The Light of the world (2)

ANNOUNCEMENTS:

Welcome all!

Kelly Baptist Revival: Kelly Baptist is one of our supporting churches and has been partnered with us for about 2 years.

Revival starts at 6:00 PM tonight and 6:30 Mon-Wednesday. They have personally invited us to come so

INTRODUCTION:

We will continue in the gospel of John in chapter 8 and be studying just one verse today, John 8:12, “Then Jesus again spoke to them, saying, “I am the Light of the world; he who follows Me will not walk in the darkness, but will have the Light of life.” Light is a reoccurring theme in John’s gospel and has more spiritual meaning than it does physical meaning.

Every person no matter how good or bad they are, from the time we are born all begin in the same place: DARKNESS. I’m not talking about the physical darkness of the womb, I am referring to the spiritual darkness of this world. I know that is hard to conceive when we think about our innocent children, or even ourselves, but that is the teaching of Scripture. Humanity begins in darkness and the majority of mankind remain in darkness.

What is it like to live in darkness?

· There is no grasp of spiritual truth

· People cannot truly obey God

· And people are not able to see the true meaning of this life and how God designed us to live.

It is against this truth that Jesus declares to the people of the first century, and the people of today that He is the Light of the World.

What is Light? In its simplest form, light gives us the ability to see. We have lights in our house, lights on the streets, and God created a natural light for us to be able to see on earth. Daylight Savings time is about adjusting the clock to get the most out of the natural light of the sun. If you were to take a poll asking people what is the Light of the World, people would probably say, “the sun!” because it is the biggest and brightest light we have.

But Jesus said, “I am the Light of the World”. Notice that he did not say he was A LIGHT like the sun, but THE LIGHT meaning a different kind of light that has a different effect than the lights we commonly know. The sun gives us the ability to se physical things while Jesus gives us the ability to see spiritual things.

Think about when you first came to Christ. If the Light of Christ has dawned upon you, then there was a dramatic difference in the way you saw this world. Not physically speaking, but spiritually speaking. For the first time in your life, the things you have experienced began to make sense. Both the things leading up to your conversion and life after conversion begin to make sense. That is because the Light of Jesus points both forward in our future and backwards in the past. Jesus gives the ability to see the spiritual reality around us.

1) One of the characteristics of the Light is that it brings illumination

Example: What was it like reading the Bible before Jesus? It was very dull, boring, and confusing. Most of it if not all of it makes no sense to us because it has nothing to do with the way that we live and that is because we are spiritually dead. It’s like reading a manual of how to live for an entirely different culture. It makes no sense.

But when the Light of Christ comes into our hearts, Scripture makes sense. Not only does it make sense, but it explains much of what we experience as children of God and gives us details of how to live spiritual lives oriented to Christ.

People who walk in darkness CANNOT understand the spiritual things of this life unless the Light of Jesus has dawned in their hearts. I am not saying people cannot understand simple things like heaven or hell or that sin is something we do against God. God has given the world that in their consciences and the Bible say God has put eternity in everyone’s heart. But people cannot understand the deeper things of God until God has illuminated their hearts to understand them.

Things like what it means to truly follow Jesus

Things like what it means to repent and live a life of repentance

Things about eternity and what is really important in this life.

1 Corinthians 2:14 “But a natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually appraised.”

This is why some people come into the church service, hear the preaching of God’s Word and it means absolutely nothing to them! They get nothing out of it because it doesn’t make any sense, to them, it has no meaning, no application to their life that they know of.

They are naturally minded, and naturally minded people CANNOT understand spiritual things

What they need is the Light of Christ to illuminate their minds and hearts

2) Light also represents purity

When Jesus said, He is the Light of the world, he is saying that He is morally perfect. Never once did Jesus ever sin. Never once did Jesus ever do what displeased His Father. Never once did Jesus act in selfishness or pride or give in to temptation.

Down in verse 46, Jesus says, “Which one of you convicts me of sin?” This is why Jesus is often depicted as Light or as wearing white. He is absolutely pure. Jesus was exposed to sin, but was never contaminated by sin. He is pure, incorruptible, and holy.

Application:

When we follow Jesus, He leads us, guides us, and enables us to live holy lives. He teaches us what is sin and what it means to live lives characterized by righteousness. We are to live as “sons of light”

Jesus said, ““You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden; nor does anyone light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on the lampstand, and it gives light to all who are in the house. “Let your light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven”

We are not THE LIGHT, but a reflection of the light of Jesus to the world. When people see the church, they should see purity! They should see holiness, and that should point other people to Jesus!

3) Light represents the presence of God

The children of Israel were led through the wilderness by a pillar of fire by night. That fire, that light that ;led God’s people was the manifest presence of God.

The Psalmist said, The Lord is My Light and my salvation, whom shall I fear?”

John said, “God is light, and in Him there is no darkness”

When Jesus says that He is the Light, He is saying that the very presence of God dwells in Him and Him alone. Now this has been John’s primary truth all throughout this book, to present Jesus as fully God who walked upon this earth who is the Light of the World.

Do you believe that? I have found that it is much easier for people to believe in God than it is to believe in Jesus. They can believe that God exists, that God created the world, that God is keeping this thing going. But when it comes to Jesus, they have a hard time believing that God Himself could come to earth, die, resurrect from the grave, and offer forgiveness and reconciliation.

Which is the greater miracle? That God spoke this world into existence, including mankind from the dust of the earth, OR or that God could visit His creation and die for their sins? I think the miracle of creation is the greater miracle yet people find it harder to believe in Jesus.

Jesus then says to us, “he who follows Me will not walk in darkness”. We began this sermon saying that all people begin in darkness and most people remain there.

What is darkness?

Darkness can be summed up in two categories:

A darkened mind

This is the person who has no spiritual light to understand. Just like we spoke about Jesus giving us light to see the Spirtual things, darkness is not being able to see or understand.

Having a darkened mind is like walking throuhg life at night, not seeing the details of the trees, not seeing the clouds in the sky, not seeing the dangers around us, not seeing all of the details of creation.

He knows nothing other than the things of this world as he sees them. His only hope is the hope of living a long life before death overtakes him. He walks in darkness, ignorant of real life now and hereafter

A darkened heart

This is in reference to morality. Those who have a darkened heart break God’s Laws, God’s commandments, refuse God’s direction without any remorse or repentance.

They do this because they do not se the danger of sinfulness. They do not see the danger of transgression or living in sin which pits them against God.

A darkened heart has no fear of God.

Jesus is essentially saying people walk in one of two realms of life: They either walk in the Light and live as spiritual children OR they walk in darkness and live apart from God or against God

Think about light and darkness as two realms in which exist.

One is purity, enlightenment, and that is where God is

The other is darkness and sinfulness and that is where the unbelievers dwell.

Everyone begins life in the realm of darkness

People are living in darkness by nature

All of us when we were children lived as sinners

We lacked spiritual understanding

Sin enticed us and it was regular part of our lives

And the spiritual things of God made absolutely no sense to us

That was all of us! No one in here was born in the light. We all began as children of darkness

I remember sitting in church at Eastview Baptist as a child and that pastor talked and talked and I had no idea what he was saying

He had just as well been speaking another language. he spoke of things that did not mean anything to me (at that time)

Why? Because the Light had not yet dawned in my heart and life and my mind was darkened

And quite possibly there is someone in here like that right now. The spiritual things of God make little or no sense at all. You hear it, but it really doesn’t apply to your life. And the whole holiness and sin thing isn’t really that big of a deal to you. You’re not a bad person, but living to be holy and blameless is not your thing.

You’re living in darkness.

Your life is of this world because the Light of Jesus has never touched your life

But YOU do not have to stay that way

“He who follows Me, will not walk in darkness”

This is an invitation to the one who lacks understanding, or lacks the ability to live a life of holiness and dedication to Jesus.

It’s also a promise to those who are willing to follow that they will no longer walk in darkness.

This is Jesus reaching out to that crowd that day and to all the people after that who will read these words, saying that today you could make the decision to redirect your life toward Jesus and He will transfer you into the Kingdom of Light!

Nothing else needed!

No righteousness

No good works

No getting yourself together first

Just commit your life to Jesus now!

Just turn to the Light of the World and FOLLOW HIM!

He will illuminate the way

And He will guide you

And He will change your heart to hate sin and love righteousness!

Do you know what we need to follow Jesus?

Faith. The willingness to trust that the way He tells us to live and the way of life He calls us to is the right way.

That is the greatest struggle in the human race. We think we know better than God, we know the best way to live our lives, yet when we lead, we are not following.

There is another aspect of light: It gives life!

Light has been this way since the beginning of the world, not just for humanity but for anything that is alive.

The first hints God created in Gen 1 was light. Before any other loving thing was brought into existence, light was given. This is God’s created order, the way He made it, and the way He designed it.

In the same way, people do not truly live until they have had the light of Jesus Christ shine in their hearts. When we are given eternal life, this life then becomes rich and full.

Obviously people have lives, and some live seemingly good lives. People live, breathe, sleep, have dreams, all of that. But without the Light of Christ, that is all people have.

People do not have spiritual life until Christ has shined upon them. The true meaning, purpose, and significance of life cannot be seen and known apart from following Christ. Life after death cannot be rightly understood and life transforming until Christ throws light upon life, revealing what life really is.

What if I were to ask you, what is the purpose of your life? Or what is your quality of life?

The common answer I hear is that I am working to pay my bills, raising my kids. That is the very purpose of life to many people is simply to work 2/3 of their life so that their kids can have what they need to grow up to follow in their footsteps, get a job, and spend the majority of their lives at work and supporting their family.

Life is more than simply existing! Life is about something more than what we see right in front of us! Life is bigger than us, it is bigger than possessions, it does have a deeper meaning than what we often see right in front of us!

But none of that begins until we come to Christ. That life does not exist until we begin to follow Jesus and be able to see it as it really is.

Just like Peter, John, Andrew, Paul lived their lives for the things ow this world. Peter a fisherman, Paul a Pharisee until they had an encounter with Jesus.

And suddenly their entire life changed, and they began to truly live for eternity.

And how does that happen?

Jesus says, “he who follows Me…..will have the Light”

In other words, he will be alive. He will live as he was created to live, not for idolatry, not for the temporary things of this world, but he will live for eternity

Because to have life in this life, is also to possess eternal life.

Life is not life without eternal life.

We are not able to truly live until we are no longer afraid to die.

CONCLUSION:

Ashley has a powerful testimony of how the Lord saved her. Both of us saved at different times and both of us were saved at a later age.

One part of her testimony is the darkness that she lived in. She describes it like a weight that weighed her down, almost like a presence that surrounded her, that encompassed her, that enslaved her. No matter what she did, it was always there with no way to escape it.

God finally brought her to a place where she could see enough to turn to Him. She knew that she would have to give up her entire life, everything she thought she needed, everything she had known, she would have to walk away from it and turn to the Lord and follow Him. She said she has no idea what to expect, but she was ready.

When she got down on her hands and knees that night, she verbalized her hopeless to God and committed her life to Him. Not just with her lips, but in her heart.

God saved right then. His Light, His power, His forgiveness was plied to her and she was transferred from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of Light.

And she said at that moment, she felt like that deep inescapable darkness was lifted off of her and for the first time she could see the Light.

The darkness was gone and the Light had dawned.

Maybe that resonates with you today

Maybe you are walking in darkness

Maybe you feel the weight of darkness upon your life and God is saying to you, Come to the Light. Come to Jesus, and He will set you free.

How?

He who follows Me will not walk in darkness, but have the Light of Life”

You come and commit your life to Jesus today. Start following Jesus today. Give your life to Jesus and He will bring you into the Light.

~PRAYER~