Being in the Light
Journey Through The Gospels • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
0 ratings
· 1 viewJesus' claims to Deity by being His own witness. What does followership look like. What does followership mean for us.
Notes
Transcript
Light!
Light!
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.”
Jesus declares Himself to be the “Light of the World”
He is saying:
“I am the one who spoke light into the world!”
“I am the one who gives light to the world!”
“I am the revealer and the revelation!”
“I am the wisdom of the world!”
“I am God!”
Light was a beloved symbol for God, just as darkness is a symbol for evil and for Satan as the prince of darkness.
Furthermore, He said, “Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life”
whoever is ACTIVELY - ACTUALLY - following me - one who has commited themselves to be my disciple - is following
WILL HAVE the light of light
You won’t walk in darkness - because you have light!
Having light, you are light. If I met you in a dark alley and you were shining a light ahead of you, would I see you or the light that you have? So long as you are following the light - it will shine ahead of you - that’s all I’ll see until we get real close.
You will not walk in ignorance, pride,or evil intent. You will walk in wisdom, revelation, faith, hope, and love!
Why? Because you have them.
What about the one who claims to know and believe in Jesus but their actions show otherwise.
9 Whoever says he is in the light and hates his brother is still in darkness.
10 Whoever loves his brother abides in the light, and in him there is no cause for stumbling.
11 But whoever hates his brother is in the darkness and walks in the darkness, and does not know where he is going, because the darkness has blinded his eyes.
We must follow Jesus.
We must be a follower of Jesus.
Not just what we do, but who we are, who we are becoming.
This is what believers in Jesus do, why because they are His, they listen to Him and they obey Him.
We are followers first.
Leadership is important. Being a good leader is important.
But follower-ship is much more important.
Leading will not get you into heaven, but following will!
Leading is a byproduct of following.
This is why ministry overflows from personal relationship with God.
Ministry is relationships, but we can’t help connect people to someone we’re not connected to!
We cannot give what we do not have.
We cannot reproduce what we are not.
We must first BE a disciple to make a disciple.
Camera!
Camera!
13 So the Pharisees said to him, “You are bearing witness about yourself; your testimony is not true.”
The pharisees tried to catch Him in His words.
They said, “Hey! You can’t be your own witness!”
Now, in John 5:31, Jesus said,
31 If I alone bear witness about myself, my testimony is not true.
Jesus said the very same thing, but if you reread that passage and read John 5:30-47, you will see where Jesus says that He’s not the only one who bears witness about Himself.
Other witnesses He lists are John the Baptist, God the Father, the scriptures, the works He did, and Moses through his writings.
Here though, Jesus takes a different approach and claims essentially that He can claim to be God, His witness is true, because He is God!
14 Jesus answered, “Even if I do bear witness about myself, my testimony is true, for I know where I came from and where I am going, but you do not know where I come from or where I am going.
15 You judge according to the flesh; I judge no one.
16 Yet even if I do judge, my judgment is true, for it is not I alone who judge, but I and the Father who sent me.
First Jesus says His testimony is true because of where He comes from and where He is going
He is taking the discussion back to a few days before (John 7) when people claimed He couldn’t be Messiah because they thought He was originally from Galilee.
They didn’t know!
He is talking about how He came from heaven - from the Father - and that’s where He is returning!
In contrast, they are born of the flesh, while Jesus is born of the Spirit.
This applies to us as well, because in order to follow Jesus we must be born again - born of the Holy Spirit. As we are reborn - recreated from the inside out, we follow Jesus by hearing Him through the Holy Spirit! We are now from where He is from and going where He is going. In fact, by faith, born of the Spirit, He is in us and we are in Him just as He is in the Father and the Father is in Him!
Their judgement - their thinking - is limited by their own sin, pride, flesh, darkness. Talk about being impaired.
Have you ever met someone who’s just smart enough to think they’re smart, but not smart enough to know they’re not? That’s all of us when it comes to spiritual stuff!
14 The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned.
Just as no one is good except the Father, no one can perceive or decide rightly except the Father.
All direction and judgement come from Him. All human perception must be submitted to Him for revelation.
We know, as Jesus will explain later in John that this communication and enabling power come to us from the Father by the Holy Spirit.
17 In your Law it is written that the testimony of two people is true.
18 I am the one who bears witness about myself, and the Father who sent me bears witness about me.”
The law requires the testimony of two people, actually, two MEN, for anything to be established.
Jesus told His disciples, when 2 or more of y’all agree on a thing, it will be established Matt 18:18-20
18 Truly, I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.
19 Again I say to you, if two of you agree on earth about anything they ask, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven.
20 For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them.”
There He was talking about Church discipline and authority. The point is that judging matters of faith and matters of life will be granted in through church council, accountability, and fellowship.
But here, He appeals to the OT Law, what God had said regarding someone’s guilt and regarding testimony to the truth.
But there was ONE in the Old Testament who’s witness was Faithful and True.
13 For when God made a promise to Abraham, since he had no one greater by whom to swear, he swore by himself,
15 And the angel of the Lord called to Abraham a second time from heaven
16 and said, “By myself I have sworn, declares the Lord, because you have done this and have not withheld your son, your only son,
17 I will surely bless you, and I will surely multiply your offspring as the stars of heaven and as the sand that is on the seashore. And your offspring shall possess the gate of his enemies,
Who is that angel of the Lord?
The one who had manifested Himself and walked the earth talking to Abraham multiple times and showing Himself to Him, wrestling with Jacob, and speaking with Moses as a man speaks with his friend?
‘Angel’ literally means the ‘message’ or ‘messenger’ of the Lord.
The WORD of the LORD!
Jesus is the word of the LORD
He is the faithful and true witness
He is the One who gives witness to Himself because there is none greater, except the Father and the Father’s witness is the same - because Jesus, the Son of God and Son of Man’s witness come straight from the Father!!
In other words, when Jesus says, “Actually - men need two witnesses but I am my own witness,” He is again affirming that He is God!
19 They said to him therefore, “Where is your Father?” Jesus answered, “You know neither me nor my Father. If you knew me, you would know my Father also.”
20 These words he spoke in the treasury, as he taught in the temple; but no one arrested him, because his hour had not yet come.
So again, the Pharisees, NOT GETTING IT, ask “Who is your father?”
Perhaps there’s a reference there to Joseph, to the belief that Jesus was born illegitimately, and/or to the possibility that Joseph had passed away.
Jesus takes this opportunity to say “You don’t know!”
They don’t know where He has come from, where He is going, who sent Him, or who the Father is.
As we read along we’ll find that Jesus points out that if they knew the Father, they would have recognized the Son!
Next, Jesus spells it out a bit more for them. Instead of helping them understand, they stick firmly to their unbelief, and it solidifies their desire to kill Him even more and He continues to affirm His deity and contrasts it to their lost humanity!
21 So he said to them again, “I am going away, and you will seek me, and you will die in your sin. Where I am going, you cannot come.”
22 So the Jews said, “Will he kill himself, since he says, ‘Where I am going, you cannot come’?”
23 He said to them, “You are from below; I am from above. You are of this world; I am not of this world.
24 I told you that you would die in your sins, for unless you believe that I am he you will die in your sins.”
Jesus said, “Where I am going, you cannot come.”
Literally, you are unable - you have no ability whatsoever - to come.
Jesus affirms their lostness, but gives them a way out: just believe in Him!
Believe that, “I AM”
Most English translations add “he” to make it makes sense.
Understanding the Biblical context and what Jesus what telling them here, I believe “I AM” is perfectly appropriate.
Jesus will spell it out more clearly for them, but I believe He was referencing the Name of God!
13 Then Moses said to God, “If I come to the people of Israel and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ what shall I say to them?”
14 God said to Moses, “I am who I am.” And he said, “Say this to the people of Israel: ‘I am has sent me to you.’ ”
This is the first time we see this Name translated this way, but it was a name known since before Abraham. From Genesis 2 on, the Bible refers to God as YVWH - transliterated as Jehovah - or the LORD (capital letters). Ex 3:14 repeats the root of Jehovah: Hovah.
The essential meaning is the same: the “I AM”; the self existing one.
25 So they said to him, “Who are you?” Jesus said to them, “Just what I have been telling you from the beginning.
The Jews must’ve either thought He didn’t finish His sentence and was keeping them in suspense or”What did you say? You did not just call yourself the I AM. We’ll give even you the benefit of the doubt!” “Who are you again?”
“Just what I have been telling you from the beginning.”
FROM THE BEGINNING!
There are 3 ways they could’ve taken this (and all are true!):
From the beginning of the conversation
From the beginning of Jesus’ ministry
From the beginning of creation!
26 I have much to say about you and much to judge, but he who sent me is true, and I declare to the world what I have heard from him.”
27 They did not understand that he had been speaking to them about the Father.
We see here Jesus will judge - but even here the judgment comes from the Father through Him. Essentially, we make it or don’t on Jesus’ recommendation to the Father!
Of course they are in the flesh, in darkness and ignorance, they had their own agendas, they could not understand, but Jesus says that they WILL understand:
ACTION!
ACTION!
John 8:28–30 (ESV)
28 So Jesus said to them, “When you have lifted up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am he, and that I do nothing on my own authority, but speak just as the Father taught me.
29 And he who sent me is with me. He has not left me alone, for I always do the things that are pleasing to him.”
30 As he was saying these things, many believed in him.
He its them again with another I AM!
In summary, He declares His own crucifixion and the Holy Spirit revelation and conviction that they will face on the day of Pentecost (almost 8 months from then) when Peter declares:
36 Let all the house of Israel therefore know for certain that God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified.”
37 Now when they heard this they were cut to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, “Brothers, what shall we do?”
But there and then, even as Jesus was speaking with the Pharisees, it says, many believed in Him!
We read about the several places Jesus has already declared “I Am”
Who He is is of primary importance.
How He loved and what He did would mean nothing if He wasn’t the true Son of God and if He didn’t allow the Holy Spirit to lead and empower Him.
Like Christ, I urge you to BE who God created you to be.
John declared in his first epistle that walking in the light involves loving one another.
We know that when we BE who God created us to BE, God shows us and grows in us, and compels us with His eternal love. We can’t help it! Jesus here spoke of going to the cross, an act driven by love for a lost humanity.
Jesus also declared that the things He did, He did to please the Father. He only said and did as the Father told Him to.
So it is for us today. We must follow Jesus by the Holy Spirit, believing in, receiving from, and doing all that He has us to. Not in our own ability and understanding, but in His as He is in us, just as He was in the Father and the Father was in Him.
Being we will Love. Loving we will do. It all begins and ends with God!
GO: BE, LOVE, DO!