Sermon Tone Analysis

Been here two years… and it’s starting to feel like normal… i know this because I can walk around the house in the dark.

Walking around…in the dark.

Feelings and experience are OK as long as things don’t change, but when life sends you a curve ball… when you find yourself in unfamiliar surroundings, feelings and experiences don’t help at all.

Needing money… now… When we began to talk…there were more questions than answers leaving us to speculation.

Have you ever been there?

In uncharted territory, only guessing at what could be around the corner?

What will the doctors say?

What is going to happen now?

Trying to figure your way through the dark by feel and experience is simply speculation, because you don't’ really know what’s there.

You don’t know your dog’s antlers are all over the floor of the living room.

or the worst, you don’t realize the lego pieces are all over the place.

No you are just going by feel and experience, and the problem is that often times when it’s too late, it’s too late.

Anyone who has ever stepped on a lego piece in the dark, or stumped your toe on some furniture in the dark knows what I’m talking about.

Wouldn’t it be better to have some light?

Jesus says, spiritually, that he came as a revelation to us.

In today’s text he is going to give us a simple teaching that when we accept it, it changes everything.

Where are we?

Herod’s Temple

Jesus at the Feast of Tabernacles

living in “tents” remembering that God is with them just as he was when he brought them into freedom.

Daily priests trip to Pool of Siloam

I am living water

People are divided on who they think Jesus is…prophet, messiah, fraud

John 8:12-30

I am the light of the world

This statement is just as powerful as the previous I am statement, maybe even more so.

Especially once you take time to understand what’s happening and where it’ happening.

The Outer courts… Gentiles

Court of women … for Jewish men and women and converts

Court of Priests … only Jewish men who were making offerings and priests could enter

13 receptacles for offerings were in the Court of women…that way everyone could present their own offerings to God.

#1 & #2 for the half shackle temple tax that everyone had to pay.

#3 & #4 were where women put money to purchase the two pigeons that they needed to offer to purify themselves from childbearing.

#5 was where the money went to purchase the wood for the fire on the alter.

#6 for the incense in the alter.

Five and six then for things related to the sacrifices.

#7 was designated as the receptacle to keep up the golden vessels of the temple.

To hire the people to clean them and have money to replace them.

#8 - #13 were for the general fund.

Anything and everything else.

Here is where people gather to make the daily offerings during the Feast which God commanded them to give in Leviticus 23:33-40, It is here that Jesus decides to proclaim:

It’s an exclusive claim that Jesus is making about himself here… I am THE light of the world.

Who is Jesus?

THE light...

No other… I’m necessary… this world needs me… the world can’t function as it was intended without me...

Jesus is making the claim that he is God.

Back in chapter 7, that’s the reason for the uproar among the leadership… This was blasphemy… unless it were true.

And Jesus certainly believed it were true.

Using the I AM name of God was clear… especially combined with everything else he said here in this passage.

Jesus says he is the son of God...

Jesus says he is from heaven...

Jesus says he is the savior...

Jesus says he is doing God’s work...

The light of the world...

Not the light of Jerusalem, Judea, Israel…But the world.

NO one would say this.

But that’s exactly what Jesus was saying… remember back in Chapter 3

This was a declaration by Jesus that he was God.

Isaiah records a prophetic account that the teachers in the synagogue knew was a statement from God to his Messiah

You see when Jesus says he is the Light of the world… He is the one who opens eyes… to lead prisoners to freedom from darkness.

Jesus is making a powerful statement… one that can’t be ignored.

Because this statement is not just about who he is… but why he is here,

Why is he here?

Hear it again:

You see another thing happens during the feast of tabernacles.

Remember this was about remembering God’s deliverance in the desert so God commanded the Israelites to camp out of their homes for the week.

Then every morning of the feast the priests bring water down to pour out on the altar as a sign that God is their provider.

But the Israelites were led through the desert by a pillar of fire; the Shikinah glory of God at night and by a pillar of smoke in the day… this was the presence of God.

So in Jesus’s day, at Herod’s Temple, in the court of women, where the offerings are made, there are 4 large candlelabras.

These are very large… I read a report that they were 75 feet tall, taller than the walls of the temple.

The wicks of the torches were made from the garments of the priests… their glory.

It was to be a reminder to the people of God’s Shikinah leading them.

It’s said that these candelabras could be seen through out Jerusalem during the feast… The temple, atop the temple mount, was a sign to everyone in the city.

It’s in view of these candelabras that Jesus proclaims … I am the Light of the world.

I hope you are seeing this.

Jesus is making some strong statements about who he is and what he is doing here during this feast.

Just as God led the Israelites out of bondage in Egypt, Jesus is coming to lead the entire world out of darkness.

But in order for him to lead us out of darkness, it requires us to follow him.

In order for Jesus to lead us from a life of sin, we have to follow him.

The problem is though, the darkness.

Many of us don’t even realize just how dark the place is we are in.

Our eyes have adjusted to the dark so much that we don’t even realize it’s dark anymore.

And just like when I wake up after Michelle turns out all the lights, we are left to get around by feel and experience; actually proud of ourselves that we can function pretty well in the dark.

But Jesus came as a revelation.

A revelation as the light of life.

But That’s where we are.

Problem is many don’t realize they aren’t walking in the light of life, they are actually in darkness.

Surveys say that 50% of Americans are Christians.... Would you say that’t true by looking at our world?

No.

Is this about going to church??? “I don’t need church to believe in God and Jesus.”

…No but you need the church, faith community to live out your faith.

This is in the dark thinking because if you believe it’s possible to have a personal faith, you don’t believe Jesus b/c he called us to love one another… serve one another… forgive one another… help one another… bless one another.

It’s hard to live out your beliefs… doing these “one another”s if you don’t have others in your life.

That’s how Jesus describes true belief… it changes behavior… it reshapes a person from the inside out.

But this person probably doesn’t realize that b/c they are still in the dark.

What is it that makes you a Christian?

What is it that puts you in right relationship with Jesus?

How does he want us to respond?

Following him.

How bout that…can you believe that.