Introduction:
Isaiah 49:6 - I will make you as a light for the nations, that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth.
Knowing the Light of the World (John 8:12-30):
- You can come to the Liight ... (John 8:12)
- Or you can stay in the Dark . (John 8:13-27)
- Willful Ignorance doesn't want to Know the truth. (John 8:13-20)
- Pride doesn't want to Apply the truth. (John 8:21-30)
- If you look to the cross, you will Know Jesus . (John 8:28-30)
Sermon Notes (PDF): BLANK
Hint: Highlight blanks above for answers!
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Open up your Bibles with me, please, to John 8.
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Our message today is "Knowing Jesus, knowing the light of the world." You know, when I was in sixth grade, our school would take the sixth grade class to Camp Lutheran.
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And I had a very horrifying experience. Let me tell you why.
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We were in these cabins that had beds, I don't know, 10 or 15 on each side, on both sides.
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And I had this problem as a child that I have much less as an adult, and that problem was sleepwalking.
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And I remember at Camp Lutheran, the first night, and if you've never been a sleepwalker, then it's hard to really explain this, But I just remember suddenly waking up and I was standing.
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I just came to my senses and I was standing.
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It was pitch black.
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You could not see your hand in front of your face.
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That's how dark it was.
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And I thought, "Well, maybe I just stood up beside my bed and I'll just get back to bed." Well, I reached down and I felt a hand.
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And I thought, "Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, that's not my bed." And then I thought, well, maybe I stood up and maybe I kind of spun around a little bit, so maybe my bed's on this side.
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And I reached down and, no, there was somebody in that bed, too.
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I had no idea where I was.
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And I spent what seemed like three hours, I didn't time it, it just seemed like it took me hours to find my bed.
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Do you know how hard it is to try to find the empty bed in a dark dorm full of beds?
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And do you know the emotional turmoil that takes on a 12-year-old?
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I was horrified all night frantically trying to find my bed.
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And you know, I think that's a great picture of how many people live their entire lives.
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Many people, people that you know, are walking around in darkness.
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They don't know where they are.
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They don't know where they're going.
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And they don't know how to figure either of those things out.
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And to this, Jesus says, "I am the light of the world.
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Whoever follows Me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life." Remember this scene in John 8.
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We've been at the Feast of Tabernacles of booths where thousands of Jews converged upon Jerusalem to celebrate, in particular, the exodus from Egypt.
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And verse 20 tells us that Jesus was in the treasury.
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And that's very important, because for this feast, to be in the treasury, which was in the courtyard of the temple, they had these huge candelabras.
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And during this feast, they would light these candelabras up night and history reports that it would shine not only the temple courts, not only the temple, but you could see this light, this dazzling array of light from the entire countryside, like a diamond. It lit up the temple. The purpose was to remember how God led them through the wilderness. Remember, He led them as they followed a pillar of cloud by day, and at night they would follow a pillar of fire. So with this backdrop, as they celebrate how God led them through the wilderness, with this backdrop, Jesus made an extremely controversial statement when He said, "I am the light of the world." They knew what that meant. They He knew what he was claiming because there was so many Old Testament prophecies about the Messiah being the light of the world.
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For example, Isaiah 49.6, speaking of the Messiah, says, "I will make you as a light for the nations, that my salvation may reach to the ends of the earth." But what does it mean that the Messiah, that Jesus Christ, would be the light of the world?
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I want you to draw a few things down here today.
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Knowing the light of the world.
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Number one, you can come to the light.
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You can come to the light.
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Look at verse 12 again.
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It says again, "Jesus spoke to them, saying, 'I am the light of the world.
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Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.'" following Jesus, gets you out of the darkness of death and into the light of life.
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You get the imagery? Just as light has a way of dispelling darkness, Jesus Christ, as the light of the world, dispels all of the spiritual darkness, all of the falsehood, all of the impurity, all of the sin, all of the wickedness.
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The light of Christ dispels it all.
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And the whole world is in darkness.
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But Jesus is the light to follow.
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Jesus lets us see everything in the path.
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Jesus lets us see things in this life as they really are.
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Only Jesus Christ and His Word can make sense of the world.
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He shines a light.
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And Jesus Christ and the Word of God, by obvious extension, They give us clear answers to questions about life.
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The people who don't follow Jesus, in other words, people who walk in the dark, they don't have answers for these questions.
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Do you realize that?
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As human beings, we have all of these philosophical and spiritual questions, and there are no right answers without the light of Jesus Christ and His Word.
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You're like, "Well, what kind of questions?" Here's some.
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"Why do we have an inclination toward self-centeredness even as children?" Well, the light of God's Word tells us that we're born with a sin nature that we inherited from Adam.
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Romans 5.
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Here's a question. "Why do we get old and die?" Well, the light of God's Word tells us it's tied into Adam's sin.
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God told Adam if he would disobey, he said, "You will surely die.
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Dying you will die." Meaning, we will all wear out and waste away and die.
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Why is it so hard, but so right to forgive others, to show compassion?
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Well, the light of Jesus Christ shows us that's the very heart of our Creator.
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So many questions that we have, that the light of the world Jesus Christ lights up for us.
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Why should I give to the church?
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Why is there corruption in governments?
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Why are all these global events happening?
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Why am I here?
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Where am I heading?
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I could go on and on and on.
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So many hard questions, but when you walk in the light, you see why this all makes sense.
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You see how Jesus Christ and the truth of His Word lights it up.
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And understand, that's why unbelievers don't get it.
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That's why unbelievers still wrestle with these questions.
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It's not that they're stupid.
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No, it's not that at all.
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It's not that they're just oblivious.
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They're blind because they're in the dark.
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But you see, Jesus Christ comes to us lost people in the dark.
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He shines His light.
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He shows us things as they are.
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And if we're willing to see, He makes sense of everything.
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When my son Owen was a baby, he had some very serious health issues works and we've been to different doctors and couldn't figure out exactly what was wrong.
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Well, Aaron knew, but I had no idea until we went on vacation with Aaron's family to the Outer Banks.
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And on the beach I met a man who had a son that was there with him, and the son was a few years older than Owen.
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and this man was explaining that his son was autistic.
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And as this man was talking, I was watching his son's behavior.
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Then I was turning around and looking at my son's behavior.
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And I was watching his son, and my son, and his son, and my son, and I saw that this man's son was exactly like an older version of Owen.
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I remember that day, standing on the beach, listening to this man talk, and seeing the behavior of these kids, the lights came on.
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And suddenly, everything made sense!
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Okay, Owen's behavior and his health issues and the developmental delays, this all makes sense now, I get it now!
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The point is this, church, just as that dad shined some light on child issues, he let me see things for what they really are.
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He answered so many questions that I've been carrying.
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That's exactly what Jesus Christ does for us spiritually.
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When we listen to Him, when we let His light shine upon us, He makes sense of everything that pertains to life.
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You can come to the light.
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Or, number two, you can stay in the dark.
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You can come to the light or you can stay in the dark.
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And what follows in our text is the account of people who hear these words, who see the light of Jesus Christ, but they'd rather stay in the dark.
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Like, why?
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Why would somebody fumbling around in the dark rather stay in the dark than come into the light?
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Why would I spend a few minutes and look at that because we're going to see it in the text, that there are two things that will keep you in the dark.
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One is willful ignorance, willful ignorance.
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And the second one, number two, is pride.
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Are you guilty of being willfully ignorant?
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Are you guilty of pride?
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Well, let's look at how they manifest.
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Jot this down under number two, letter A.
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Willful ignorance doesn't want to know the truth.
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Let's pick up in verse 13.
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"So the Pharisee said to him, 'You are bearing witness about yourself.
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Your testimony is not true.' Jesus answered, 'Even if I do bear witness about myself, my testimony is true, for I know where I came from and where I'm going, but you do not know where I come from or where I'm going.
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You judge according to the flesh.
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I judge no one.
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Yet even if I do judge, my judgment is true.
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"For it is not I alone who judge, but I and the Father who sent Me." "In your law it is written that the testimony of two people is true.
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I am the one who bears witness about Myself, and the Father who sent Me bears witness about Me." They said to Him, "Therefore, where is your Father?" Stop right there.
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So their argument against Jesus being who He said He is, their argument was based on a few things that they thought they knew.
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They weren't really looking at all of the evidence that was available.
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And here's the point.
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They didn't want to.
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They didn't want to examine the evidence.
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They were saying to Jesus, "Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, hang on a second.
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You expect us to believe you when you're the only one that's saying these things?" And Jesus' response to them is, "That's a faulty argument.
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because even if these were my own claims, that's not a reason to reject them.
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In other words, something isn't true just because it has witnesses.
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Something is true because it's true.
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Just because one person says something doesn't mean it's false, right?
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But the Old Testament law, as Jesus pointed out, required two or three witnesses.
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But understand that that was for a court of law.
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The law required that you have two or three witnesses to back up a fact. Why?
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Because men are liars. Every man is a liar.
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But this law doesn't apply to God, because God never lies.
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But Jesus was sort of, you could say he was throwing them a bone to say, "Okay, you know what? What I'm saying is true, and I know you're all about having the other witnesses, So here, we have two witnesses, "myself and my father." Pick up in verse 19, "They said to him, 'Therefore, where is your father?' Jesus answered, 'You know neither me nor my father.
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If you knew me, you would know my father also.' 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." I love this question.
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Their response to Jesus, v. 19, is, "Where is your Father?" And that is a completely pointless question.
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Completely pointless.
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And you say, "Well, how do you know it's pointless?" I know it's pointless because Jesus Christ completely ignored it.
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Did you catch that?
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Jesus could have launched into, "My Father's in heaven and that's where I came from, and here's exactly what it looks like, and here's what He's doing right now." He could have, but He completely ignored Why? Because answers will not help someone who is willfully ignorant.
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Because somebody that's willfully ignorant does not really want answers.
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See, so Jesus didn't waste his time giving them more information.
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It's like somebody asking for information on a certain subject and you hand them a comprehensive book all about the subject that they want to know about.
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So immediately they take the book into the room and turn off all the lights and sit there in the pitch black with that book on their lap.
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It doesn't do them any good to have the information if they'd rather sit in the dark and not examine it.
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That's exactly what was happening here with Jesus.
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They really weren't interested.
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Jesus said to them, verse 19, "You don't know God." And you have to understand what a slam that was to them.
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That was like the worst thing Jesus could have said to them.
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Because that was their whole thing.
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These were people that prided themselves on knowing God.
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We know God more and better than anybody else.
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They were the religious elite.
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And Jesus said, "You have no idea who He is. You don't know Him." They were happy with their idea of God, or who they thought God to be.
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Boy, is that a message for the church today.
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Is that a message for Christianity in the United States today?
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As we are so content to worship the God of our own imagination, we would rather think of a God that abides by our rules or matches our preferences than seeking to understand God as He's revealed Himself in His Word.
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What are you talking about?
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Do you know how many Christians I've talked to that have said, "There's no such thing as hell.
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There's no hell." That's, oh, that is old, like, boogeyman stuff, and people don't really believe that anymore.
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Because let me tell you why.
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The God that I know, He wouldn't send anybody to hell.
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You know, the God that I know, He would just bring everybody to heaven.
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That's the God that I know.
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The God that I know is just love, man.
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The God that I know is love, and God just wants me to be happy.
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That's the God that I know. He just wants me to be happy.
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No regard whatsoever for what God actually said.
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That's just who I want God to be, so I'm going to go with that.
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You're designing God, is what you're doing. You're designing Him.
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You're tailoring God, and do you know what the Bible calls that?
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That's called idolatry.
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Making God the way I want Him to be.
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And that's why Jesus said to these people, He goes, "You don't know the Father at all." And it's not because they didn't have the information, it was because they were willfully ignorant.
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Letter B, not only willful ignorance doesn't want to know the truth, but pride doesn't want to apply the truth.
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Let's pick up in verse 21.
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So he said to them again, "I am going away, and you will seek me, and you will die in your sin.
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Where I am going, you cannot come." So the Jews said, "Will he kill himself?
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Since he says where I am going, you cannot come?" He said to them, "You are from below.
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I am from above.
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You are of this world.
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I am not of this world.
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I told you that you would die in your sins, "For unless you believe that I am He, you will die in your sins." God doesn't want to apply the truth.
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Right off the bat, they ask in response to Jesus' statement, they said, "Is He going to kill Himself?" And you have to read that as sarcasm, because they believed wrongly.
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They believed that if somebody committed suicide, they immediately went into the worst, lowest level of hell.
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It was sarcasm. They're like, "Oh, is he going to go to the worst hell?
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And that's why we can't go where he's going?" They're just mocking him.
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And Jesus points out to them in verse 23, "You have no spiritual sense at all.
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All you think about is earthly terms, what you can see and what you can feel.
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You have no spiritual sense whatsoever." And he tells them twice, I'm sure you saw it, verse 21.
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Verse 24, you have to note this.
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Jesus said, "You will die in your sins." Do you know what you have to do to go to hell?
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Do you know what you have to do?
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Nothing.
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You don't have to do anything to go to hell.
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Because by nature, you're a sinner.
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And if you just stay on that course, if you just remain in your sin, Jesus said you will die in your sin.
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And ultimately, that is eternal death and hell.
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But the good news, as there's a way out, there's actually exactly one way out.
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And that one way out of that course to hell that you are naturally on is verse 24.
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That way out is believing that Jesus is God.
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Verse 24, Jesus said, "I told you that you would die in your sins, for unless you believe that I am He, you will die in your sins." Now, understand the word "He" is not in the original.
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that was added to the English, thinking it was going to make the text read easier.
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But literally what Jesus said is this, "Unless you believe that I Am, you will die in your sins." "I Am" is the name of God that He revealed about Himself back in Exodus 3.
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You must believe that Jesus is who He says He is.
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God in the flesh. You have to believe that.
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And that's what prompted their question.
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Verse 25, "So they said to Him, 'Who are You?' Jesus said to them, 'Just what I've been telling you from the beginning.
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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.' They did not understand that He had been speaking to them about the Father." their response to all of this is, "Who are you?" Which is kind of a funny question for a couple of reasons.
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One, "Who are you?" is a question that you ask someone that you just met, and these guys had spent a lot of time already conversing with Jesus.
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But another reason, a better reason, a more funny reason that this is such a bad question to ask at this point is because Jesus literally just told them who He was.
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But that's pride, you see.
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Pride just mocks Jesus.
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How does pride mock Jesus?
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Well, you have to think pretty highly of yourself to be willing to try to belittle Jesus.
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And pride is just willing to ignore very clear statements about Jesus as if you know better.
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See, Jesus very clearly told them who He was, and their response is, "Who are you?" They weren't willing to hear Him.
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They weren't willing to listen, they weren't willing to believe.
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Too many people like that today.
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It's not that they don't know what the Bible says, or who Jesus claims to be.
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Pride says, "No, I know better. I know better." Finally, we said, "Knowing the light of the world, you can come to the light or you can stay in the dark." Finally for today, number three, if you look to the cross, you will know Jesus.
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If you look to the cross, you will know Jesus.
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Look at verse 28.
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"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 I speak just as the Father taught me.
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And He who sent me is with me.
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He has not left me alone, for I always do the things that are pleasing to Him.' As He was saying these things, many believed in Him." It's a great word to end this passage, right?
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Many people believed.
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But verse 28, Jesus said, "When you have lifted up the Son of Man..." He's talking about the cross.
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"When He is nailed to the cross and lifted up," literally, "on display," Jesus said, "then you will know that I am He." Again, the word "He" wasn't in the original.
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Jesus was saying when He is lifted up on the cross, And you will know that He is the I Am.
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When Jesus is lifted up, it's all going to be visible.
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It's all going to be illuminated.
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We're all going to see it.
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And Jesus is pointing out here very clearly what makes the difference is the cross.
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The cross of Jesus Christ makes all the difference in the world.
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Because Jesus Christ didn't just talk the talk.
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He walked the walk, right?
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all of the claims about who He is, He's the bread of life, He's the light of the world, He's the Lamb of God, all His claims about what He came to do, seek and save the lost, deliver us from death, lay down His life for us, all of these claims were ultimately displayed or lit up while He was on the cross.
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As He was lifted up, as He was dying, all of His claims about our sin, all of His claims about His great love for us manifested brightly.
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Jesus said, "When you have lifted up the Son of Man, you will know that I am." Because on the cross, you see the very depths of man's depravity.
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We killed the Son of God.
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On the cross, you see the love of Jesus Christ.
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He chose to love me anyway, despite how we treated Him.
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And you can accept His loving invitation come into the light, to come to this Savior who died for you, or in your willful ignorance, in your pride, you can shield your eyes from the light and walk back into the dark. But maybe for you today Jesus is calling you into the light. And maybe you're watching this and you're thinking, "Yeah, but you know what, Pastor Jeff? You don't know what I've done. You don't know what What I've done this week, you don't know what I've done today.
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Well, jump back to verse 12. This is where it all started.
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I want you to circle one word.
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Jesus said, "I am the light of the world, whoever..." Circle that word "whoever." "Whoever follows Me will not walk in dark." Whoever. That's you.
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You are a whoever.
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And it doesn't matter what you've done.
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Jesus Christ is calling you out of the dark.
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Will you come?
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Will you look to the cross?
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Will you follow the light of the world?
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Let's pray.
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Father in Heaven, because of our sin, we have made this world a very dark place.
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Father, we thank You that You've sent the light of Jesus Christ.
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You've sent the light of the world, Father.
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And I pray for those that are watching this video, I'm listening to this message, reading Your Word.
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I pray, Father, that they wouldn't run back into the darkness, they wouldn't try to explain away what Your Word teaches, that they would come into the light.
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They would look to the cross, because Jesus said that is how we'll know.
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Father, I pray that Your Holy Spirit shine that light.
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And if there's anybody who needs to come to You, Father, let this be the day.
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Let this be the day, Father.
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Thank you for not leaving us in the dark.
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For those of us who are called by your name, Father, I pray that we would reflect your light, that people would see Jesus Christ in us and through us.
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We pray in Jesus' name.
Small Group Discussion
Read John 8:12-30
What was your big “take-away” from this passage / message?
Explain how willful ignorance and pride keep someone (who doesn’t believe in Jesus) in the dark. Why would these make someone refuse the light?
Re-read John 8:28. How does the cross give the ultimate revelation that Jesus is God?
What are some ways that people have “reinvented” God, ie, worship a god of their own imagination (John 8:19)? Before you came into the light of Christ, how did you imagine God to be?
Breakout
Pray for one another to walk in the light of Jesus Christ! Is there any area of your life that you’ve been keeping in the dark?