Jesus = Bread – John 8:12-20 (Sermon Notes)
Jesus makes this statement, “I AM the Light,” during the feast of tabernacles where they would celebrate at night by lighting torches throughout the city. When there is light the night can be a very peaceful and beautiful place. Total darkness brings about confusion and fear, try navigating in the dark.
Jesus in John 9:4 tells us that we are now in the night. There are patches of light where believers gather shining the light of Christ, but it seems that there are more patches of darkness. Perhaps where you work or even your home is abysmally dark. It’s frustrating.
Jesus = Light, Jesus in John 8 says, “I am the Light of the World.” What does that mean?
If you were to survey the word “light” throughout the book of John, you would find it 16 times. They come in five clusters and this cluster, where Jesus declares, “I am the Light” is the center, it is the apex of these occurrences. These five teachings the outside four correspond with each other and you see a present truth about light and a future occurrence of light. It’s this text that separates the present from the future, because when you come to Jesus everything is new. For the disciples it was seeing the incarnate Lord, for us it will be seeing the returning Lord.
1. The light has dawned and the light will set.
- John 1:1-4, 9 – Jesus is the light of the world that shines and gives life to everyone.
- This passage of scripture is written to call to our minds Genesis chapter one, one of the very first descriptors of the world is that it is dark. So, God’s very first creation is light.
- Jesus is the light of all creation. John says everything was dark before Christ. Christ even predates our physical light because in the beginning he was God. It’s as thought John is saying, “If you think the sun is bright – look at Christ.”
- Just like the sun the light of Christ was fleeting.
- John 12:35-36 – Jesus tells the disciples that after he leaves the world will become a very dark place. There is no mistake that John makes a point in John 13:30 to tell us that Judas left to betray Christ he says, “It was night.”
- We see even in our passage John 9:4 that there is a double or perhaps deeper meaning to night. The night is not just when Christ is absent, but when this life is over. This is why we are admonished to work while it is light – work today.
2. The light has revealed and the light will judge.
- Without light we can’t see things or know things. Colors for example can’t be seen by the eye in the dark – it’s physically impossible. The light reveals things as they are, not as we wish for them to be. This is why surgeons work with bright lights not mood lighting. (John 3:19-21)
- The light has two effects, one present and one to come. That’s why in the first point we see that the light has dawned, but in the future it will set. Here we see that the light has revealed, but soon the light will judge. (John 11:9-10)
- How is it that the light judges? How is it that following Christ now as the light of the world will prepare us for eternity?
- We see in John’s final book, Revelation that Christ is light of eternity. Revelation 22:5, “And there will be no more night; they need no light of lamp or sun, for the Lord God will be their light, and they will reign forever and ever.”
- You see there are two places: one of light that’s heaven, the other of darkness. Complete eternal brightness or complete and eternal darkness. The light of Christ is preparing our spiritual vision for an eternity of brightness or if you choose and eternity of darkness.
- Think about this in everyday terms. When you come out of a movie theater in the middle of the day, you squint because your eyes hurt at the light. When you leave a bright day and go into a dark room you can’t see because your eyes strain at the darkness.
- Eventually your eyes become accustomed to the light or to the dark and you can see in the light or the dark. But you can’t see in both and you can’t switch back and forth with perfect vision.
- So it is spiritually. There are those of you here who are so accustomed to the light, that when you go to be with Christ you won’t barely squint because your spiritual eyes are used to the light.
- There are those of you here, who are so accustomed to the dark that when the eternal light of Christ comes you will squint at it and choose darkness because that’s what you can see. You’ll be able to see with perfect clarity all of the evil and pain that is kept in eternal darkness.
3. The light is calling – will you follow?
- Unfortunately we are by nature children of darkness and but we have been called out. In the middle of the dawn and the set, the revelation and the judgment Jesus stands out in: John 8:12, “Again Jesus spoke to them, saying, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness but will have the light of life.”
- The surest test to know whether you live in light are in darkness is by where you stumble?
- Do you stumble when you’re in the world? Do you squint at the violence of society? Do you feel awkward when dark talk creeps into conversation? If so, you’re a follower of the light.
- Do you stumble when you’re around other believers? Is it awkward? Are you out of place? Do you squint with shame because you know what you did in the darkness the night before? If so, you’re not in the light.
- Being in the light produces radiant people, full of life. People whose eyes are wide-open staring into the brilliant light of Christ and who shine that light throughout the world.
Proclaim the mighty acts of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.
- 1 Peter 2:9b
-
-
