Man's Need: The Light of the World
Notes
Transcript
Have you ever been in complete darkness? No light at all coming into the room that you are in, or where you are and had to move your way around? For some of us, we have had moment when the power has went out or a breaker had blown and we have had to feel our way through the darkness of a room to flip a breaker or a switch… one of my most miserable experiences in darkness came when I was working at UK… in the manhole… overcast day, and the light went out… and there I stood in 10 inches of mud hoping for something to change or for someone to bring light into the hole so I could see… what we know in those moments is light is precious and it can lead and guide us.... how many lighthouses have led the way for ships at see and saved them from running ashore.
And today, we will look at one of the most famous sayings of Jesus, his Second “I am” statement, when he says this,
12 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.”
I am the bread of Life, the light of the world, the gate of the sheepfold, the good Shepherd,The resurrection and the life, the way truth and life, I am the true vine.
And here is what seems to be more interesting it seems as if in this excerpt that Jesus mentions light here but not again for the whole chapter… and it would see that he would have nothing to say about it again for a bit, but I think as you look at the rest of this chapter over the next few weeks we can see that everything is related to this idea...
And John uses this term more than anyone else in their gospels… and he uses the word light over 21 times...
And I have always read this and in my Christianese I have always thought about this and thought yes! Jesus is the light of the world, that is good stuff… I get it… like the sun… but we have to take this a step deeper… what is important to know in this moment about this statement is Jesus made this statement during the festival of lights… or as we know it Hanukkah…
Hanukkah was a celebration… In the second century BCE a Greek army led by King Antiochus went into Jerusalem and tried to force the inhabitants to worship greek gods, and put an altar to Zeus in the center of the temple to be worshipped… A family fought hard against this… and led a rebellion… after the Jews won the fight, they rebuilt and rededicated the temple… they had to relight the menorah, but only had enough oil for one day… and it would take 8 days to make new oil that could be used… so they lit the menorah and miraculously the oil lasted for 8 days....
So now they celebrate and they also celebrate and remember the fire in the wilderness that led them out of Egypt… it was what led and kept them..
21 And the Lord went before them by day in a pillar of cloud to lead them along the way, and by night in a pillar of fire to give them light, that they might travel by day and by night.
And so in this moment Jesus is calling all of this to these Jews minds… this is the backdrop in which Jesus is saying he is the light of the world and the people would have immediately known what he was saying.... he is making another great claim...
Jesus Claim:
In one moment as he says I am the light of the world he is saying a few things… he is again making the claim that he is God by using the same language that God used when speaking from the burning bush to abraham.
And he follows that with Whoever Follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life… and again, bombs would have been going off in their heads as they heard Jesus’ words. And the word Jesus chose to use here for follow was the greek word akolutheo which is the same word that is used for a soldier following their commander into battle… and should remind us when we follow Jesus we are following him as if we are under his command… this means under his rule… behind his lead… with HIS ARMOR...
And that is why JC Ryle has said,
“To Follow Christ is to commit ourselves wholly and eitrely to him as our only leader and Saviour, and to submit ourselves to Him in every matter both of doctrine and practice.”
-JC Ryle
Think about what this meant for the Jews as they thought about their time in the wilderness…
What happened to the Jews as they were evacuating? They were running from their previous problems and God gave them a way to get out of their problems… in the day he gave them this pillar of cloud for them to follow, but that wouldn’;t be able to be seen at night, so for the middle of the darkness… to allow them to continue to move by day or by night, he gave them this pillar of fire to light the way and break up the darkness… and they would have remembered…
and the bible tells us if you read the story of this that whenever they pillar of fire stopped they stopped.... whenever it moved they moved...
and Jesus in these moments is claiming to be just that for these people...
And so what does it mean when Jesus tells us he is the light of the world?
The world has no other light but Jesus
and what it also doesn’t mean is that he hasn’t removed the darkness from the world as he walks through the world… instead it means that the world has no other light than him… if there is going to be light in the world… its from Jesus… it is literally either Jesus or darkness… and what that tells us is that the entire world, and everyone in it needs Jesus as their light…
And what is clear in all of this, is that we, are in darkness and need the light… Jesus will double down on this in just a few chapters as he says John 12:46
3 All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made.
4 In him was life, and the life was the light of men.
and we follow that with what John told us in chapter 12:46
46 I have come into the world as light, so that whoever believes in me may not remain in darkness.
He is the light of men… there is nothing else that we can get for light from in this world…
And we see our only way out of the darkness is for us to follow Jesus that is why he is the light of life we need him to be able to see... We cannot get out of the darkness without the light.... much like my story of being stuck in the darkness of the manhole earlier, we are needing the light to get us out… and this is why it is so important for us to check everything we do with what God wants us to do, and why we get ourselves in trouble when we go our own way...
and we can see the words of Psalm 119:105
105 Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.
coming true
And what we think about this as Christians and the life that we live and what we want is the lighthouse effect… God at end come this way… but I think about it in this way… small step… can only see where the next one is…a light at the end I kind of have an idea of where I am headed but each step is different and takes faith to take the first one to know where to put m foot...
What else is Jesus telling us when he tells us that he is the light of the world…
2. Jesus, the Light, reveals.
His light will clearly show the nature of life and of all things. It will identify, illuminate, and show things how they truly are… not how we want them to be or think they are as we wander in the dark. It will show the truth about God and man. It will show he loves us.
It also means the world was made for this light… Its not some foreign light… the light is from the owner of this world… and when it comes it shows sin as not belonging and for what it is and how it shouldnt be here… but at the same time it makes all the things that are good in the world show their true beauty and you can
Here is the truth… we can live our own lives and not follow Jesus but what we are learnign from this is when we do that we are struggling around in the dark and we may be able to get to a lot of places and walk around in the dark for a long time, but when we walk around in the dark for any amount of time there will be a moment when we bump face first into a wall and it hurts… and we think we have it before then we think our eyes have adapted to the darkness pretty well, which in all reality is hwat happens to us when we live in this world… we get adapted to the darkness… and we start to think that evil is good… and what happens is what we see all over the world...
Christians seeing worldly things good...
and all of a sudden we just run on the curb and what most of us do if we have even the faintest idea of Jesus and a God is we start to blame him… why’’d you let me do that… why did you let me run aground… you love me you’re good… etc… and then we get mad and turn around and go the other way and still struggle on our own and hope we can make it through the dark some more...
or we get smart… and we ask for the light of the world to come in and illuminate our way so we can get to where we need to be… and its not just that Jesus in this verse has said we will Have the light of life… think about that for just a second… what Jesus is telling us is not only have we lived in darkness but he is the light that truly allows us to see the world around us… and it is only him that allows us to be able to live and fully enjoy our lives...
3. Third, the world was made for the light of Jesus.
t means that the one day this world will be filled with the light as the water now covers the seas all all darkness and the works of darkness and all the sons of darkness wil lbe cast out… thats why hell is called the outer darkness because he will not be there… and Jesus and his radiance will fill all the earth and everythign will be beautiful
and even now
Jesus does away with the chaos of darkness… and when God spoke light into existane during creation it wiped away the chaos of the darkness… and Jesus can give that light to men
4.Lastly, we see that the world and everyone in it needs Jesus to be their light...
And it is clear that people are knowing what Jesus is saying.... they know that he is claiming to be the Messiah that would give the light the world needs… and they are not happy about it… Look at what their response to Jesus is here...
13 So the Pharisees said to him, “You are bearing witness about yourself; your testimony is not true.”
So back to the witness theory of a few weeks ago, they are saying look bro, you are the only one here that is a witness to the things you are saying so it is impossible for your claim to be true… your claim they are telling him is false.
So how does he respond?
14 Jesus answered, “Even if I do bear witness about myself, my testimony is true, for I know where I came from and where I am going, but you do not know where I come from or where I am going.
15 You judge according to the flesh; I judge no one.
Jesus is telling them his witness is true because he knows where he came from and where he was going He knew he was out of heaven and going back there.... and he goes on to say man cannot see the spiritual realm where it is he has come from and where he is going… so he can’t see that Jesus was with God and that he would return and that God had sent him with the Gospel and it is so similar to what we looked at in chapter 3
11 Truly, truly, I say to you, we speak of what we know, and bear witness to what we have seen, but you do not receive our testimony.
5 and from Jesus Christ the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead, and the ruler of kings on earth. To him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood
It is interesting to see John in revelation Further this idea of Jesus as the faithful witness
And Jesus takes this claim of men not being able to see even deeper as he says, you judge by the flesh… by appearance… which is exactly what we see God telling Samuel in
7 But the Lord said to Samuel, “Do not look on his appearance or on the height of his stature, because I have rejected him. For the Lord sees not as man sees: man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart.”
and so Jesus is telling them, look the only evidence you have to your claims is what you are seeing in this world… and you cannot judge me just based on physical evidence because there is so much more going on than what is seen. In essence Jesus here is telling them the same thing he said in
24 Do not judge by appearances, but judge with right judgment.”
16 Yet even if I do judge, my judgment is true, for it is not I alone who judge, but I and the Father who sent me.
He is saying even if I do judge my judgment is true, because I am not doing it alone, I am doing it with my father who sent me. He is with me when I judge.
He will go on to say it even more in depth in Jn 10:30
30 I and the Father are one.”
37 If I am not doing the works of my Father, then do not believe me;
38 but if I do them, even though you do not believe me, believe the works, that you may know and understand that the Father is in me and I am in the Father.”
17 In your Law it is written that the testimony of two people is true.
18 I am the one who bears witness about myself, and the Father who sent me bears witness about me.”
And Jesus is dropping truth bombs here, he is telling them their claims are completely false, because there are two witnesses He and the Father....
Very simply, everything Jesus said and did bore witness that His claim was true, that He was of God and sent from God to be “the Light of the world.”
It was also clear that God witness was true and it was clear to anyone who was paying attention that God was at work through Jesus.
19 They said to him therefore, “Where is your Father?” Jesus answered, “You know neither me nor my Father. If you knew me, you would know my Father also.”
Again he tells them they don’t know their God...because unbelievers have not seen him… and they were not believers… and they had not seen the light and in order for us to see the light we have to know Jesus as God is in JEsus and he is in him...