Dennis Tuuri

# “I Am the Light of the World”
## John 8:12-20
### Sermon by Pastor Dennis Tuuri
### January 29, 2011

We’re listening to a text about Jesus declaring that he’s the light of the world. And that’s the topic of our sermon today. Jesus is the light of the world. This is another Epiphany sermon. Epiphany is that time of year when the manifestation to the Gentiles—Gentiles coming to the light of the newborn King—is what we remember. And it’s a season that emphasizes light. And so today I’m preaching again on light.

Please stand for the reading of God’s word. We’re going to be preaching from John 8, verses 12-21. John 8:12-21. Then Jesus spoke to them again, saying, “I am the light of the world. He who follows me shall not walk in darkness, but have the light of life.” The Pharisees therefore said to him, “You bear witness of yourself. Your witness is not true.” Jesus answered and said to them, “Even if I bear witness of myself, my witness is true. For I know where I came from and where I am going. But you do not know where I come from and where I am going. You judge according to the flesh. I judge no one. And yet if I do judge, my judgment is true. For I am not alone, but I am with the Father who sent me. It is also written in your law that the testimony of two men is true. I am one who bears witness of myself, and the Father who sent me bears witness of me.

Then they said to him, ‘Where is your father?’ Jesus answered, ‘You know neither me nor my Father. If you had known me, you would have known my Father also.’ These words Jesus spoke in the treasury, as he taught in the temple, and no one laid hands on him, for his hour had not yet come. Then Jesus said to them again, ‘I am going away and you will seek me and will die in your sin. Where I go, you cannot come.’”

Let’s pray.

Lord God, we thank you for your word. We pray, Lord God, that you would bring the light of your Holy Spirit to our minds and to our souls. Now this book is unlike any other book, Father. We know that. We know that we need your spirit to open our eyes to it, and more than that—more than just understanding it—to be transformed by it. Bless us then, Lord God, that we leave this place with the light of your countenance upon us, changing the world. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.

Please be seated. It’s sort of a difficult text, and we won’t be actually exegeting these verses today. We’ll be really taking the first verse and looking at that and the significance of it in context. And we’ll be talking about the light of the world. This is the topic in this section of John’s gospel for the next five chapters. Chapters 8 through 12 are all about light. And we’ll look at in a minute—I’ll ask you to turn to your Bibles. We’ll look at the end of chapter 12 and you’ll see what I mean by that. So we’ve got a whole section involving light here.

And so what I’m going to do today is work primarily the first point of your outline, in the introduction, where we’ll look at various aspects of John 8:12—various truths taught there in this section of what it means that Jesus is the light of the world. We’ll see various things taught, and we’ll focus on those things. So that’s where we’re going. We’ll spend a little time in the introduction and then we’ll look at the specifics of how Jesus as the light of the world teaches in chapters 8 through 12—kind of a summary.

Light’s really important. Of course, there’d be no life without it, right? I mean, in the physical sense of the term light, we absolutely need it. And this time of year, we really would like it more than we get it, right? The last couple of days were sunny and I heard a number of people comment, “Oh, isn’t this nice? It’s sunny. Boy, I was really tired of all those gray days we had.” It’s very nice to get a couple of nice bright sunny days here in Oregon in the middle of the winter. And it’s just a reminder to us of our need for light in ways that we maybe don’t even understand.

Of course, we know technically that we need light to sustain life and all that stuff, but light’s very important for us psychologically, emotionally, and physically. Much could be said—and has been said—about light. Indeed, we wouldn’t be able to end a discussion about the benefits and value of light. And here Jesus identifies himself rather audaciously, don’t you think? I mean, have you ever thought about that? That he’s kind of audacious in this comment, right? He’s teaching in the treasury, which we’ll talk about at the end of the sermon—why it tells us that detail. Details are important.

He’s teaching in the treasury in the temple, and he says to people, “I am the light of the world.” That’s an audacious claim. I think it really is tantamount to him saying he’s God. And indeed, in this very section—chapters 8 to 12—is where he’ll say “Before Abraham was, I am,” and declare himself to be God. So it’s an audacious thing he says.

And you’ll notice that the argument that follows is really an argument about authority—about authority and rule. And that’s an interesting and useful way to think about these next few chapters in the development of John’s gospel. So what’s the context, right? We’re going to talk about one verse, but the context is 8 to 12, and the broader context is what John is doing in his gospel.

On your handouts, there, I have a couple of points we want to talk about as we get into this. The throne room. One of the structuring devices—I think self-consciously on John’s part—the way he wrote his gospel is that he is moving through the temple. Right? So if you’re going to approach the temple and the sacrificial system—well, let’s say this is the holy place, and back there’s the holy of holies. So out there in the courtyard, there’s a laver. And we use these funny words—a laver, a laboratory sink. That’s all it is. It’s like a basin, okay?

And there’s a basin out there. And the priests would wash things and themselves in that basin, okay? And then they would go into the holy place—the priests that were allowed in there. And what’s in there? Over here, there’s a lampstand. There’s a light. It’s like—the lampstand is designed to look like an almond tree, but there’s no Hebrew word for almond. It’s a “shaked” tree, an overseer. That’s what almond the word actually literally means—to see.

Almond was the first thing that came out in the spring. So it was the beginning of seeing things in the world. Almond-shaped eyes maybe. I don’t know. But you have this lampstand there, right, with these lamps on it with oil in the lamps and it’s burning. So you’ve got a lampstand here. But before you get to the lampstand, over here there’s a table of showbread and show wine. Okay. So over here there are these twelve loaves representing Israel. And there’s also some wine. Wine wasn’t there until they got into the promised land. And the wine would be used to pour out libation offerings and stuff.

So you’ve got this laver, you’ve got this table, and then you’ve got this lamp over here. And then as you begin—just before you almost—associated with the holy of holies, there’s a golden altar of incense, okay? There’s an altar outside, too. After that washing thing, there’s an altar, but there’s a golden altar of incense here. And then you go into the Holy of Holies.

Well, the way John’s gospel works is it begins, of course, with the declaration of light—that Jesus is light, like the creation, the new creation, right? But then what it does is it talks about that a little bit, but then it talks about washing. We’ve got John the Baptist, we’ve got water references in the next few chapters of John’s gospel. So there’s washing stuff that happens. There’s laver activity that happens in John’s gospel.

And then the next section of John’s gospel—well, then we have a bunch of stuff about food and drink. You remember, for instance, in John 6, he says he’s the bread of life, right? And he feeds the multitude. And so we’ve got that whole thing going on. That’s in John 6 because in those chapters, the second set of chapters, he’s talking about food and drink stuff, okay?

And then with chapter 8, he then starts talking about the lampstand stuff. Now he’s moved to the lampstand, and he talks about light through chapters 8-12. And then that’s going to prepare us for moving into the golden altar of incense, which means prayer. And we lead to a section there that culminates in his great high priestly prayer. And then he’ll do that work in the Holy of Holies—dying on the cross for us.

So John’s gospel is sort of structured in this movement. Now, who cares? Who cares? Well, remember the temple is like a person. The temple is built like a body, and actually it doesn’t have supporting pillars. It has ribs. So the temple is—and I could go on—but the point is the temple is like a body, and Jesus referred to his own body as the temple, okay? So the temple is in human form. It’s sort of like us, and it represents our life. It represents life on this planet that God has created.

Now, what it represents there is the same movement that you people go through in your lives. You know, we had Marcus—big Marcus born a couple of days ago to Roseanne and David. And birth is about water, right? It’s about baptism. They clean that baby up right away, gets baptized and all that stuff. And birth itself—water has to break and stuff. So, you know, birth is associated with water.

So you’ll begin your life with water. And, you know, in churches, I think that interpret the Bible correctly, that includes your life beginning with baptism. And soon Marcus will be here to be baptized with water. But you don’t stay in the watery phase. You move on and you grow. So Marcus starts to get food. Then, after he’s born, right? And we grow up. There are these nurture elements. Bread and wine—you know, food and drink makes you strong, right?

And so you get this nurturing thing going on in your life in these phases of life. And as you grow up and as you get to be older and you’re not a kid anymore, now you become one of these lampstands. And lampstand is overseeing the other parts of this holy place, right? It’s got almonds—seeing things. Lamps are seeing things, and they’re looking. And that’s what an overseer does. He watches over things and he rules. In other words, he rules primarily by way of watching, praying, etc. He’s an overseer—in a different linguistic background, you know, a supervisor, right? Your supervisor at work. He’s looking super over what’s going on.

So the lampstand represents rule, right? And we know in the holy place there’s a rod that blossomed, and that represented the rule of Aaron, etc. So there’s this ruling thing that goes on. Your life moves through those same elements of temple furniture that John’s gospel does. It brings us up to chapters 8-12. You’re born, you get nurtured, and you become a ruler in your home, some people in their businesses, in the church, in the state—whatever it is. It’s a process of maturation.

Now, that’s important because this section is about rule and authority. Remember I just said—soon as he says “I’m the light of the world,” what happens? They challenge his authority. Because lights are rulers. We think of it just in terms of light. But no, the Bible—light is associated with rule and authority. And so authority is a big part of chapters 8 to 12. “By what authority is he saying these things?” And you’ll notice, by the way, he kind of does some strange things. Like I said, we’re not going to get into the details of it, but you know, he does say, “I don’t need two witnesses. That’s your law. I don’t judge according to the…” What’s he talking about?

Well, I think part of what’s going on there is this is not fallen man. Fallen man needs two witnesses to confirm truth or to convict someone because we’re fallen and we tend to lie. This is not that guy. He’s coming from outside of this as the Son of God. Now, he says, “I do have two witnesses. My Father, you know, is the one who sent me.” Another very important lesson of John’s gospel. We’re always talking about Jesus, but Jesus in John’s gospel is always telling us think of the Father. “I’m here doing the Father’s work, etc.”

So his authority is questioned. Now, this same movement is basically in the creation pattern, right? That’s the first day of creation. Light begins everything. But on the second day, the waters are separated, right? So it’s a water day and separation. And then on the third day, plants—sacramental plants specifically—grow on the earth, you know, vineyards and stuff. So we’ve got nurturing things on the third day. Plants are made that man will eat.

So you’ve got the water thing, water above, water below. You’ve got the nurturing thing. And on the fourth day—at the very center of the seven days—you have this light thing, right? Now, the light on the first day is God’s shekinah glory, you know, shining out. The light on the fourth day are reflected lights—or sun, moon, right?

And these lights reflect ultimately the glory of God, and then the earth basks in that light. But specifically, what are we told about these—the sun and the moon? We’re told that the sun rules the day and the moon rules the night. Suns and moons are pictures of ruling. Again, authority. Whether we’re talking about the flow of the creation days or the movement as you go through the temple approaching the Holy of Holies, it’s the same thing. Light is associated with rule and authority.

So on our flag, what do we have? We’ve got stars up there. Muslim flag has a half moon, whatever it is. So you’ve got these representations of heavenly power in nation states because everybody knows in our being that these transcendent things in the sky represent the transcendent rule of God and rule and authority here as well. So what’s going on? John in John’s gospel is that, and he brings us then to this section in chapters 8-12 where authority is important and light is the theme.

So we move through those things, and it’s significant to us because that’s how we move through life as well—through birth and then growth and then finally rule or reign. So and those lights have delegated authority.

Now, I’m going to tell you something interesting about this—about the Bible. And maybe you don’t care about this stuff, and I know a lot of people think I’m nuts. I don’t care. I am very curious about the Bible, and I think you should be very curious. Why does it say treasury at the end? Why does it use light twenty-three times in John’s gospel? And not just twenty-three times, but remember I said there’s this opening section—light, first day of creation—eleven times light is used. Once later in chapter 5, it’s used in a different section. And then in this light section—chapters 8 to 12—eleven times. It matches the first, and this section okay? And there’s only one reference in the middle that references to John the Baptist as a light. The other ones—the eleven at either end of that—the eleven in the first section of John’s gospel, the eleven in this section of John’s gospel—those all refer to Jesus, okay?

And if you add 11+11, it’s 22. And that was the Hebrew letters of the alphabet. And that’s okay. You can think I’m stupid. I don’t care. The summation of light is found in Jesus. And very interestingly, at the middle of those pairs—which anybody can figure this out if you’ve got a Bible concordance. It’s easy to do. This is not like hidden knowledge. It should be open to all of us, but most of us are not involved with curiosity when we study our Bibles. We should be.

But in the middle of that is this John the Baptist thing. By the way, after chapter 12, light goes away. There is no more references to light. So all you’ve got is 11 and 11 and one in the middle, okay? And remember that the second set of 11 is like the moon and sun stuff. It’s authority driven, and they’re reflected lights. I think that tells us that the teaching about Jesus’s light that surrounds us in John’s gospel means that it helps us to see who we are. John the Baptist was a light. We’re to be light in the world. See? And so I think the very structure, the number of occurrences of the word, help us to see this message that we’re supposed to be lightbringers.

Now, how do we do that? What does it mean? Well, we’ve got all kinds of teaching here. We’ve got chapters 8 to 12 to instruct us on what that light is about. Turn to chapter 12, if you would please, in your Bibles, if you’ve got them available. If not, I’ll read it myself to you. But I wanted to show you how this is a section. And you know, the first thing they’d say is after chapter 12, light references disappear. So clearly there’s a conglomeration of light references—eleven times in chapters 8 to 12.

But then I also want to actually show you how this section ends. So in chapter 12, look at verse 44. And this really is starts the section that concludes chapter 12. Verse 44. “Then Jesus cried out and said, ‘He who believes in me believes not in me, but in him who sent me. And he who sees me sees him who sent me.’” See? We’re talking about the same authority discussion that we did way back in chapter 8, our text we read earlier. “I have come,” and then verse 46, “I have come as a light into the world that whoever believes in me should not abide in darkness. And if anyone hears my words and does not believe, I do not judge him. For I did not come to judge the world, but to save the world.”

Well, that’s picking up language that we just read in chapter 8, right? “I’m not a judge.” Now, you know, we can get messed up and start thinking that means that Jesus doesn’t really judge ever. And that’s not the point here. The point is his primary mission in coming to earth is to save the world, to save this place. Now, as you go about saving it, that means you’re going to have to deal with enemies that want to get in the way of you saving it. And he certainly will judge them righteously and bring his judgments to pass upon them.

So that’s certainly there. So don’t—you know, so often we take a couple of verses here and there and create these big ideas that are completely wrong in terms of the Bible—that we should never judge and Jesus never judged. Not true. Earlier in John’s gospel he says “Judge by righteous judgment.” Well, in any event, so we’re talking about the same themes, right? Authority, fourth day, created light. Sun, moon, and stars have authority. They’re overseers. He’s the light of the world. And he’s coming not primarily to judge the world, but to save the world, okay?

“He who rejects me and does not receive my words has that which—uh, excuse me—has that which judges him. The word that I have spoken will judge him in the last day. I have not spoken on my own authority, but the Father who sent me gave me a command what I should say and what I should speak. And I know that his command is everlasting life. Therefore, whatever I speak, just as the Father has told me, so I speak.”

Now that’s the concluding section. And look at verse one of chapter 13. “Now, before the feast of the Passover”—so now we’ve got a movement. When Jesus—and this is the last Passover, the one in which he’ll be crucified—when Jesus knew that his hour had come that he should depart from this world to the Father, having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end. And so now we’ve got a completely new section. There’ll be no more references to light. And instead, this will be the coming of another section as Jesus moves toward the cross.

So my point in showing you that was that’s the book end to what we just read. Authority, judgment, light, the world, life—all those themes in the verses we read from chapter 8 are all repeated again or echoed again at the end of chapter 12. It’s a unit. It’s a unit. Because it’s a unit, that’s what I want to do is look at that unit—primarily for an understanding of what it means that Jesus is light. Okay.

So that then sets up what I want to do now, which is kind of a quick topical overview of the main truths that are taught in John 8 to 12. Because if we want to be like John the Baptist shining, if we want to be children of light, then we have to understand what it means. And we have here not just a single statement and now we can pour whatever kind of content we want into that statement and start talking about photons and this that and the other thing. As interesting as all that is, and it does reflect the realities of God, there’s a section of scripture here given over to a discussion of what it means that Jesus is the light of the world.

So let’s turn to that. And now in your outline, so this—that was all introduction, but I knew it’d be a long one. That’s okay. We’re going to move through these things fairly quickly—these points about what Jesus says then. And what we have here first of all then is this declaration. So one last statement of introduction.

The verse says, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness but will have the light of life.” So there’s a statement there—a confession—some truth that we’re supposed to believe. And that belief is supposed to result in something. “I’m the light of the world. You should be following me.” It’s credenda and agenda—what you believe and what you do. And so the what we’re going to focus on here is what Jesus says about himself. And these will have implications of what we’re to do.

Well, first of all, Jesus reveals the deeds of men. Now, in the very text we just read, that’s what he’s doing, right? He says, “I’m the light of the world.” And immediately that statement has the effect of revealing the sinfulness of the Pharisees, right? It just has that effect immediately. And in John chapter 3, the earliest—the first light section—this is what it says. “This is the condemnation, that the light has come into the world and men loved darkness rather than light. That’s what those Pharisees are holding on to—the darkness instead of Jesus. Why? Because their deeds were evil. Everyone practicing evil hates the light and does not come to the light lest his deeds should be exposed. He who does the truth comes to the light that his deeds may be clearly seen that they have been done in God.”

So what Jesus tells us is when he comes as the light of the world, he comes to reveal your deeds—to reveal evil and to reveal good. Very important, because it means that our response to this statement of what Jesus is—as the light of the world—is absolutely critical. We see it playing out immediately. And if our response is to say “Well, I don’t believe that,” the Bible tells us that’s because you’re sinning. That’s because you do things you don’t want to change about your life. They love the darkness because their deeds are evil.

There’s things—if we acknowledge that Jesus is light and all that means—then what it means is our lives will have to be somewhat different. And we don’t know how different, but it’s kind of fearful how different, right? Things will be upset with our lives. Now, you know, that’s the way we are as fallen creatures. There’s nothing logical about it. Jesus is the light of the world. And I think from one perspective, everybody knows it. Everybody knows that truth claim is truth. Romans 1 says that we know that God is God. Our mind is not our problem. Our problem is we want to hold on to sinful actions.

Now that’s illogical because what we know is a rejection of Jesus. Yeah, in the short term we may enjoy what we’re doing, but usually that enjoyment also has another side of not enjoying our sins so much. There usually built-in cause and effect sort of stuff that happens that make it not such a nice time after all, as it turns out. And we know that at the end of the day, the gig is up and that we’ll be condemned eternally in hell for our rejection of the Lord Jesus Christ. Now we know all that stuff, okay? We know it. And sin—that’s the power of sin exercising dominion over us.

When the spirit of God comes, he says, “Okay, I know I’m going to get the full body scan.” Acknowledging that Jesus is light. It’s okay. This guy loves me. Jesus loves me. See that? The devil wants you to think Jesus doesn’t love you. He wants to hurt you. And because of that, you want to go hide in your room someplace—the room of your head, your mind, wherever you can hide—not acknowledging Jesus as the light of the world.

But God says, “Jesus loves you. He loves this world. He didn’t come to judge you. He came here to save you. He came here to save the world. Believe that.” The spirit of God ministers that belief to people, and they come out of their sins and they come to acknowledge Jesus as Lord, and things are wonderful. I mean, things have meaning and value and true satisfaction because we’re lined up with the very power of life itself—the Lord Jesus Christ.

So the first thing that the Bible tells us about Jesus as the light of the world is he reveals men’s deeds. He comes and shines light on things and he brings men to repentance for their sins and then he moves us ahead into obedience.

In Daniel chapter 5, yeah, I got that reference, and we read specifically in chapter in verse 5 of Daniel 5. And this is the chapter about Belshazzar at the feast—and “Mene, mene, tekel, upharsin”—and your kingdoms and judged and you’re going to be destroyed. Y’all know that story. “In the same hour, the fingers of a man’s hand appeared and wrote opposite the lampstand on the plaster of the wall of the king’s palace. And the king saw the part of the hand that wrote.”

We forget that detail. Again, I’m a curious guy. Why does it say lampstand? Because it wants us to associate something with that writing of judgment against Belshazzar. It’s not just the hand writing. Handwriting is important. But for some reason, God wants us to know the lampstand is illuminating this. It’s part of the scene. So once more, light brings evaluation of men’s deeds, and light makes it possible for the king to see the handwriting that will be the judgment against him. And I think may well lead to his conversion. Not good—people can disagree with that—but I think we may have the conversion of Belshazzar at the end of that story. But either way, light is associated with bringing men’s deeds into evaluation for themselves and others to see as well.

So that’s what John’s got. That’s what it says here at the opening of this section, and it’s repeated in other places of scripture.

Secondly, light brings heaven to earth. He said to them, “You are from beneath. This is chapter 8:23, as part of the teaching of Jesus in this section. He said to them, “You are from beneath. I am from above. You are of this world. I am not of this world.” Light brings heaven to earth. Light ultimately comes from up there. And we’ve learned to create these artificial sources of light. Praise God. But light comes from heaven. Now, I know heaven isn’t out there, but the imagery that God has set up in the world is light is from above and it illumines us here. It brings heaven to earth. It brings evaluation. It brings life to us sitting here, okay?

And so it’s very important. Heaven and earth brought together through light. When Jesus says, “I’m the light of the world,” he comes to save the world. The beam comes into our world and creates life—and it creates life out of death, as it were—and he brings salvation.

Now, what do we do every Lord’s day here that talks about heaven and earth? Well, we do several things, but one thing we do is we pray the Lord’s prayer: “That your will might be done on earth as it is in heaven,” right? So light coming to earth, heaven and earth. God’s will being done on earth as it is in heaven. That’s salvation. That’s how Jesus saves the world—is us doing on earth what God has told us about in heaven. Every Lord’s day, from a very real perspective, we go to heaven in worship, right? And we see a heavenly perspective. We take that Bible and we open it up and we think about it. What is it telling us about our world, right? And so we bring this heavenly perspective, and then it’s supposed to change our lives.

I want to talk about prayer a little bit. I’ve got a beginning of a leg infection down here. Maybe I should show you. No, I’m not going to show you. Diabetic. I get these things, you know. Yeah, I don’t know what people think. “Oh, you really do well with the illness stuff, Dennis. You never complain.” Well, you know, that’s mostly true. My wife will tell you a different story. Every time I get sick, I’m dying. This is it. I’m dying. I’m dead.

But anyway, but what I don’t do—more than I’m saying—I don’t complain. I don’t ask people to pray for me. I don’t do that. Why don’t I do that? I don’t know why. But it’s not good, because we’re supposed to be praying for one another. Why is it that, you know, when we provide a vehicle for members of the congregation, including myself, to write a little prayer card out—”please pray for my leg,” okay—why don’t we do that? I’m not sure why, but it troubles me as a pastor. It troubles me that we don’t overtly pray more than we do.

And now maybe some of you—I’m sure, I’m sure lots of you are doing great things in your personal prayer life. But you know, it bothers me. It bothers me. We’ve moved away from prayer times. We used to have monthly prayer meetings, and I understand why. I understand all that. But I’m just saying, and I’ve tried to make this point before. I think two years ago I really wanted us to emphasize prayer in this church. Kind of it didn’t really much happen. My fault, I’m sure. But this verse—Jesus is the light of the world—and he brings heaven to earth—drives us to a consideration of how that happens. And Jesus says pray. That light beam has its effect. That God’s will be done on earth as it is in heaven. We’re to pray to that effect.

Now, we’re here on Mount Zion. We’re in special worship time here, okay? And the whole point—well, I shouldn’t say one of the truths of this—is that it sets up the rest of our week. You’re not going to make it through the days we have in this country with your Christian faith and resist the temptations to give up all kinds of freedom—as we were talking about in adult Sunday school class today—for the sake of personal peace and affluence.

You’re not going to be able to resist that if all you do is go to church on Sunday, as important as that is, and that’s it. And then you just, you know, rest the week—no prayer, no Bible, no nothing. Forget it. You young people particularly, the pressures are too great. Francis Schaeffer used this illustration in the video series. He showed an old Roman bridge, and that thing had traveled over for hundreds of years—ox carts, people walking, horses. But if you drive one of these huge semis over that bridge, it’s going down.

There are pressures in our culture to forget about Jesus or make him your own personal Jesus. Depeche Mode. I’ve been listening to that song a lot lately. “Your own personal Jesus.” Which is not the Jesus of the scriptures, but there’s all these pressures like a truck, and it’s going to collapse that bridge. If you just try to go to church on Sunday and kind of pay attention to the sermon and greet people and that stuff, and then you just sort of live your life without the Christian disciplines and prayer and Bible study and reading your Bibles—your life is going to collapse.

Now, it may not look like it. You’ll have your little maybe spiritual thing going on, just you and Jesus, but it won’t have the kind of impact where the world is changed—that the Father’s will might be done on earth as it is in heaven. Do you see what I’m saying?

Now, so what I’m saying is I would encourage you—I and I talk to myself. I encourage myself—to let our requests be made known in the vehicles that we’ve provided for corporate prayer, and that we see that as linking into the rest of our week. That we end up praying more often for the things that have been set up for us in special convocative prayer. Now, you’re not limited to those things, but worship sets up a matrix, a pattern that’s supposed to flow into your lives. And the prayers of the church gathered should inform the prayers of the church throughout the week.

And if they don’t, then somehow we are engaged in just some sort of religious exercises which, of themselves, are useful, but very limited usefulness. In fact, it may be counterproductive to think we can go to church and that’s the only thing we do in terms of our spiritual disciplines, and we think we can make it into the world. Now that then this becomes kind of a—I don’t know what it becomes—but it’s not good.

Then so I would encourage you to do that.

Now, one other thing before we leave prayer. How should I ask you to pray for my leg? Healing. That’s what we always want. It hurts. I don’t want it to hurt. I don’t want it to get worse. I kind of like that leg. Stumpy would be kind of fun. People could call me Stumpy, you know, if I lose the leg. But I think I’d rather have the leg.

And so healing is what we always want. Take off the pressure. Take off the problems, Lord. But is that what God wants? Sometimes yes. Nothing wrong with praying for healing. But maybe I should be praying, or ask you to pray, “I’ve got this leg infection. Please help me to be disciplined about taking my medicine. Help me to be disciplined about elevating my leg. Help me not to be a grumbler about my leg. Help me to be thankful to God. And yes, I pray that it would get better, too, if that be the Lord’s will.”

You see, our prayers should be informed by the light of the world, who brings that light to the world. And this is how he saves us.

I thought about this the other day. I was outside. I was doing leaves and stuff, and we have this pathway. And I just hate this pathway. I mean, I shouldn’t. That’s my problem. That’s the flesh in my flesh. I hate this. It’s crooked and it’s got rocks, and I’ve got to take that yard debris thing, go through the narrow gate, go down that pathway, then go fill leaves. Then it’s real heavy now with wet leaves, and I’ve got to pull it back over that pathway, and there’s rocks in the way, and I’ve got to kind of, you know, it’s just a hassle.

And I’m tempted, and usually I give into the temptation. Please pray that I don’t. I’m tempted to get upset about that. And I thought to myself the other day, “Dennis, do you know what? You don’t exercise much. You don’t make it to the gym, and the Lord has seen fit to give you this pathway that means you’ve got to get some exercising in to do those leaves. And you know when I do leaves—and I’ll hassle through the impediments to doing leaves in our yard and go over that pathway—you know my blood sugar levels get really good. They do. And I can. I did. I used to do treadmill, you know, half an hour, forty-five minutes a day, months on end, did nothing for me. But if I work in the yard for a day, the next couple of days I better be careful how much insulin I take because the blood levels are lower.

God is making me healthy through the very things that I want him to get rid of. Get rid of the hard path. Get rid of all this work I’ve got to do.

Now, relate that—you know, not just to the leg, but see, it helps us inform ourselves what we’re to be praying for. But relate it to all kinds of problems in your life. Relate it to problems with your spouse, neighbors, work, and the very things that we don’t like—and we just want to pray, “Get rid of it, God.” You know, we’re praying against ourselves. And God’s not going to answer that prayer because that’s not what’s good for you. His interests are not just our physical well-being. His interest is our spiritual well-being. And there’s some sense in which that spiritual well-being will follow us into eternity, and we’ll shine brighter for it. And that’s what he wants. He wants bright shining vessels.

And the spiritual lessons have significance here on earth, right? As he continues to humble you and make you deal with things you can’t understand or can’t control, you’re learning to be a better person in the world. And I know it doesn’t feel like it.

So prayer. Jesus reveals our sins, but Jesus also unites heaven and earth as the light of the world. And he tells us that our response to that, I think, should be spiritual disciplines and very specifically prayer. Write a prayer card out. No, you don’t have to, but you know, we should be a people who pray. A people who pray and who pray in a way that’s informed by the light of the world, who brings salvation to us. Okay.

Third, he brings freedom to captives. John 8:36. “Therefore, if the Son makes you free, you shall be free indeed.” God desires us to be free. We are living increasingly in a culture with reduced freedoms. And I know you young people think us old people are just kind of stupid about this or grumpy or something, but I’m telling you, I remember well—I won’t get into the story—but the point is there’s all kinds of restrictions on your freedom today that you gladly accept.

And Francis Schaeffer would say because you value more highly personal peace and affluence than you do liberty. “If it’s going to help me financially, if it’s going to leave me alone, go ahead.” There was a bill passed last month—this Defense Appropriation Act—and it had this counterterrorism stuff in it. And I don’t really know, but I’ve heard from some people that it was really quite bad—that American citizens could be detained or shot without due process based upon this stuff. And I know that it was significantly bad enough that where President Obama—with a signing statement—he wouldn’t do it. Those portions of it. But it’s in the law books now, and that’s what presidents have the authority to do.

Why did we have a bill like that passed without some kind of national discussion? Because people don’t care. Because they’re willing to give up more freedom to keep us free from terrorists. The threat of terrorism produces then an increasing delegation of government intervention over your life. And you say, “Okay, because what I’m really into is being peaceable in my life and being affluent.” Okay, I don’t know. I don’t want to think about all that stuff. You guys figure all that out. You just pass those laws, you know, and there is something to be said that it is their job and all that stuff. But I’m just saying, little by little, all kinds of freedoms have been taken away from us.

And Jesus says that he comes to make us free. That the light of God’s word is a light that brings freedom to people who were formerly captives. Now, in the Bible, the worst thing to make you captive is not government, and it’s not your business or your employer. It’s your sin. Sin exercises a dominion over us. So I think that we can say with this that Jesus comes to make us free by breaking the loss of freedom that we have—our bondage to particular sins.

And you can think of them in your own particular life, right? When I got serious about following the Lord, and I was smoking a pack or two a day—Camel Straights—and I wanted to quit, and I just couldn’t. I cried like a baby. I prayed and prayed and prayed. I got rebaptized. That might do it. No, could not quit smoking. And then God just took it away one day through accepting me at Multnomah School of the Bible, where you couldn’t smoke. Authority is important for release from bondage. And that’s what God used in my life. He used the authority. “You can’t smoke here. Can’t be a smoker to go here.” And somebody else has paid your way to go, and I wanted to study the Bible. And so you know, there are these enslavements, and you know, you try not to admit it, right? But you can admit it. There are certain things you do you just don’t want to do anymore. You know, it’s not good for you, your relationships, whatever it is.

Jesus comes to set you free. Walk into the light of Jesus, and follow him, and Jesus says he brings you liberty and freedom from particular sins. When that happens…

D. Bring the light of truth. I’ll conclude with this. We won’t even get through halfway through this list. Bringing the light of truth. “I tell the truth because I tell the truth.” In John 8:45. “You do not believe me. Now listen again. This is all instruction based upon Jesus being the light of the world. That’s the bookends of this thing. And this verse says it gives us an important teaching about what’s connected up with that. And Jesus says he is truth.

And that’s why they reject him. The light of the world brings truth to us. It brings discernment, and it brings the truth of God’s word. Now, again, this isn’t miraculous. It means that he gives you the ability, the power of the spirit, to illumine your understanding—to understand the scriptures, okay? And I want to make this point very clear.

Psalms 119 says “Your word is a lamp to my feet and to my life,” okay? And there’s other verses like that. Well, the Bible itself is described as a light to us—to light our way. And now Jesus says he’s the light of the world. Is he getting rid of the law? No. He tells us earlier in Matthew’s gospel, he didn’t come to abolish the law—to fulfill it and to complete it. And not one jot or tittle will go away from the law. Now, by the law, I mean the whole of the Bible. So Jesus doesn’t pit himself against the Bible.

We do that today in our world. We’ve got people that want—we had the Pharisees who wanted the Bible, but they didn’t want Jesus, okay? That’s moralism. They wanted to obey a set of laws and have their nice lives and do whatever it is they’re doing, but they don’t want Jesus, who’s the author of the whole thing, and his purposes, his light, his freedom, etc., his transformation. Our day today, there’s some people like that. We still have moralism, legalism—where you’re just going to have a better life and not really much reference to Jesus.

But what we have today is the other ditch. We’ve got people that want Jesus, but not really anything to do with that Bible. I was at a large mission conference. And the speaker, a great guy, said, you know, that he’d been memorizing Ephesians and Romans. And Jesus came to him and said, “You know, I see you like Paul’s stuff. What’s wrong with mine?”

Now, now, if by that, you know, we can make the point that it is certainly true that some people want to memorize a bunch of doctrine and they don’t really want Jesus—again, right? It’s kind of like the Pharisees. On the other hand, a comment like that—spoken to as it was to well over a thousand people—leaves people with the impression that somehow those gospel words of Jesus are where the truth really is. And Paul’s stuff? Yeah, it’s in the Bible, man. My stuff. Jesus. The red letter. And now don’t—I’m not making this up. I’ve been involved in various blog discussions on the Q Post, after I went to the Q gathering this year in Portland. And I got this over and over again. “Old Testament? No. You know who wrote that? Epistles? No. Paul had a weird agenda. Gospels? Well, we need the red letter stuff. The red letter stuff is the stuff that counts.”

You know, Jesus says that he brings truth, but he never pits himself against the scriptures. It’s Jesus’s word. How could he pit himself against it? If we want truth in our lives and understanding about what we’re supposed to do, we have got to know our Bible. We don’t want a personal relationship with Jesus that is some kind of vague spirituality by which Jesus comes and talks to us and we do this and that, and then we do what he says. What we want is a relationship with Jesus mediated through his scriptures, right?

Of course, we have a personal relationship with Jesus, but it’s the Jesus who gave us his Bible. And you know what? If I’m a friend of yours, right, and I send you a lot of information about me and stuff, and you say, “Well, I don’t really want to read all that stuff about you. I just kind of want to hang out.” Oh, okay. You’re really not interested in me. You see? If I’ve tried to reveal myself—particularly if I can’t be around personally—well, Jesus’s word is absolutely vital to this statement that Jesus is the light of the world.

Life, freedom from bondage, healing, salvation of the world comes by means of Jesus and his word. They’re bound together inextricably. So you can’t have Jesus without the word, and you can’t have the word without Jesus—like the Pharisees, okay? Those are two ditches. And in our culture, you young people particularly, the pressures on you right now from the kind of emergent churches that have been going on is to have a spirituality that isn’t really tied that closely to the scriptures.

Now don’t write me letters. I know some emerging churches are really quite good, but what we have today—actually in evangelicalism broadly—is a tremendous lack of knowledge about what the Bible says, and somehow replacing what the Bible says with your own personal Jesus, right? And so, you know, sometimes Mark Horn used this illustration. I hope it doesn’t offend you. I’m okay. Mark Horn once said that people praying sometimes—he heard people praying to Jesus—and it was like they were praying to Tony that lives in their mouth. You ever see The Shining? So there was this little boy, and he had, you know, Tony would write. So his little finger would be Tony, and he’d bring Tony out of his mouth. “Where does Tony live?” “Tony lives in my mouth.”

Well, to a lot of Christians—not a lot—to some Christians, we’re tempted to have a personal relationship with Jesus where Tony—it’s like Tony—we bring Jesus out, and we have conversations that are not informed by his word. And you so you have to be really careful, because what you could be falling into is Tony that lives in your mouth. You could be talking not to Jesus. You could be talking to yourself—and what you want, what you desire. Your sense of spirituality may come through in those discussions. And it may be good advice sometimes. But is that really what communicating with Jesus is about? I don’t think so.

Communicating with Jesus is on the basis of his word and his spirit. Jesus tells us how to pray. “Pray to the Father, right?” We don’t do that much either sometimes. Where’s the Father? “Father”—in all of this. See, “your own personal Jesus.” Well, Jesus came that we’d have relationship with the Father as well as Jesus. But the point here is the word.

Light brings truth. Truth is found in the word. We need the disciplines. We need the religious obligations, the religious performance of regular prayer, regular Bible reading, regular meditation on the scriptures, regular study of the scriptures to appropriate Jesus as the light of the world—because his word is found in that scripture. That’s how we know that he’s the light of the world, right? It’s found there. And apart from that, we’re not going to have truth. And if we think we have truth through a mystical experience, we’re wrong. His word is where that is found.

And so if nothing else, today, I hope you see that at least in the opening chapter of Jesus’s instruction on being the light of the world, you see this important relationship to truth and to prayer and to transformation of the world through the regular spiritual disciplines of the Christian church. Now, this is how we move in our lives from birth to growth to rule. If we’re going to rule, we’re the reflected light of the Lord Jesus Christ. That reflected light has to bring truth and heavenly realities to earth.

And that means increasing our prayer time, increasing our Bible reading and commitment to it—particularly in the midst of the darkened world in which we live. Now, all that’s only possible because we have relationship with Jesus Christ. Because we finally come away from the darkness of our lives, come into the sunshine that is Jesus, and say, “We know that in you and in you only is life and light. That’s what we want. We want to submit to you, Lord Jesus. And we want to see ourselves transformed. We’re tired of the darkness. We’re tired of doing things we don’t like doing. We’re tired of having lives that, you know, are not really fulfilled. We’re tired of being individualized, little ball bearings rolling around in this massive sea that we’re in. We want to connect up with you, Lord Jesus Christ, and your people. And we want to shine as your lights.”

That’s at the base of this entire statement that Jesus is the light of the world.

Let’s pray.

Father, we thank you for this section of scripture. We thank you, Lord God, for the wonderful pictures we have here of who we are, what will fulfill us, what our job is. Help us to wake up today to who we’re called to be—these reflective lights of the Lord Jesus Christ—ruling in the context of our lives in a proper way, the way he ruled by laying down his life for his people and by showing and directing them, Lord God, in terms of what they should do. Help us to be a congregation who prays more often, who reads our Bibles, who studies our scriptures, meditating upon them.

Help us, Lord God, to come closer to Jesus this year. Here at the beginning of this year, we expressed to you our desire to be better shining lights into this world. Jesus told us that we’re the light of the world. Help us, Lord God, to shine brightly this year by understanding what Jesus teaches in this vital section. May we indeed move away from baby life into adult life through an appropriation of the fullness of our Savior. In his name we pray. Amen.