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You know how the story ends, even if you don’t believe it you know how the Jesus story ends.  There’s no surprise ending or artistic license to be taken, he’s alive.  That’s what makes Jesus – Jesus.  Nobody left the Passion and said, “Wow, I didn’t see that coming.”

Something has happened – we’ve become too familiar with the Easter story and so miss the point.  We think it’s a great story on how to die really well which doesn’t interest us because we’re not thinking about death.  Living has preoccupied us.  We’ve been too busy following the path to significance, or someone, or peace, or sometimes truth if we have that luxury. We are too caught up in the living and it seems that a man who is known for his death and resurrection probably doesn’t have a lot to say.

1.       Our search for peace.

• We try to follow the arrow for security and see it’s an endless maze.  Inner peace is best defined as your soul being at rest.  Are you ever just wore out after a day of conflict?
• If we can’t find real peace then we sedate ourselves through a myriad of activities such as TV, Facebook, SecondLife, some sort of virtual reality where we don’t have problems or everyone else’s problems wrap up in 30 minutes.

2.       Our search for someone.

• Belonging is a basic human need, this is why there are so many dating services on the internet.  The arrow is constantly pointing at someone else who will make us happy.
• It’s not just romance.  Having moved several times I understand the difficulty of belonging.  Especially for men, it seems like the last time most of us made a new good friend was high school or college.
• We want to belong but we don’t want to be vulnerable.  We want a sure investment for our emotions.

3.       Our search for significance.

• We all want to matter and make a difference.  I think this is why we have so many opportunities to live out what we think will matter.
• We invest our lives in a job or parents enable their children to pursue every option they never had.
• What we don’t realize is that in chasing these pursuits of significance we move away from the someone and the peace we have sought.

4.       Our search for truth.

• This truth often takes a back seat to the seeming more pressing searches.
• This is maybe the most important for it informs everything else.  What we believe to be true guides us in our quest for peace, security and belonging.  After all we can’t have peace with nagging doubt, we can’t be secure in something that isn’t real and we can’t belong to someone on any meaningful level without sincerity.
• We want to know what we know is a sure thing – a real deal.  So we search.

5. Jesus is our way to truth.  (John 14:5-11)

• I must admit, there are some places where we’ve come awfully close.
  • Genesis tells us that we are created in God’s image and Romans tells us that God has put into our consciences truth.  So, when we get a bunch of people together seeking truth and true beauty good things happen.
  • We call these collective efforts of quests for truth and beauty religions.  The world is full of them.  The problem with all of them as you saw in the video is that the labor is entirely up to us.  If we want out of the hole, if we want true direction then we must figure it out and we must do it alone.
  • The problem is that in our human understanding we can’t fully understand the problem.
• I’ve said this before but one step away from eternity, is an eternal step and it creates and unbridgeable gulf between us and God.
  • It requires God to take our place and bridge that gulf.  In other words it requires someone coming into the hole with us.  Only Jesus Christ has done that.
  • Before I’ll defend Christianity, I’ll defend Christ.  Because everything in my life revolves around him.  The rest is our best attempt to please him.
• The way of truth is not over there somewhere, but here pointing up to Christ.

6. Jesus is our way to significance. (John 14:12-14)

• Easter is a day of power.  It is the day that set the 11 cowering disciples running into harm’s way for the sake of spreading the gospel.
• This power enables us to do greater works than Christ.  What does that mean?  It means that if the church truly takes on the mission of Christ, with the Spirit of Christ then the hundreds of us here are able to do more than the one person of Jesus!
• We see that the way to significance doesn’t take us away from truth but in the same direction as it also is found in Christ.

7. Jesus is our way with someone. (John 14:2-3)

• He is someone to love us unconditionally.  The church becomes a family to call our own.
• Relationships that never end – despite death or distance.
• The way of significance that used to take us away from someone, now is in line with it as they both lead us to Christ.

8. Jesus is our way of peace . (John 14:1)

• Jesus recognizes our need for peace and security and says, “I’m coming back to give you this security.  Oh, and by the way you’re not good enough, thankfully I am.”
• We see that peace is found in Christ and we’re at peace because we don’t have to run in seven directions to find satisfaction in life.
• And when you live a life that death can not stop, you find yourself at complete peace.

All that we looked for is in Christ, answered by his teaching and satisfied in his person.  When we live a life like this that’s when death can’t stand in the way.  Because we know how the story ends we almost miss the point, the resurrection isn’t the end it’s the climax.  Jesus resurrection says this to us, “When you live a life like me, then death is no obstacle.”  The resurrection is not a story about dying well, it’s a story on how to live.  The life the resurrection calls us to is the life that death can not hold down.

1. Jesus is salvation for sheep. (10:9)

• Jesus replaces the closed door to life in Genesis, previously an angel with a sword stood in the way, now Christ opens the way.
• Hebrews 10:19-20 tells us, “Therefore, my friends, since we have confidence to enter the sanctuary by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain (that is, through his flesh),”
• Christ made the way to salvation possible by his own death.
  • If we want to be shepherds, if we want to test shepherds we must be willing to suffer as Christ suffered. We must be agents spreading salvation.
  • Jesus is the gate – the only way to salvation.

2. Jesus is the standard for leaders.

• One time while moving I forgot my keys and was met by the police in my front yard. I had to enter the house through a window and the neighbors called the police. You see they thought that because I entered through a window I didn’t belong in the house. Doors provide more than entrances – they provide a standard.
• Thieves and bandits enter from another way. (10:1)
  • Jesus was sent from the Father, so he comes with God’s blessings. Armed with the Spirit and right intentions.
  • The Pharisees were not sent from the Father – if they were they would have recognized Jesus.
  • They were not armed with the Spirit – their intentions were repeatedly recognized by Jesus as bad.
  • Ezekiel 34:1-4, 11 – gives us a picture of the shepherds that don’t come in the way, the standard of Christ.
• The godly under-shepherd enters from the gate.
  • 1 John 4:1-6 – Reveals the first and ultimate test for all under-shepherds, do they point back to Christ?
  • Even Jesus didn’t point to himself but back to the Father who sent him.
• Therefore any under-shepherd must follow Christ’s example, 1 Peter 5:1-5. Here are some of the characteristics: willing to serve, serve as Christ and not serve not for money or power.
• John 21:15-19 we see a very moving statement about following Christ’s example. Jesus tells Peter that tending sheep involves sacrifice.
  • Under-shepherds are called to the same sacrifice as Jesus.
  • Jesus’ sacrifice is our standard for spiritual leadership.

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

Yesterday our youth minister Jared Graves started our new sermon series, “Jesus =.”  His text was John 6:22-59 and through it he explored how Jesus satisfies our greatest hungers in life.  I’m linking to his blog and notes on this sermon for those of you who want to follow this series along you can view his web post on this by clicking here.  This next Sunday we’ll look at Jesus’ statements in John 8:12-9:5 where he boldly declares, “I AM the Light.”