping away from the temple grounds.

Do you see what I mean? They were on edge. When he did this work, he’s talking in the past tense, like what he should have said, gramatically correct, would have been, Before Abraham was born, I was there. But he doesn’t say that. He says, Before Abraham was born, ago am I. I am. He is claiming divinity, claiming to be God. Who was in the burning bush? Well, he is folding his identity into God, the Father in the burning bush. Are you with me? Right now, we have the Trinity idea, the Father and Son being together, pointing all the way back to the naming of God in Exodus chapter 3.

I want to shift gears now and move from the head to the heart. Do you worship and revere God as the great I am? Do you revere and worship Jesus that way? Is Jesus a curse word for you? Is God someone who is detached, not involved? Maybe an option for you to get involved with, maybe not an option for you to get involved with. My encouragement is this, seek God, worship God, honor God. God told Moses for a reason, Take your sandals off. This is holy ground. We worship a personal, powerful, loving, but serious and powerful God. I want to encourage all of us to worship God and recognize Jesus as the great I am.

Now, I want to talk about this idea of Jesus being the light of the world. Jesus says, 7 I am statements in the Book of John. I didn’t learn this till about 15 years ago, but if you step back from just reading the text of the Book of John and you hold John at arm’s length and see how it is organized, you can also do this with almost all of the other books of the Bible. When you see the themes, the organization, the way it’s put together, there’s an entire set of additional lessons you can learn about God, learn about yourself from just seeing how a book is organized. John wrote, by the inspiration of God, a masterpiece. He’s got these incredible themes running, living water, light and darkness. He’s got all these powerful themes. I shouldn’t call it numerology because then you think of witchcraft. But there’s number symbolism in the Book of John that’s powerful, deep, poetic, and running under stream. There’s seven I am statements that Jesus made. Guess what? There’s seven miracles in the Book of John. It talks about seven feasts. You want to Google it? You’re going to find a ton of ways that the number seven, you can’t even catch it on the first glance, is built right into the book. I’m just saying that because I’m impressed with God. I see God’s handiwork. This is beyond human authorship.

So Jesus is the great I am, and he’s the light of the world. So let’s go back to the heart. Is Jesus your light? Is he the one you’ve chosen? If I need something to help me navigate, if I need something, as in Psalms 119, 105, it says, Your Word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path. If I need something to show me the way, am I going to choose Jesus or am I going to choose something else? Of course, we talk about this a lot in our sermons, but we often go off to other sources of light. What’s going to be the guiding principle in your life?

Well, of course, success means being rich. So, That’s my light. Or cultural conformity, the values of today are going to become my values. Or perhaps your light, it’s not even a sinful thing, it’s a wonderful thing. Perhaps your light is, Excuse me, I want to have a great family. I want to have a spouse. I want to have children. My world is going to become my family. That’s going to be the light that lights your path. Or maybe pleasure is your path. Or maybe education. Now that I’m going to school, I’m going to go as far as I can, as high as I can, the best I can. The challenge I have for you is this, according to the scriptures, even if some of these things are fine and not sinful, they are counterfeit light sources. Are you with me? Jesus doesn’t say, I’m a light to the world. He says, I am the light to the world. I’m the one light. Now, if you choose Jesus as your light, all of these other things fall in place. There’s a place for pleasure. There’s a place for family. There’s a place for education. But if you’re using Jesus to light your path and to show the way, that’s getting it correct.That’s turning to God for what we ought to turn to God for.

Here’s a challenge for you. Once again, I’m not trying to be negative. I’m trying to be helpful. Most people cannot see the light of Jesus because they’re blinded by their own self centered agenda. The Bible teaches that most people will not become true Christians. The Bible teach it, Matthew 7, 13 and 14 straight is the gate, narrows the way that leads to life. Only a few find it, but wide is the gate, broad is the road that leads to destruction. Not a lot of people actually, you might think, Well, I got Jesus as my light. No problem. Don’t be flippant about that. Have you really chosen Jesus as your light? Most people will not. Until the day they die, they will not choose Jesus as their light source. And look how tough it is. Jesus himself is calling us to move beyond our self centered agenda. Listen to this in the Book of Luke. Then he said to them all, this is Jesus teaching. He says, whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves. Not a pleasant job description here, right? They must deny themselves, take up their cross daily and follow me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will save it.

What Jesus is saying when he says whoever loses their life for me will save it, let’s eliminate the obvious. He’s not talking about physically committing suicide. Obviously, that’s not what he’s saying. So what is he saying? He’s saying there’s a self centered agenda that you could live like, my name is Joe Stearns. I could have the Joe Stearns self agenda, or I could have an agenda that God wants me to have where I can see beyond myself and live for a larger cause than my own self’s agenda, the cause of Jesus Christ. That’s what Jesus is saying. That’s criteria. That’s not advanced Christianity. That’s basic Christianity.

Obviously, to conclude this heart application, when you see the light of Jesus, as you look at Christianity, as you read the Bible, are you embracing it or are you rejecting it? The reason I’m bringing that up is for those of you who are in the middle. Maybe you haven’t embraced it yet and maybe you haven’t rejected it yet. I’m hoping to be persuasive from the scriptures. This is the way to go. This is the way to go to embrace the light of Jesus Christ. He really is the light of the world.

Let’s go back into our text. Down at the end, he says, I’m the light of the world. And down at the bottom, he says, Here you are. The Pharisees said to him, Here you are appearing as your own witness. Your testimony is not valid. He continues on, Jesus answered, Even if I testify on my own behalf, my testimony is valid for I know where I came from and I know where I’m going. But you have no idea where I come from or where I am going. You judge by human standards. I pass judgment on no one. But if I do judge, my decisions are true because I am not alone. I stand with the Father who sent me. Couple of things. Did you notice he started off with them attacking him, and now he’s talking about his judgment on them? Did you catch that? He’s starting to move. See, a lot of people don’t realize this. I learned this from an obscure scholar on YouTube named Bruce Gore, who’s wonderful. Google him, please. Bruce Gore, he’s a Presbyterian. I told you last week, we ain’t Presbyterians. He’s wonderful, though. What he pointed out about Jesus is when Jesus got to Jerusalem, we think, Oh, my goodness, Jesus is in trouble. When actually Jesus came to judge the existing Jewish system and its corruption and failure, even though they crucified him, he willingly submitted to that. So he’s taking that position. I’m the Lord. You guys aren’t the Lord. So he’s flipping this. But here’s another thing. He says, I pass judgment on no one. Now you might think, you know, that’s what I love about Christianity. No judgment, nobody gets judged. Nobody gets in trouble. Everybody’s good. Everybody’s accepted. We all love each other. So in John 12, just to tell the truth, right? Four chapters later, Jesus says, If anyone hears my words but does not keep them, I do not judge that person for I did not come to judge the world, but to save the world. There is a judge for the one who rejects me and does not accept my words. The very words I have spoken will condemn them at the last day. There is a judge and the judge is the scriptures.

Now Jesus talked about life after death and the judgment day more than anyone in scripture. And here he’s bringing it up. There will be a last day. And if you bear with the illustration, if this is the final exam, the Bible is the textbook. And so Jesus is not going to need to make any arbitrary decisions as a judge on the judgment day because the scriptures themselves are going to be the determining factor. In 2 Corinthians 5, it puts it really plainly. It says, We must all appear before the judgment seat of who? Of Christ. You’re like, Wait, I thought the guy said he wasn’t going to judge us. He’s not going to judge us. He doesn’t need to judge us. The principles of the Scripture are going to judge us. He’s just going to preside over that process. Then it says, So that each of us may receive what is due us for the things done while in the body, whether good or bad.

Now, the judgment that we have is not going to be a balancing that your good deeds outweigh your bad deeds. 1 Peter 4, the Apostle Peter puts it this way. It’s wonderful how he frames this. He says, For it is time for judgment to begin with God’s household. That would be with the church. That would be you and me. If judgment starts with us, if it begins with us, what will be the outcome be for those who do not obey? Here’s the beautiful phrase, the gospel of God. Obey the gospel of God. You see, there’s a gospel, a good news, and that good news is you don’t have to have your good deeds outweigh your bad deeds. The punishment you and I were supposed to receive was taken by Jesus on the cross. But here’s what you got to do. You have to come to Jesus and become a Christian. If you don’t come to Jesus and become a Christian, judgment is waiting for you from the scriptures. You don’t got to be perfect, but you have to obey the gospel of God by becoming a Christian. I hope that’s clear.

Let’s go back to our text. In this he’s talking about his testimony. At the very, he says, You judge by human standards. I pass judgment to no one. Then at the bottom he says, I stand with the Father who sent me.

Now, there’s something really interesting going on here. Could Jesus have called other witnesses but besides his father? Of course, he could have even called on Nicodemus, who testified about him just in John 7, right before the account of the woman caught in adultery, which we covered last week. He could have called on all of his disciples. He could have called on people he raised from the dead that he gave sight to the blind, lepers that he healed. He could have called on the miracles he did. Here’s the thing. He’s not trying to prove anything to these guys. What he’s now doing is he’s pointing out that there’s an invisible God that testifies for him. And these guys, who are the Pharisees, do not have a relationship with the great I am. They don’t have one. And so he’s flipping it and he’s begin to bring the mirror to them and he’s showing them. And so the Bible is a mirror for us. Amen. So if you think of yourself as vastly different from the pharisees, a really good idea is to try to view the pharisees as you and me, you can learn a lot more if you take that viewpoint rather than taking what could perhaps be a self righteous or I’m better than that viewpoint. It’s really good to say, if I was in the position of a pharisee, what could I learn from this?

He says, In your own law, it is written on the testimony of two witnesses is true. I’m the one who testifies for myself. My other witnesses is the Father who sent me. Then they asked him, Where’s your Father? Now, that sounds like an innocent enough question. I’m going to show you a scripture here. You do not know me or my Father. He’s saying you don’t know God. If you knew me, you would know my father as well. This is not the first time they’ve had a go around. Back in John 5, there’s a long debate between Jesus and these same guys. Look what he says in John 5. It says, So because Jesus was healing people, doing these things, healing people on the Sabbath, the Jewish leaders began to persecute him. In his defense, Jesus said to them, My father is always at work to this very day, and I too am working. For this reason, they tried all the more to what? To kill him. Not only was he breaking the sabbath, he was even calling God his own father, making himself equal with God.

So when Jesus is in this debate back in our text in John 8, when he’s talking about his dad, they know who he’s talking about and they know he’s telling them you do not have a relationship with God. Just to move from the head to the heart again here, I just wanted on the run here to ask you this, do you know God as your father? Do you know the son as your God? I want all of you to have an intimate, personal father, child relationship with God. That’s one of the things that’s going on in our text is these men don’t have a relationship with God, and God really wants to, through Jesus Christ for them to have a relationship with the Father. It’s an interesting thing about a relationship with God. Listen to what Jesus Christ says here in John 17. He says, Now this is eternal life that they know you, the only true God. Jesus is in prayer. He says, This is eternal life. They know you, Father, the only true God and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent. When we’re saved, are we going to live forever? Yes, chronologically, we’re going to live forever. But the way Jesus frames it is not chronologically. He frames it relationally. So we’re going to live forever. But the way Jesus is excited about it, the way we should be excited about it, is not that you’re going to get to play golf or ride a pony all day long. You’re going to be able to have an intimate father child relationship with the living God who made you in the first place, specifically to have a relationship with him.

I want to pull together, I’m done walking through the text, so I want to pull together some of these themes. What was it like for you to walk in the darkness? I became a Christian when I was 18 years old. I went off, I left my parents and I went off to college at the University of Florida. I was a stereotypical freshman. I was not a very good student. I was living in the dormitories. I had no clue which direction to go. Actually, I was a little bit insecure because some of my friends have already picked, so to speak, their light source. Some of the guys were like, I’m going to get rich. Some of the people are like, I’m going to be a PhD or I’m going to be an MD, or I’m going to be a JD or whatever D it was. They all had their minds made up. I’m 18 years old. I’m not on my own for the first time. And I’m like, should I try to be rich? Is that my main goal? Should I try to have as much sexual intimacy as I possibly can while I’m here in college or not? Should I get high? Should I get drunk? Should I try to be a good person? Should I marry a woman, start a family, try to help the world’s problems? Should I pursue education? Should I pursue athletics? I mean to tell you, I was in the darkness without realizing that I was in the darkness.

Now, some of you may think, Well, Joe, I don’t know what you’re talking about because I’ve never really been in the darkness. I want to point out a principle here. In John 3, speaking with Nicodemus, Jesus says, Very truly, I tell you, no one can see the Kingdom of God unless they are born again. So forgive the amateur graphic I’m about to show you. I know it’s amateur, but if you’re not as you go through life, if you’re not born again, then you’re lost and you’re in the darkness. If you go to Christ to be born again through studying those scriptures with Christians, then you can move into the light and into salvation. If you don’t know you’re in the dark, that’s a really bad sign because that means you’re in the dark and you don’t know it. I’m not trying to be rude, I’m trying to be helpful. Nobody has been a Christian all their life. No one. You must be born again. So you don’t get born a Christian in a Christian family, and then you grow up and you were just always a Christian and then you die and you go to heaven. It doesn’t work that way. There’s a point in time where 100 % of us have been lost. 100 % of us have been in the darkness. So if you don’t know this, I’m introducing this idea that we want you to see the truth of the scriptures so you can make a decision to come out into the light through being born again.

Here’s a scripture that talks about not realizing you’re in the dark. Anyone who claims to be in the light but hates a brother or sister is still in the darkness. Anyone who loves their brother and sister lives in the light and there’s nothing in them that makes them stumble. But anyone who hates a brother or sister is in the darkness and walks around in the darkness. They do not know where they are going because the darkness has blinded them.

The illustration, of course, is imagine you wake up in a home that is not your own. You don’t know if you’re on the second or third floor. You don’t know if there’s a stairwell. It’s pitch black in the house. You get out of bed, you don’t know where the furniture is. Every one of us has been there. Whether you’re self aware or not, every one of us has been in that situation where you think you know where you’re going, but your toes are telling you you’re going to crack into the furniture. One of the things about being in the darkness is described in Isaiah chapter 5. It says, Woe to those who call evil good, and they call good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter.

One of the things it becomes clear when you become a Christian, all of a sudden you can see what’s normal. When you become a Christian, all of a sudden good is good. When I was 18 and I went to college, should I become an alcoholic? I didn’t know. When you become a Christian, you’re like, stupid choice. Don’t do that. It becomes really clear. You walk around in the darkness and you don’t… Should I have sex with a lot of women outside of marriage? No. You can finally start. Good becomes good and everything will get. Married people, there are people that don’t know this, that if you hurt your spouse, you hurt yourself. There are people who don’t know that. They think I’m mad at my spouse. I’m going to be arrogant, prideful. I’m going to be lazy about being self controlled, and I’m just going to say rude things to my spouse. Well, that declines the… Do I have to explain this? That declines the quality of your marriage and then your marriage is worse and you’re more unhappy. People cannot see it because they’re in the dark.

When you’re a Christian, if you’re a faithful, mature Christian, you can diagnose what’s going on with people. You shouldn’t make it condescending. Don’t get stuck up. But you know what I’m talking about. You see what’s going on in the world. You see just what’s happening. Somebody turned on the light and it was Jesus Christ.

In defining darkness, this is what it was for me. It was uncertain direction in life. That’s not the only darkness. You guys know that. Darkness has many aspects. Another one that a lot of you, I’m so happy it’s irritating. My kids get irritated with me because I never get down or depressed. So I apologize for that because there’s a whole world that a lot of people suffer in, even some of my closest family members. I just have to honor and respect that. I know a lot of you guys and even Christians struggle and suffer with depression, struggle and suffer with anxiety and with unhappiness. Even though Christians suffer with it, would you rather have these challenges with Jesus or without Jesus? You see, at least with Jesus, there’s lights at the end of the tunnel. There’s a framework. There’s a support system. There’s ways of comfort to deal with these things where a lot of people suffer without God, without the light of Jesus, they have nowhere to go, nowhere to hide. They’re just out there without the love of God.

Another, and there’s even a scripture on this that I thought was really, kind of captured it. It says in the Psalms, record my misery, list my tears on your scroll speaking to God. Are they not in your record? For you have delivered me from death and my feet from stumbling that I may walk before God in the light of life. So what this is saying is even in the tough times, God has my suffering on his records. He’s seeing it. He’s watching. He’s there for me. And he wants to give me the light of life in my difficulties.

So are you trapped in a sin? So this super powerful scripture, it says, Some sat in darkness. In utter darkness, prisoners suffering in iron chains because they rebelled against God’s commands and despised the plans of the most high. You see, if you will come out into the light, you can be freed from sin. Will you be perfect? No. But you can throw off habits that nothing else can free you from except Jesus Christ. But here’s the challenge. Here’s the challenge. This is the verdict. Light has come into the world, but people loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. Everyone who does evil hates the light and will not come into the light for fear their deeds will be exposed. But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light so that it may be seen plainly that what they have done has been done in the sight of God.

Are you willing to come out into the light? You’re going to carry that secret to your grave? Are you going to remain a hidden person? Well, I have a private life. That’s just how I am. What if you confess that thing? What if you confess that set of things? What if you confess a whole lot of things? What’s going to happen? Are you going to die? What’s going to happen? Are you going to be humiliated? Are you going to be embarrassed? Is it going to hurt people’s feelings around you? Well, you’re probably not going to die. That’s why I said that. But there’s something amazing about facing it and saying it and coming out into the light. It’s freedom. It’s amazing. You just got to get the dirt out. It takes courage. It takes love for God. It takes being able to reach beyond your selfish agenda to be able to call on God’s purpose and take that risk of walking in the light. And then guess what? You don’t have to fake it anymore. You don’t have to hide anymore. You can be an open book and it’s not going to be weird. It’s going to be normal. You don’t have to live some double faced life where you have a facade that you’re putting up.

In 1 John 1, one of the most important scriptures on this, it said, This is the message we have heard from him and declared to you. God is light. In him, there is no darkness at all. If you claim to have fellowship with him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live out the truth. But if we… This is beautiful. If we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another. And the blood of Jesus, his son purifies us from all sin. If we claim to be without sin, look, you can’t fake it anyway. If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. If we claim we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar, and his word has no place in us.

So we need the light, but not all of us are willing to come into the light. What does it take? It takes a willingness to live for something beyond your own self interest. It takes humility. You’re not all that. Me neither. So what if people find out you’re a sinner? You were a sinner all along. So if somebody comes to you and they go, I think sometimes you’re a liar. Rather than being defensive, you should say, That sounds like my sinful flesh. That’s probably about right on. I am a liar. I am whatever your sins are. We are all sinners. It takes a heart that yearns to have a relationship with the creator.

My closing challenge is this, for the Christian, have you drifted away from Jesus as your source of authority and light? Can a Christian come out of the light back into darkness? Yeah, they can. Let’s just be watchful, all right? Let’s continue to have that courage. If you’re not yet a Christian, Jesus says, I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but they will have the light of life. Do you have the courage to become a Christian and to come into the light?

As we go to the Lord’s Supper, let’s pray together as we remember what Jesus has done for us by becoming the light of the world for us. Let’s pray together before we take the Lord’s Supper. Holy Father, thank you so much for being the light for us. My Lord Jesus, our Lord Jesus, our great I am. Thank you for what you did for us. Thank you so much that you saved us, that you died in the cross for us. Help us to be grateful. Help us to love you and help us to be courageous and walk in the light as you’ve called us. We pray in your son’s name, Amen.