I Am the Light: John 8:12

Pastor Bart con­tin­ued his series on “Truth” Sunday. He looked at John 8:12 [show]John 8:12 [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.” (ESV)
, where Jesus says, “I am the light of the world. If you fol­low me, you won’t have to walk in dark­ness, because you will have the light that leads to life.” (NLT) He taught us that the Light exposes our sin and at the same time it exposes God’s love for us. John 1 [show]John 1 In the begin­ning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. [2]He was in the begin­ning with God. [3]All things were made through him, and with­out him was not any thing made that was made. [4]In him was life, and the life was the light of men. [5]The light shines in the dark­ness, and the dark­ness has not over­come it. [6]There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. [7]He came as a wit­ness, to bear wit­ness about the light, that all might believe through him. [8]He was not the light, but came to bear wit­ness about the light. [9]The true light, which enlight­ens every­one, was com­ing into the world. [10]He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him. [11]He came to his own, and his own peo­ple did not receive him. [12]But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become chil­dren of God, [13]who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God. [14]And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. [15](John bore wit­ness about him, and cried out, “This was he of whom I said, ‘He who comes after me ranks before me, because he was before me.’”) [16]And from his full­ness we have all received, grace upon grace. [17]For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. [18]No one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father’s side, he has made him known. [19]And this is the tes­ti­mony of John, when the Jews sent priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him, “Who are you?” [20]He con­fessed, and did not deny, but con­fessed, “I am not the Christ.” [21]And they asked him, “What then? Are you Elijah?” He said, “I am not.” “Are you the Prophet?” And he answered, “No.” [22]So they said to him, “Who are you? We need to give an answer to those who sent us. What do you say about your­self?” [23]He said, “I am the voice of one cry­ing out in the wilder­ness, ‘Make straight the way of the Lord,’ as the prophet Isaiah said.“ [24](Now they had been sent from the Pharisees.) [25]They asked him, “Then why are you bap­tiz­ing, if you are nei­ther the Christ, nor Elijah, nor the Prophet?” [26]John answered them, “I bap­tize with water, but among you stands one you do not know, [27]even he who comes after me, the strap of whose san­dal I am not wor­thy to untie.” [28]These things took place in Bethany across the Jordan, where John was bap­tiz­ing. [29]The next day he saw Jesus com­ing toward him, and said, “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world! [30]This is he of whom I said, ‘After me comes a man who ranks before me, because he was before me.’ [31]I myself did not know him, but for this pur­pose I came bap­tiz­ing with water, that he might be revealed to Israel.” [32]And John bore wit­ness: “I saw the Spirit descend from heaven like a dove, and it remained on him. [33]I myself did not know him, but he who sent me to bap­tize with water said to me, ‘He on whom you see the Spirit descend and remain, this is he who bap­tizes with the Holy Spirit.’ [34]And I have seen and have borne wit­ness that this is the Son of God.“ [35]The next day again John was stand­ing with two of his dis­ci­ples, [36]and he looked at Jesus as he walked by and said, “Behold, the Lamb of God!” [37]The two dis­ci­ples heard him say this, and they fol­lowed Jesus. [38]Jesus turned and saw them fol­low­ing and said to them, “What are you seek­ing?” And they said to him, “Rabbi” (which means Teacher), “where are you stay­ing?” [39]He said to them, “Come and you will see.” So they came and saw where he was stay­ing, and they stayed with him that day, for it was about the tenth hour. [40]One of the two who heard John speak and fol­lowed Jesus was Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother. [41]He first found his own brother Simon and said to him, “We have found the Messiah” (which means Christ). [42]He brought him to Jesus. Jesus looked at him and said, “So you are Simon the son of John? You shall be called Cephas” (which means Peter). [43]The next day Jesus decided to go to Galilee. He found Philip and said to him, “Follow me.” [44]Now Philip was from Bethsaida, the city of Andrew and Peter. [45]Philip found Nathanael and said to him, “We have found him of whom Moses in the Law and also the prophets wrote, Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.” [46]Nathanael said to him, “Can any­thing good come out of Nazareth?” Philip said to him, “Come and see.” [47]Jesus saw Nathanael com­ing toward him and said of him, “Behold, an Israelite indeed, in whom there is no deceit!” [48]Nathanael said to him, “How do you know me?” Jesus answered him, “Before Philip called you, when you were under the fig tree, I saw you.” [49]Nathanael answered him, “Rabbi, you are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel!” [50]Jesus answered him, “Because I said to you, ‘I saw you under the fig tree,’ do you believe? You will see greater things than these.” [51]And he said to him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, you will see heaven opened, and the angels of God ascend­ing and descend­ing on the Son of Man.” (ESV)
says that Jesus is the Light, the Light that brings life because “God’s unfail­ing love and faith­ful­ness came through Jesus Christ” (v 17, NLT). Our response is sim­ple and dif­fi­cult at the same time.

The Light exposes our sins. We have a choice, to acknowl­edge our sins or to hide in the dark­ness. By acknowl­edg­ing our sins, we are one step closer to liv­ing in the Light. This of course is extremely dif­fi­cult for us. No one likes to admit that they are sin­ful. No one like to admit they have any weak­nesses or bad­ness at all. But this is the only way we can receive for­give­ness, by acknowl­edg­ing that we need it.

The Light exposes God’s love for us for He clearly can see our sin even clearer than we can. He is will­ing to for­give us of those sins and cleanse us of all unright­eous­ness if we only believe. God’s love for us is so great it really blows me away.

This is sim­ple. We have rejected God. God can­not stand sin and must ban­ish it from His sight. He could do just that but He Loves Us. As such, he sent His only Son to take our place, that the pun­ish­ment for our sins would be placed upon Him and not us, if we only believe that we are sin­ful, need for­give­ness, and that Jesus died for those sins. The Light exposes God’s love for us because it shows how sin­ful we are, how much for­give­ness we really needed, and how inca­pable we are of every mak­ing up for those sins yet God still accepts us! Wow!

Ok, but that is only the first step. Pastor Bart exhorted us to not only step into the light but also walk in the light. He said to walk in the light is to live the life of love. He said the key to walk­ing in the light is about lov­ing God and lov­ing oth­ers and NOT obey­ing a list of do’s and don’ts. I cer­tainly don’t believe he was advo­cat­ing dis­obe­di­ence, rather, that legal­ism (fol­low­ing a bunch of do’s and don’ts to be saved) is not walk­ing in the light.

Now, I think this is where a lot of peo­ple mess up and why Pastor empha­sized love over law. The Light exposes our sins. It is our nature to want to save our­selves and so we make a bunch of doc­trine, laws, canon, to say what is good and what is bad — as ini­tially exposed by the Light. This is kind of funny to me, for we appar­ently think this is the easy way instead of accept­ing God’s love and for­give­ness and then liv­ing that life of love.

Well, maybe it is eas­ier to fol­low a list of rules. To love God and to love oth­ers means we are plac­ing them as more impor­tant than our­selves. By fol­low­ing a list of rules, we make our own obe­di­ence as impor­tant and we can make/follow what­ever list we want. To love God and to love oth­ers expands the bound­aries of our lives to areas that we are uncom­fort­able with — our sin­ful natures don’t want to go there.

This is our chal­lenge, to live the life of love. To love God with all our heart. soul, and mind. To love our neigh­bors in the same way we love our­selves (put our­selves num­ber one). We must acknowl­edge our sin, ask God for for­give­ness, and maybe the hard­est part, accept that for­give­ness. As we accept God’s love for us, we can then show that love to oth­ers and accept them, just as God accepts them.

[edit on Tuesday] I was doing some study today in John and ran into John 3:18–21 [show]John 3:18–21 [18]Whoever believes in him is not con­demned, but who­ever does not believe is con­demned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God. [19]And this is the judg­ment: the light has come into the world, and peo­ple loved the dark­ness rather than the light because their works were evil. [20]For every­one who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed. [21]But who­ever does what is true comes to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that his works have been car­ried out in God.” (ESV)
. It kind of bowled me over. I don’t remem­ber Pastor read­ing or refer­ing to this pas­sage but I am guess­ing he had cer­tainly read it and was influ­enced by this pas­sage if he didn’t men­tion it in his ser­mon. I am going to have to go back and lis­ten to the ser­mon again. But any­way, this pas­sage cer­tainly con­nects the Light with love. People love dark­ness more than the light because they know their sins will be exposed in the Light. “But who­ever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what he has done has been done through God.” (NIV) Walking in the light not only exposes our sins but our love for God and what He does through us — it pro­claims God’s for­give­ness, His Love, His faith­ful­ness to us.

I encour­age you to lis­ten to Pastor’s ser­mon to hear more of his chal­lenge to us. Go to www.flatlandchurch.com or down­load it from iTunes.