I Am: I Am the Light of the World

John 8:12 “Jesus spoke to them again: “I am the light of the world. Anyone who follows me will never walk in the darkness but will have the light of life.””

Introduction

Three great Jewish festivals…

Feast of Unleavened Bread – celebrated in Spring, Marked the start of the Barley harvest and remembered the Exodus from Egypt through the celebration of the Passover.

Feast of Weeks – celebrated in the Summer, seven weeks after Passover. Offerings of first fruits from the early summer wheat harvest were offered to the Lord.

Festival of Booths – celebrated in the fall, which marked the completion of the harvest season. This was a big celebration which inaugurated a season of rest. It was also during this time they remembered the time they spent in the wilderness after coming out of Egypt when they lived in booths or tents. They would remember and celebrate how God had faithfully brought them from Egypt and into the promised land. The residents of Jerusalem would celebrate by setting up tents outside on their porches and visitors to Jerusalem would set up tents in the streets. It was a national campout festival. This feast included vivid ceremonies, such as the water-pouring ritual at the temple and the great festival of lights. They would remember how God provided water for them from the rock and how God had led them through the wilderness in a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night. It is in this context that we have our next I Am statement by Jesus.

Read John 8:12 - 19

John 8:12–19 CSB

Jesus spoke to them again: “I am the light of the world. Anyone who follows me will never walk in the darkness but will have the light of life.” So the Pharisees said to him, “You are testifying about yourself. Your testimony is not valid.” “Even if I testify about myself,” Jesus replied, “My testimony is true, because I know where I came from and where I’m going. But you don’t know where I come from or where I’m going. You judge by human standards. I judge no one. And if I do judge, my judgment is true, because it is not I alone who judge, but I and the Father who sent me. Even in your law it is written that the testimony of two witnesses is true. I am the one who testifies about myself, and the Father who sent me testifies about me.” Then they asked him, “Where is your Father?” “You know neither me nor my Father,” Jesus answered. “If you knew me, you would also know my Father.”

Again, Jesus employs the Greek, “Ego Eimi,” not so subtly making the claim to be Yahweh Himself. He is drawing upon this specific festival of lights and claims to be the Light of the World. Again, our minds should be drawn to the pillar of fire that led and guided the people by night. Jesus is making a direct claim to be the glory of God revealed to us to see.

To understand Jesus’ words to be the light of the world, we have to understand that He is also making the claim that this world is covered in darkness. If Jesus is light, then to be apart from Jesus is to be in darkness.

When I was in High School I took at geology class. During that year we took a field trip to Slaughter canyon around Carlsbad. We had a tour guide that took us in and showed us many of the formations within the cave. However, when we got down to the middle of the cave, the tour guide turned out all the lights in the cave. It was a surreal experience. Even at night, when the lights go out, there’s always some light somewhere that still comes through. There’s enough light even at night to have some kind of night vision. However, down in that cave, there was no extra light shining through. It was complete darkness. You could have your hand touching the nose on your face and you would not be able to see it. In Exodus, when God covered Egypt in darkness, it described it as darkness they could feel. I imagine that’s what it felt like because my skin felt like it was crawling in that darkness. When we speak of the darkness of the world, this is the image the Bible is giving to us.

1. The Darkness of Sin

A. we are slaves of sin and cannot escape

First, we have to realize that we live in a world of darkness. The biblical idea of darkness is the realm of ignorance and folly.

Psalm 82:5 (CSB)

They do not know or understand;

they wander in darkness.

All the foundations of the earth are shaken.

this idea of darkness and ignorance is true even of our secular culture. There was a period of ignorance and superstition known as the dark ages. It was also during this time that church leaders would keep their parishioners ignorant of the word of God so they could exert control over them. Then in the 17th and 18th century you have the period of the enlightenment where men believed they found knowledge to bring them out of the darkness we had been living in.

to live in darkness is to live in ignorance and sin. Our world is still dark with sin even in spite of being enlightened.

We have to admit that we not only live in a world of sin, but that we are sinners.

Romans 3:23 CSB

For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God;

You and I are both sinners caught in the trap of our own rebellion.

but not only are we sinners, our sin has completely and totally affected us. Its not that we are mostly good people who have made some mistakes. We are people, however, good we see ourselves, who have completely turned away from God.

Romans 3:10–12 CSB

as it is written: There is no one righteous, not even one. There is no one who understands; there is no one who seeks God. All have turned away; all alike have become worthless. There is no one who does what is good, not even one.

Isaiah 64:6 CSB

All of us have become like something unclean, and all our righteous acts are like a polluted garment; all of us wither like a leaf, and our iniquities carry us away like the wind.

We are completely and totally covered in darkness, like i was in the bottom of slaughter canyon with my high school geology class. Not even the smallest sliver of light to guide our way out.

And Like being caught in the bottom of slaughter canyon with no light to lead the way out, we are blind and stuck in our sin with no knowledge of how to get out. We are certainly free to roam about in our blindness, but we have no way to get out of this darkness on our own.

B. we are blind to who God is in Christ

Because of the darkness we find ourselves in, we are blind, not just by our sin, we are blind to who God is. Again, no one is seeking for God and even if we were, we wouldn’t know who we are seeking because we are blind to Him.

We see this truth illustrated in John 7, during the feast of tabernacles, as people are questioning who Jesus is. In John 7:1-5, we see his brothers testing Him to reveal Himself because they do not believe that Jesus is God.

Throughout the rest of the chapter, the people are arguing with themselves and with Jesus about who He is. While they claimed to be looking for the Messiah, they have missed Him because of their spiritual blindness. Jesus even told them as much in John 8:19

John 8:19 CSB

Then they asked him, “Where is your Father?” “You know neither me nor my Father,” Jesus answered. “If you knew me, you would also know my Father.”

The darkness of our sin and rebellion against God has blinded us to who He is and to the Work He has done for us.

2. The Light of Christ

When we see that Christ is claiming to be the light of the world, we will just briefly talk about the fact that the world tries to create its own light. We try to come up with artificial lights that we use to try and guide us to where we think we ought to go. While we have done well creating artificial light to use in our physical world, the light we try to conjure up in our spiritual lives are pathetic. We try to find our way through this world through:

a. Moralism / Legalism - We pretend everything is all good and try to create our own source of light by manufacturing our own goodness. We dress up the darkness and make it religious thinking that will lessen the fear and darkness we are feeling in our sin.

b. Justifying our current sin - We ignore the sin Scripture calls out within us. We make statements like “Well, i’m only human,” or “I was born this way so I’ve got to be true to myself.” “You do you” We make our sin appear less sinful and we try to comfort ourselves that we really aren’t that bad.

c. Pleasures that can take our mind off the fact that we are living in this world of fear and darkness (bingeing shows on netflix, drugs, alcohol, online websites we should avoid.)

These are all counterfeit lights we use to try and make it through this world, however, each of these lights just take us further into darkness because they take us further away from Christ.

Notice, Jesus doesn’t say I’m a light of the world, one of many to choose from. He is THE light of the world. He is the only way into life with God and freedom from sin.

A. Christ has come to guide us into life

When Christ makes the claim to be the light of the world, He is taking His audience back to the days of Egypt and the wilderness.

Again, they are at the end of their feast of tabernacles and part of this feast would be the festival of lights where the temple would be lit up with lamps and candelabras. This festival commemorated the light God had used to bring His people out of Egypt and safely through the wilderness.

The way God guided His people was through the pillar of cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night. The cloud and fire would protect the people and would lead them in the way they should go. They didn’t have to guess which was the right way through the wilderness because God was constantly with them. In fact, this pillar of light was God’s own glory leading them. So Christ here is making the claim that He is the glory of God Himself and that as He led the Israelites through the wilderness, He will guide us through this life.

1. Christ guides us by revealing to us our sin

He guides us by first showing us our sin. The sin we are deceived by and blinded by, He reveals to us. We cannot come to Christ and not see the sin that He reveals to us.

1 John 1:8 CSB

If we say, “We have no sin,” we are deceiving ourselves, and the truth is not in us.

True belief in Christ includes the acknowledgement of our sin and our repentance from that sin that Christ has revealed to us.

2. Christ guides us by revealing the Father

Again, just as we looked at earlier, the darkness we are living in keeps us blind to who God is. However, Christ as the Light of the World reveals to us who God is. This is what the author of Hebrews meant in Hebrews 1:3

Hebrews 1:3 CSB

The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact expression of his nature, sustaining all things by his powerful word. After making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high.

When we fix our eyes on Jesus, as He is revealed to us in the Word of God, we are seeing God as He truly is. There are a lot of people who claim that we all worship the same God, whether we call Him Jesus, or Muhammed or Buddha, or Allah, or whatever name we use. There are also those who believe in Jesus, but their idea of Jesus is different than the One who is revealed through the Scriptures. If we do not worship God as revealed by the Jesus revealed in this book, then we believe in a fake God. This was the problem with the Jews of Jesus’ day. Judaism had at one point believed in the One true God. However, when the Jewish leaders rejected Jesus as the Messiah, Judaism immediately became a false religion worshipping a false god. If our light is not Jesus, then we cannot truly see or worship God as He truly is and our worship is a false worship.

We remain in that dark cave scavenging for whatever we think might serve as a good enough god for us.

As the Shekinah glory of the pillar of cloud and fire led the people through the wilderness to the promised land, so Christ leads us through the darkness of this world into the presence of His Father.

Christ brought us The true light by His work on the cross and His resurrection

How does Christ lead us to the Father? First, again He is the exact nature and image of God. However, because we are blinded by sin, Christ has to free us and open our eyes from the blindness and darkness of sin. The only way He has chosen to truly open our eyes to the Light He offers is when He paid the price for sin upon the cross. Through His death on the cross and His resurrection, He has dealt with our sin, can reveal our sin to us, and open the way for us to have a personal relationship with the Father.

And now this light is available to anyone who would follow Christ. What does it mean to follow Christ?

We see the exact opposite of following Christ in the response of the Pharisees in John 8:13-19

John 8:13–19 CSB

So the Pharisees said to him, “You are testifying about yourself. Your testimony is not valid.” “Even if I testify about myself,” Jesus replied, “My testimony is true, because I know where I came from and where I’m going. But you don’t know where I come from or where I’m going. You judge by human standards. I judge no one. And if I do judge, my judgment is true, because it is not I alone who judge, but I and the Father who sent me. Even in your law it is written that the testimony of two witnesses is true. I am the one who testifies about myself, and the Father who sent me testifies about me.” Then they asked him, “Where is your Father?” “You know neither me nor my Father,” Jesus answered. “If you knew me, you would also know my Father.”

The Pharisees did not believe in Christ. They actually called His testimony false.

Anyone who would seek to follow Christ must believe that Jesus is who He said He is.

There are a great many people who like the teachings of Jesus, but do not want to accept Him as the Son of God. If we are going to follow Him and receive the Light He has to give, we must receive Christ as God the Son, fully God and fully man who has sufficiently paid the price for sin on our behalf.

3. Walking in the Light

a. We are called to follow Christ in obedience

So going back to Jesus’ words to follow Him, what does this mean? First, we saw that it means to receive and believe in who He said He is. But as we believe in Him, it is going to lead us to not just believe in Him as our Savior, but also to follow Him as Lord.

We cannot have Jesus as Savior if we do not receive Him as Lord. Which means, to follow Him and to remain in His Light, we are going to live in trust and faithful obedience to Him. This is not a legalistic obedience, but an obedience that naturally follows our saving faith in Him.

This is what John means in 1 John 1:5-7

1 John 1:5–7 CSB

This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you: God is light, and there is absolutely no darkness in him. If we say, “We have fellowship with him,” and yet we walk in darkness, we are lying and are not practicing the truth. If we walk in the light as he himself is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin.

We cannot say we believe in Christ and live in opposition to His commands. The people in the wilderness could not stay within the light of the pillar of fire if they were not willing to stop when the pillar stopped and to get up and move when the pillar moved. They stayed within the light God provided only as they trusted and obeyed His movements.

b. We are called to reflect the Light of Christ

i. As the moon reflects the light of the sun

To follow Christ also means we are going to be witnesses to the light. If we are living in the light of Christ, we cannot help but reflect that light to the world around us. Matthew 5:14

Matthew 5:14 CSB

“You are the light of the world. A city situated on a hill cannot be hidden.

Which means, our lives should light up the darkness of the world around us in such a way that when people see us, they cannot help but see the light of Christ in us.

We can see the moon at night, not because it generates its own light, but because it is living in the light of the sun. The moon reflects the light of the sun onto the dark world below it. In the same way, we are called to reflect the light of Christ to those around us.

Now, this doesn’t mean they will accept the light. Many people still love the darkness because they love their own sin and they hate the light, as someone who is asleep in the middle of the night hates the light that comes on which blinds them and wakes them up.

But when the world sees us, they should see something that is radically different from the world around them.

The great choice for the church today is to either remain in the light of Christ and reflect His light to a dark world or conform to the world and adopt the darkness that surrounds it.

Conclusion

Will you choose to walk in the Light of the World by following Jesus? For believers, this means continuing to walk in faith and obedience to Christ and to reflect His light to those living in darkness. Are you willing to continue to follow Jesus not just as Savior, but as Lord of your life? To give Him complete control and to be who He has called you to be?

Maybe you’re here and you’ve never placed your faith in Jesus. You know all too well the darkness we’ve talked about this morning. The darkness of sin and the hopelessness of living apart from your Creator. Jesus is inviting you to step into the light. We do not have to work for this. All we have to do is trust and believe that Christ is who He says He is and know He has completed the work already. You can step into His light today and I would love to show you how.