John 8:12-20
Notes
Transcript
Turn your Bibles to John 8:12-20
I just got back from a really cool trip. This week I was in Virginia Beach with a bunch of Navy SEALS and we had Bible studies from Wednesday to Friday night. The first one went to 3:30AM, the next night we went until 2:30AM, and the last night we went until 2:00AM.
They kept on dwindling down on me…they couldn’t hang. Around midnight I would put a pot of coffee on to keep the machine going.
It was a great week and I want you all to know we have some men of God in the Navy SEALS. Men who will stand for the Truth of God’s Word and will not budge when it comes to advancing His Kingdom and obeying The King of Kings over the kings of this earth.
They are willing to pay any price that comes their way because they are first Christians and secondly they are SEALS.
That is all I will say about that for now. But, keep them and their families in your prayers as they stand firm in their convictions to Christ and their honor to our country.
Let’s read God’s Word:
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.” So the Pharisees said to him, “You are bearing witness about yourself; your testimony is not true.” 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. You judge according to the flesh; I judge no one. 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. In your Law it is written that the testimony of two people is true. I am the one who bears witness about myself, and the Father who sent me bears witness about me.” 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.” These words he spoke in the treasury, as he taught in the temple; but no one arrested him, because his hour had not yet come.
Prayer:
I told you guys how I wish I was more like Christ last week as we looked at how he handled the Pharisees when they came up and challenged Him on his knowledge of the Scriptures.
Let me show you again how I wish I could be more like Christ.
Look at verse 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.”
We will look at all of what Christ said here in just a minute but what I want to point out first is the first part of this verse
verse 12: “Again Jesus spoke to them, saying, “I am the light of the world...”
See, I don’t think I would have done that. I would like to believe I would have done that but if I am honest with myself I don’t think I would have done that.
After these Pharisees talk to Christ like they talked to Him in their arrogant condescending way…and after they treated this woman caught in adultery like they did…I would have probably went more John Wayne than Jesus Christ, which would have been horribly wrong.
Here Jesus was, teaching a crowd, minding His own business and these Pharisees throw this woman caught in adultery in front of Him and the crowd who was listening to Him teach. They try to provoke Him and they question His understanding of the Scriptures. He dealt with them very gently.
They leave.
And remember how He dealt with them?
He didn’t even look at them and just bent down and wrote on the ground then He stood up and told them whoever was without sin throw the first stone.
They leave
And he sits back down and calmly starts to teach again.
His blood pressure didn’t rise a bit
Ice water in His veins.
I think I would have been so worked up I would have canceled class. I pray I can be more like Christ ya’ll.
Now...Let me give you a little backdrop so you can kind of see what is going on a little better:
Christ is still at the Temple (from verse 2).
We find in the written Oral Traditions of the Jews, the Mishna that at the end of the Feast of Tabernacles (Booths) that they would have 4 golden bowls with 4 large candles burning in each of the bowls through the night. It lit up the Temple area, the Women’s Court, and it was symbolic of the pillar of fire that guided the Israelites in the wilderness during the Exodus.
So, now you see why Jesus is telling them, as he is looking at all these candles that have been burning all week lighting up the courtyard…you see now why He is saying what He is saying in verse 12?
Look at it again:
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.”
You see how interesting the Word of God is when we get the context of what is going on?
We miss so much of what God is trying to tell us don’t we? We have to be students of His Word…
What is Christ meaning by He is the “light of the world”?
what does “light” represent?
If we reverse engineer this verse I think we can get a real good understanding of what Christ is telling us.
He says, “Whoever follows me WILL NOT walk in DARKNESS, but will have the light of life”
Look at Psalm 82:5
They have neither knowledge nor understanding,
they walk about in darkness;
all the foundations of the earth are shaken.
So who is it that walks in darkness?
those who have neither knowledge nor understanding
If those who are walking around in darkness have neither knowledge nor understanding then we must look at the opposite of what the darkness is to understand the light.
The light that Christ brings to the world is knowledge and understanding…TRUTH!
He is telling us that all Truth starts with Him. He is the standard of all Truth.
And the problem with the World then is the same problem with the world TODAY...
People in the dark do NOT UNDERSTAND the LIGHT of who Christ IS!
Look at John 1:4-5
In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.
the word “overcome” here isn’t talking about darkness wrestling with light and pinning it down.
It means the darkness has not “understood it” or “grasped it”
This is what John is depicting throughout his Gospel. The Jewish Leaders, the Religious Leaders, never can quite grasp/understand who Jesus really is.
The question for you today is do you understand who Jesus REALLY is?
The first thing you must understand first is who you REALLY are if you want to be able to see who He REALLY is....
Imagine Christ when He came to the Temple that morning what He was teaching those people who sat at His feet…trying to get them to see who He really was.
He was the best Teacher…and good teachers do not tell you WHAT to believe without thinking about it...
They get you to think deeply about things so you can see it...
And that is what Christ does…He opens our eyes so we can see.
Now…there is no telling how much he taught them in verse 2...
But imagine this with me...
He says, “alright, where was I? Oh…you see all these lamps they are taking down today? Tell me what those lamps were symbolic of.
One person raises their hand and Jesus says, “yes, tell me”. The man answers, “it was a reminder of light in the Exodus”.
And then a girl starts quoting Exodus 13:21-22.
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. The pillar of cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night did not depart from before the people.
Jesus looks at the girl and says, “yes…thats it. Anyone else know of any Scripture about this?”
A lady raises her hand and quotes Neh 9:12
By a pillar of cloud you led them in the day, and by a pillar of fire in the night to light for them the way in which they should go.
Jesus says, “thats a good one. And you believe that the cloud that led them out of the darkness of Egypt was a sign pointing to the coming Messiah don’t you?”
They answered, “of course”
And then he says, think of these lights that light up this courtyard…think of the Feast of Booths and the whole Exodus, think of the light that guided them out of the darkness of Egypt and into the Promise Land…and listen to me very carefully...
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.”
Maybe some didn’t comprehend it…but I believe a lot of them saw it.
Do you see it? Do you see the beauty of what God has done for His people from the beginning?
Christ is not the Father’s tag-team partner and He just shows up in the New Testament…He has been weaving through all of History guiding His people, preparing them for his:
Coming
His perfect fulfillment of the Law by His sinless life...
His death on a cross
His glorification
and now WE get to follow the Light, which give us life eternal as we tell others of our King and what He has done.
Paul understood it:
Look at 1 Corinthians 10:1-4
For I do not want you to be unaware, brothers, that our fathers were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea, and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, and all ate the same spiritual food, and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank from the spiritual Rock that followed them, and the Rock was Christ.
Remember the pouring of the water on the alter to remind them of the water from the Rock Moses struck?
His brother Jude understood too. And because of this verse I believe that those Jesus taught it to understood it....
Now I want to remind you, although you once fully knew it, that Jesus, who saved a people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed those who did not believe.