Dennis Tuuri

# “Freed to Shine” – John 8:12, 31-36
## Pastor Dennis Tuuri | February 19, 2012 | Final Sunday After Epiphany

We come back today to our final sermon on John 8, Jesus’s declaration that he’s the light of the world. And what I’m going to do is read verse 12 again. We’ll speak a little bit about eternity one more time. And then we’ll talk about the light of the world. And then we’ll consider precisely what it means—or not precisely perhaps, but we’ll talk about what it means to follow Jesus using the particular Greek word that’s used in this text and considering the freedom that God has brought for us.

So I’ll read John 8:12 and then verses 31-36 as the sermon text. Please stand for the reading of God’s word.

“And 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.’ And then Jesus said to those Jews who believed him, ‘If you abide in my word, you are my disciples indeed, and you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.’ They answered him, ‘We are Abraham’s descendants and have never been in bondage to anyone. How can you say you will be made free?’ Jesus answered them, ‘Most assuredly I say to you, whoever commits sin is a slave of sin, and a slave does not abide in the house forever, but the Son abides forever. Therefore, if the Son makes you free, you shall be free indeed.’”

Let’s pray. Lord God, we thank you for the tremendous freedom of the children of light, your children brought into relationship with you through our Savior Jesus Christ by the working of your Holy Spirit upon our heart and the eyes of our soul. We bless your holy name, Lord God, that you declare yourself to be light. We embrace that light now. Bless us by your Holy Spirit that this text may transform us. May you indeed so light upon your righteousness in this service through the preaching of your word. We ask it in Jesus’s name and for the sake of the manifestation of his kingdom of light. Amen.

Please be seated.

This is the last Sunday in Epiphany, so you might be looking at my tie Christmas again. What’s going on? Wise men coloring sheet for the young people today. Well, the reason for that is this: we’re talking about Jesus’s statement that he is light because this is the season of Epiphany that begins with a celebration of the manifestation of Jesus to the world—as it were, represented by the wise men who come from the east being drawn by the light, the star—but ultimately the light of the coming of this great King of Kings. And so we’ve been taking these Sundays in Epiphany to consider this statement of Jesus that he is the light of the world and its implications for us.

And so that’s why the tie, that’s why the particular coloring sheet, and that’s why we return today to this consideration of Jesus as the light of the world.

Next, this coming Wednesday we’ll have our Ash Wednesday service without ashes, and this will be the beginning of Lent. Next Lord’s Day I’ll be beginning a five-part set of sermons, Lord willing, on the book of Lamentations—which has five chapters—and so we’ll really change gears. And I think it’ll be an interesting set of sermons on how to minister to people who are suffering, how to reach out as light to people that dwell in the darkness in our communities, friends, etc.

And I think Lamentations, while not an easy book, not one normally preached on, will I think be very encouraging to us actually as we consider the sufferings that God in his providence puts us through, the world through, ultimately picturing the suffering of Jesus as he dies for the sins of the world and brings the world to salvation.

Now I want to begin first—I want to talk about follow and give us some very practical elements of what that means—but I want to talk first again about eternity. Reviewing my old notes from this text from over a decade ago, I found this quote by Rob Rayburn from a sermon he gave on this text. And I wanted to read it to you to make sure this part of the text is clearly understood.

After all, what’s happening in John 8—and actually through most of this section through chapter 12—is Jesus is discussing things. He’s speaking. He’s bringing light to men who are dwelling in darkness. And the text tells us that many do believe. They come into the light. Many don’t, but the division is made. And so, what Jesus’s point of bringing this text forward in his discussion with the Pharisees is to talk to them about eternity.

And he says, “Where I’m going, you can’t follow unless you follow me now. Unless you believe in me, you won’t be able to follow me. And what you’ll end up doing is you’ll die. And your soul will be consigned to what he calls in Matthew the outer darkness.” The outer darkness. That phrase is used three times in Matthew’s gospel to describe hell. And the outer darkness is a place where there’ll be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

Okay? And the unfaithful servant is sent to the outer darkness when the master returns. The person at the banquet who’s not clothed in the righteousness of Christ is kicked out of the banquet and consigned to outer darkness. And so what Jesus is presenting before the Pharisees and saying—that he’s the light of the world—is he’s telling them fairly explicitly: follow me and you’ll go to the true light of which I am representing, the Father’s light, when you die. And if you don’t, you’ll be consigned to outer darkness. The darkest part of darkness is one of the descriptions the Bible gives us of hell.

So eternal truths are very important to consider as we consider Jesus’s statement: He’s the light of the world. And Epiphany always has that as one of its primary elements.

Let me read from Reverend Rayburn’s sermon. He says: “The Lord Jesus in the Gospels does not talk much about the immediate blessings of faith, though they are wonderful beyond the power of words to describe. What a marvelous thing it is to be a Christian, to walk with God in this world. He doesn’t talk much about the transformation of human society and culture that the truth of God can bring to pass. He doesn’t talk about raising the standard of living for the poor or the transformation of social structures so as to secure justice for the oppressed. I don’t say that the Bible never addresses these matters. It surely does. But these are not its primary subjects by any means.

“Jesus does talk long and hard and over and over again about eternity and about life or death in the world to come, hanging in the balance when one considers him and ways of becoming his follower. We hear him utter warning after warning about the fate of the unbelieving in the world to come. Perhaps you think, ‘I’m a Christian already. I don’t need to hear about eternity. I need help with my marriage, with my finances, my children, or help to control my sins.’ Oh my friend, Rob says, ‘Here is the help. Eternity and a mind fixed on the issue of life and on Jesus Christ who alone can raise men to eternal life. That will do more for your marriage or your finances than anything else.’ A great engine of everything good. That is eternity in the teaching of Jesus Christ.

“Believe me, I deal with people all the time whose primary mistake is that they are thinking about their lives and dealing with their problems as if there were no world to come and as if life here were all they had to care about.”

Excellent words. I think excellent words. Eternity is an important consideration.

There was a play written called Mr. Eternity about a particular individual. His name was Arthur Stace, and he was born in Australia in 1886 and died in 1967 in his 80s. He was born to dissolute parents who were drunkards—bad lifestyle, certainly not raised Christian. By the time he was in his early teens, he was already in a lot of trouble with the law. He himself now was addicted, we could say, to alcohol. He was a drunkard, what we call these days an alcoholic. He would do all kinds of really bad things, a life of sin. And so his life was quite a difficult one.

But it so happened that later in his life—as he became a young man—somehow he ended up hearing a sermon, going to church and hearing a man preach, and he was converted to the gospel of Jesus Christ. And so after having a horrible life, becoming a ward of the state around wicked evil characters, this man was brought by the grace of God in 1930 to faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. So what would that be? I guess he was 44 years old at this time.

And he became convinced indeed and enamored with the idea that what he had to really deal with ultimately was the issue of eternity. And this meant a great deal to him.

Two years later in 1932, he was inspired by the preaching of an evangelist named John Ridley. And Ridley’s text was from Isaiah 57:15. “For thus says the high and holy one that inhabits eternity whose name is holy. I dwell in the high and holy place with him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit to revive the spirit of the humble and to revive the heart of the contrite ones.”

And Ridley in his sermon said this: “Eternity, eternity. I wish that I could sound a shout or shout that word to everyone in the streets of Sydney. You’ve got to meet it. Where will you spend eternity?”

Well, this inspired Stace, and for the next 35 years, Arthur Stace would—four or five days a week—get up, dress in a suit and nice hat, go out to the streets of Sydney, and he would write the word. Now, the guy was not very educated. His handwriting was illegible, they say, but he had developed the ability to write the word “eternity” in beautiful what they called then copper plate font—a cursive style of font that looked very nice. And he would write “eternity” on the streets of Sydney, on the sidewalks, wherever he could write them. He had a piece of chalk he would carry about. And he did this for 35 years, writing this beautiful word “eternity,” because he wanted the people of Sydney to recognize that they will spend eternity someplace—either in the bright light of the Savior or in outer darkness where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth.

Not a message you hear much anymore. And yet it’s a message that’s central to what our Savior is talking about in John chapter 8.

And it became what Arthur Stace was known for the next 35 years. He walked the streets of Sydney writing “eternity.” He tried a couple of times to write “God” or “sin” or “obey God,” but somehow the message of eternity was his message. And estimates are that over the course of his life he wrote the word “eternity” 500,000 times in the city of Sydney.

Very interesting how God kind of rewarded him, I think, in an unusual way. After his death, you know, he became kind of known as Mr. Eternity. A play was written. He’s in, you know, museums in Australia. He’s not an unknown character in the life of Sydney, Australia. He was kind of a beloved person by that time. But it’s interesting because of course they would always wash it off or the rain would wipe it off. There’s only one piece of actual writing by him. There are a couple of other facsimiles, but there’s only one original “eternity” that he wrote with his own hand that they have exhibited in museums now.

In the 1960s—he died in ’67—there was a big bell in the bell tower of Sydney. And during World War II the bell tower was being remodeled or something, and it was boxed up. And then later in the ’60s they were done with all the remodeling. They were going to put this big bell up. So they took the bell out of its box. And they noticed there inside the bell the word “eternity”—and the script was obviously the handwriting of Arthur Stace. And I say, you know, God’s reward to him, because that’s what his whole life was. It was trying to sound the bell, to ring the alarm, to peal out the good news that you can spend eternity with the Lord Jesus Christ if you follow him, but also ring out the alarm as the watchman on the tower that you’ll spend eternity in the outer darkness with weeping and gnashing of teeth if you’re not a follower of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Eternity. It’s an important consideration for our text, and I wanted to return to it one more time. Jesus struggled with these Pharisees to get them to deal with eternity. And he hung in there and he spoke to them, and he sometimes spoke harshly, sometimes encouragingly, but through his dialogue, he brought them to eternity. There’s a beautiful picture of God working with individuals through suffering—which we’re going to talk a lot about for the next five weeks as we look at Lamentations—but God using suffering to bring people into a blessed eternity.

One of the most poignant depictions of this is the movie Wit, which I know if you’ve been here very long, you’ve heard me talk about ad nauseam. There is a recent stage play being enacted, however—just a couple months ago it opened, I think—of Wit. I don’t know if it’s anywhere near as good as the movie.

The movie stars Emma Thompson as a woman who is dying of cancer. And actually, you know, some people think it should be must-watching for pastors and doctors because part of what’s going on is the kind of impersonal care that she receives from the physicians and how bad that is, and how we really should be very caring for people in their great sufferings that she was in.

But there’s this beautiful scene at the end of the movie. She had been an English instructor focusing on the works of John Donne. And one of the most important parts of the movie is this Donne poem, “Death Be Not Proud,” that she taught when Emma Thompson was an instructor and had learned about Donne and the correct way to deal with death in this poem of Donne’s. Donne was a great Puritan preacher and then poet who wrote some beautiful poetry.

So Emma Thompson, in fact, in one scene of the movie, Donne’s poem—and I think it might be “Death Be Not Proud”—is actually, she’s lecturing in front of a large lecture hall and there’s a board behind her and they’re projecting it up there, and so as she lectures she walks in front of it. And Donne’s poem “Death Be Not Proud”—about God’s defeat of death through the death of Christ—is actually on her right. It’s a very wonderful thematic description of Emma Thompson. But as she gets older, you know, I think a lot of that goes away from her in a consideration.

And so one of the last scenes—her teacher, original instructor who had taught her about the insignificance of death this side of the cross of Christ for those who are believers in Christ—she comes to Emma just before she dies in the hospital and she reads her this beautiful little children’s story that I’m sure many of you have read to your children. The Runaway Bunny.

The Runaway Bunny. And the Runaway Bunny is this beautiful—I won’t quote it, but you know, essentially you’ve got a bunny and a mommy, right? It’s Mommy Bunny. And the bunny wants to run away from home. And the mother says, “Well, if you run away from home, I will run after you, for you are my little bunny.”

And the bunny says, “Well, if you run after me, then I’ll become a fish in a trout stream.”

And the mother says, “Well, if you become a fish in a trout stream, then I’ll become a fisherman and I will fish for you.”

The bunny says, “Well, I’ll become a rock on a high mountain then if you do that.”

And she says, “Well, if you become a rock on a mountain high above me, then I will become a mountain climber and I will come to you and find you.”

And the baby bunny, the little bunny, says, “Well, I’ll become a crocus in a hidden garden.”

And the mother says, “If you become a crocus in a hidden garden, I’ll become a gardener and I will find you.”

“Well, I’ll become a bird,” the little bunny says, “and I’ll fly away from you.”

And she says, “Well, if you become a bird that flies away from me, I will become a tree that you come home to.”

The bunny says, “Well, if you become a tree, then I’ll become a sailboat and sail away from you.”

And the mother bunny says, “If you become a sailboat and sail away from me, I’ll become the wind and blow you where I want you to go.”

And he says, “Well, then I’ll join a circus.”

And she says, “If you join a circus and a flying trapeze, I’ll become a tightrope walker and come to you.”

And then the little bunny says, “Well,” and the last thing he says is, “I’ll become a boy and run into a house.”

And the bunny’s mother says, “If you become a boy and run into your house, I’ll become your mother, catch you in my arms, and love you and hug you.”

And at which point the little boy says—the little bunny, says—”Well, I guess I might as well stay here then.”

And she says, “Have a carrot.”

And at the end of this movie—and you’ve had many years, I’ve talked about it, too bad for you if I don’t mean to tell you the ending. It’s been long enough. You should have watched it by now. And the woman reads a portion of this story to Emma Thompson lying there curled up dying. And her instructor says, “Oh, it’s a metaphor. It’s God coming after us, and where we go, he’ll come to us in whatever form is necessary to bring us to himself.”

Emma Thompson’s cancer, in that particular case, in her case, cancer was the means whereby he was preparing her to receive him, to believe in him again at the end of her life, and to be ushered into an eternity of light and blessing and not end up in utter outer darkness.

The Lord God has called us together today to hear the words of eternity once more—to urge us to be followers of the Lord Jesus Christ—and to recognize that even in your difficulties and trials and tribulations you may be going through, the Lord is in the process of being that wind that blows you back to him.

Interesting how many of the images used there—the gardener and the wind, the mother—these are all images in the Bible of the Lord God himself. It’s hard to imagine this woman who wrote this story was not Christian because her imagery is all very Christian and explicitly so in the depictions of the mother who brings the bunny home to love and to carrots again.

So, eternity.

Now secondly, though, this text as we’ve been talking about has to also be applied to what happens now in our lives. We’ve been freed from condemnation and to a life of eternal bliss with the Lord Jesus. But we’ve also been freed to shine where we live now.

Matthew 5:13-17 says this: “You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its flavor, how shall it be seasoned? It’s then good for nothing but to be thrown out and trampled underfoot by men.”

Let me pause there for just a moment and take the Roman Catholic Church to task. We know they’re being thrown out and trampled underfoot as well as other Christians in the country, but them specifically in this latest dust-up over contraception. But in an excellent article—and I think we sent you out a link to it this last week or the week before—in an excellent article, the point that the author makes is the Roman Catholic Church elected President Obama. A majority of Roman Catholics voted for him. The Roman Catholic Church in response to abortion became pro-life in the way of looking for increased statism, increased funding, increased taxation of people to provide the kind of help to the poor that is state help and doesn’t have love attached to it the way that help from people does.

So the Roman Catholic Church, this writer was saying, created the monster. And so now if the monster turns and attacks it, well, you know, it’s a picture that the salt has lost its savor and it’s good for nothing but to be thrown out.

Now, I’m not saying the Roman Catholic Church is that. I’m making this more of a general statement about Christianity in general, right, in this country. When we see these things happen, don’t think that we’re all coasting along just great and all of a sudden problems happen. That can happen in history, but that’s not what’s happening here. We’ve brought all this to pass. And so there’s a degree to which we’re being cast out as bad salt.

Verse 14 says, “You are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hidden, nor do they light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a lampstand, and it gives light to all who are in the house.”

And again, I think I’ve told you this, but when Jesus says he’s the light of the world in John chapter 8, what was going on was the Feast of Tabernacles celebration. They’d been led through the wilderness by the light, and they’d arrived. And at the Feast of Tabernacles, there was this wonderful evening scene where these huge pillars and torches were lit in front of the temple, and they would cast light on the entire house, so to speak—that was the city of Jerusalem—and that’s the imagery here. That Jesus is saying we are the light of the world, and we’re supposed to light the house that we live in—not just our house but the community, the broader house we have. That’s our responsibility. Yes, we point to eternity, but the only people that get to spend eternity with Jesus are his followers. And to follow Jesus means that we’re the light of the world here and now.

That Jesus doesn’t have concerns just about the eternal destiny of people. He has concerns about the salvation of his world. He likes this place called earth. He made it. He brought it into being. He likes culture. He’s causing it to happen. And he wants that culture to come out of darkness once more into light. And it’s our job to be light-bearers of the Lord Jesus Christ, to light the whole house.

Let your light, let your light, Christian, let the light of Reformation Covenant, may the light of the church in Oregon City, let the light of the church in Oregon, let the light of the world—the church in the world, that is—let your light shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven.

There’s the missing element in so much of Christianity today: glorify your Father in heaven. God is not a humanist. He loves people. He’s saving us. He’s a humanist in the sense of human flourishing. But the end goal is not human flourishing. The end goal is that we might glorify our Father in heaven. And we’re to shine as lights in the world—that may be what has happened.

And then he immediately goes on to say, “Don’t think that I’ve come to destroy the law or the prophets. I did not come to destroy but to fulfill.”

How do we follow Jesus? By following his word. By following his law. So we have an absolute requirement—not just to make sure we’re pointed toward eternity by being his followers, but by being his followers, recognizing we’re freed to shine. That’s our purpose.

You know, that movie Unbreakable—Bruce Willis—he discovers his purpose. So many movies are like this: the arc of the character to discover their purpose or to discover it again, to remember what’s happening. Without getting into too much detail, I really enjoyed the movie The Grey. And there’s this character arc to Liam Neeson’s character who’s moved from a bad state to a good state. And part of the process by which that happens is prayer. I’ll just leave it at that. Beautiful arc.

And we’re to wake up to who we are, right? We’re not just supposed to cruise along to heaven now and have a little nice family life. That’s great. But we’re called by the Lord Jesus Christ to be light in the world, to shine forth.

Now, I’m very happy today, very pleased. You know, we had a great time here Friday night. And I want to commend the young adults and some of the older ones that gave some ideas as well. But the young adults who got involved here and brought the Trinity Arts Festival, the winter arts festival, from kind of death to resurrection this year. It was beautiful, and it was a great night. If you didn’t make it, I’m sorry about that. But it was a wonderful evening, wonderful after time.

And I’m so pleased with you young people. You brought light right to this church. We had other people visiting who used to be at this church or who’ve heard about this church. Really enjoyed it. Gave them a beautiful evening of rejoicing in the light, the application of the gospel of Jesus Christ in arts.

I got a letter this week, an email, from another young man in our congregation, and he brought light to the political process in response to my sermon, recent sermon. He signed the Manhattan Declaration, which I’ve urged you all to do. He sent a couple of letters out on specific pieces of legislation, including the contraception one. And he brought the light of God’s word to these discussions. He’s trying to bring light to the world, re-increasing freedom by rolling back statism.

And I’m so thankful when young men do that. I know probably a lot of you signed the declaration. He happened to let me know about it, encouraged by his father to do so. And that’s a great thing. You’re to be commended when you do those small acts of being light-bearers in the context of this culture.

Another young adult—a newly married guy in the last couple of years here—is going with me to the social justice conference this weekend. Social justice—now, there’s going to be a lot of wacky things there, I’m sure, but there’s going to be a lot of well-meaning people who are motivated to bring the light of the gospel of Jesus Christ to people who are in darkness, whose lives are suffering through various kinds of things, to bring social justice—not of the liberal sort, hopefully, but of the biblical sort. Bring God’s justice to it.

There’s going to be a dinner there—kind of the week after our Trinity Arts Festival. Nice segue. There’s going to be a dinner there on Saturday night for artists, and there’ll be a discussion about people that are using their art to try to achieve light in the midst of dark places in our culture and in our society, bringing justice to bear through the use of their art. There’s another dinner for social entrepreneurs along the same line.

Now, you know, what are you going to do? You going to say, “Ah, a bunch of wackos”? Or are we going to get involved, be part of the discussion, and try to encourage social justice from a specifically biblical perspective that brings light and not increase darkness. And praise God for at least one fellow that’s going with me on Saturday to that social justice conference and attending the dinner for the artist discussions as well.

I know these are just three little examples of things that all of you are doing to bring the light of the gospel to your homes, to your marriages, to your workplace, and to your community. And I just—I wanted to, before I go on and talk about our response in terms of following—you know, it’s not as if I don’t know that you are light-bearers into our culture. And I’m so pleased and I’m so thankful to God, and I praise his name for the many acts of light-bearing that go on through this congregation all the time, and for those specific ones over the last couple of weeks.

So, thank you all. And young people, you know, thank you particularly for doing so much to apply the light—the light of the gospel—in terms of artistic achievements and sharing them with us with food and music, etc. It’s a wonderful thing.

Now I want to talk about this following. How do we—how are we light-bearers? Well, there’s this statement that Jesus says: that if we follow him, all these things come to pass, right? So he says, “I’m the light of the world. He who follows me.”

Now, this particular Greek word “follow” has at least five, or probably about five, related connotations. And these are on your handouts. These are on your outlines today. And I just want to talk about them briefly and encourage you to continue on what you’re doing in following Jesus. Or maybe to challenge you in an area or two of your life where you’re not following him to the best, and so your light’s a little reduced. And maybe to use these things as vehicles to talk to your children about what it means to follow Jesus.

Okay, so here we go.

First of all, Jesus has freed us—freed us rather—so that we may follow him, the true light. And specifically, what we can talk about is this means to follow our captain.

A biblical commentator on this particular Greek word puts it this way. He says, “This term ‘follow,’ the Greek term that’s translated to follow—one of the first of these meanings is that it’s often used of a soldier following his captain. The Christian is the soldier whose commander is the Lord Jesus Christ.”

So, you know, we used to sing that kid song. I don’t know if anybody ever does anymore. “I may never fight in the infantry or ride in the cavalry or shoot the artillery, but I’m in the Lord’s army.” Right?

Angie wanted me to sing “This Little Light of Mine” this week because we had a coloring sheet we were thinking about putting on. “This little light of mine, I’m going to let it shine. Won’t let anybody out. I’m going to let it shine.” Our children should be taught those songs. They should be taught that they’re light-bearers in the world. And they should be taught this song about, you know, “I’m in the Lord’s army.”

That’s one of the words. That’s one of the implications of the word that Jesus tells us here. That if we’re going to follow him, we’re to be good soldiers. We’re to be disciplined people. We’re not to be, you know, just kind of namby-pamby all over the place. We’re to be like soldiers in an army. Jesus Christ is our chief officer in the army. And that’s what this specific word means in its Greek usage, among other things: is it means that we have an obligation to see ourselves as soldiers of the cross. And our little kids should be taught that song so they know that they may not be in this part of the army, but they’re all in the Lord’s army. They’re all light-bearers following the Lord Jesus Christ.

And as we see ourselves as disciplined soldiers of his, then indeed the Lord God causes our light to shine in the world.

Secondly, this particular word in the Greek means to follow a master. Again, to quote from this literary source or this Greek grammar source: “It’s often used of a slave accompanying his master. The Christian is the slave whose joy it is always to serve Jesus.”

So, slightly different connotation. Now, the implication is not that we’re in an army following our commanding officer. Now we’ve got a master, and we serve that master.

Now, without getting into an extended discussion of the New Testament, it troubles me a little to think that slave and servant are synonymous. They’re really not in the Bible. Slave in its strongest sense has a pejorative sense—they’re doing it unwillingly. A servant is a willing servant.

You know, remember the slave who’s paying off his debt in the Old Testament? But he loves his master and wants to serve in his home. And he gets his ear—a hole put in his ear at the doorpost of the house. He gets—and what is that? What’s going on there?

Well, I think his ear is being opened. A sign is that his ear is open to the master, to love him and to serve in the house, and the blood from that ear will be on that post, on the lintel of the house. The same place that the blood of the lamb was applied in the context of Passover.

So, I don’t think it’s a negative image. The guy’s going to have an earring like a girl. I don’t think that’s it at all. I think the image is a beautiful, moving image of just exactly who we are. God, by his Holy Spirit, has opened our ears to hear the word of the master. And we love him for what he’s done for us. We love him for who he is. And we want to serve him. We want to serve him in his house. We want to be lights that shine up all of the house. We want to be his servants.

So when Jesus says “follow me,” part of it’s a military idea, but part of it is this idea of being loving servants who stay close to the master and who engage in the kind of works that the master wants them to do.

In John 12:26, Jesus says, “If anyone serves me, he must follow me, and where I am, there will my servant be also. If anyone serves me, the Father will honor him.”

Three-fold repetition: to be a servant of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Now, as you go through your day, these descriptions should be with you. Are you obeying the commander-in-chief? Do you recognize you’re in a battle? Do you remember what Kenny Anderson said? “We’re always baptized onto a battlefield. There’s always warfare going on.” And Jesus says, “Wherever we go, we’re to be his good soldiers, disciplined and ready to engage in the battle that he’s pitched for us.”

Secondly, as we go tomorrow to our workplaces or into our homes, to our recreations, to our movies, whatever we do tomorrow, as we listen to our music, are we doing it as servants of the master? Are we with Jesus? Is he with us? Are we serving him?

Now, I think that’s what we’re supposed to do. And I think that’s probably what most of us are doing most of the time, but perhaps not self-consciously. And it’s a good thing to be a little self-conscious in following the Lord Jesus Christ as a servant and as a soldier.

Third, this word has a particular connotation of following a teacher. It’s often used—quoting from our source—”of following a teacher’s line of argument or of following the gist of someone’s speech. The Christian is a person who has understood the meaning of the teaching of Christ. He has not listened in dull incomprehension or with slack attention. He takes the message into his mind, understands, receives the word into his memory, and remembers and hides them in his heart and obeys.”

If we’re following Jesus, it means we must be reading his scriptures, providing sources of learning what our teacher is saying and following his teaching—not being just sort of insensitive hearers, but really listening to what the master, the teacher—the master teacher, that is—says to us in his word.

We have to have a self-conscious set of disciplines in our lives to expose ourselves to the teachings of our Savior, to really understand them, to take them into our soul, and then to follow him—to follow those instructions.

In John 10:4, in another chapter in this section on Jesus as the light of the world, he says that he’s the good shepherd, and when the good shepherd brings out his sheep, he goes before them, and the sheep follow him, for they know his voice. They know his voice. And so we know the voice of Jesus speaking to us through the scriptures—not speaking to people in the past, speaking to us. In Hebrews, quoting the Old Testament, the author says, “And the Spirit speaks thusly”—present tense. The Spirit speaks through the scriptures to each of us if we’re followers of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Daniel was such a follower. And we read in Daniel 2:20 and following: “Daniel said, ‘Blessed be the name of God forever and ever, for wisdom and might are his, and he changes the times and the seasons. He removes kings and raises up kings. He gives wisdom to the wise, knowledge to those who have understanding. He reveals deep and secret things. He knows what is in the darkness, and light dwells with him. I thank you and praise you, oh God of my fathers. You have given me wisdom and might and have now made known to me what we have asked of you.’”

Now, he’s talking about the supernatural interpretation of Nebuchadnezzar’s dreams, right? So, there is that to it. But how does a guy like Daniel receive that? Because he knew God’s word so well. You know, when we look at the book of Daniel, it is, as we’ve said before, essentially a whole set of lectures on the Ten Commandments and how to live the Ten Commandments when we’re in times of captivity or exile and when pagans or secularists rule the world. Daniel understood the Ten Commandments well enough to write back a treatise on them, as it were, to the church back in Judah to prepare them for their own application of the ten words in their life.

Now, in order to really pay that kind of attention to the scriptures, you’ve got to really believe what Daniel just said: that all wisdom and understanding is found in God. You know, it says in Isaiah that if men turn not to the testimony and to the words and the testimony, it’s because they have no light in them. And we’re filled—in a day and age now when Christianity and an understanding of things has been relegated to a tiny little part of our lives—in business and politics and all this other stuff. There’s no significance, the world tells us, of what God is and his word to those elements.

Do you believe that the scriptures contain the wisdom you need to run a business, to run a household, to be a good member of a neighborhood, to go about building cities? You see, if you don’t believe it, well, you’re not going to pay a lot of attention to it. If all it is is to get you to that eternity, well, you sort of done that, and you come to church, and that’s okay. But if we know that the word of God is the only source of light in every endeavor we put our hand to do, then we’ll pay attention to it. Then we will follow a teacher. The teacher whose textbook is ultimately the base knowledge for everything else that we develop and do in the context of our lives.

To follow Jesus means to follow a teacher. It means to pay close attention to the textbook. It means to try to understand what that book says, to read it frequently and often, and yes, to even study it. Hebrews says we’re supposed to become teachers. Now, we can’t become teachers of that book if we don’t understand it very well. And so, I challenge you again—as I want to do over and over and over again—to be people of the book. People of the book. Be Bible heads. Read your Bibles. Talk about your Bibles. Think about your Bibles. Follow the teacher. If you’re not following the teacher, Jesus says, then you don’t really have the light of life.

The light of life is given to those who are followers, and “follower” has this clear implication of following Jesus as he teaches us.

Fourth, follow our counselor. And our grammarian says: “This [word] is often used of accepting a wise counselor’s opinion. The Christian is the person who guides his life and conduct by the counsel of Christ.”

Now, that’s kind of related to the teacher, right? But it’s a little different. Follow the counsel of Jesus. To think about our lives and to seek counsel from the Lord Jesus in what we do in our lives.

And now, this would clearly be an inducement to prayer. But I want to take it a little bit different direction. Jesus speaks to us in two ways. He speaks to us in his word, but he also speaks to us from his body. A body speaks, right? Body has a mouth. A body speaks. And what God does is he brings us counsel from each other. If it’s just me and Jesus trying to understand his word, I’m going to bring all kinds of presuppositions into that discussion.

God, you know, what did Kenny say? “We’re not saved by faith alone, but faith never leaves us alone. Always puts us in community.” And it’s in that community of people that the counsel of the Lord Jesus Christ flows best and flows to us as we seek out what to do in our lives.

Praise God, and for another young man this last week who got counsel from one of the wise older men here about his vocation and has set himself in a particular direction, and now he’s getting counsel. He’s listening to other members of the body of Christ. We all need to do that. And when we do that, we’re in the light, and the light will grow, and we’ll be better shiners of light in what we do.

When we keep our own counsel, when we just sort of make our own decisions and we’re all in isolation, oh, we can get so messed up—frequently do—and we end up in train wrecks of various sorts. When Jesus says to follow me, he means that we’re to follow him as our counselor. And as our counselor, he’s given us a whole church and Christian friends that we’re to interact with in community, talk to about our difficulties and problems, and receive direction.

The people that I talk to the most in counseling are people that won’t listen to anybody. You know, they just don’t. And they won’t listen to other people. And it’s really pretty big stretch thinking they’re going to listen to me. And usually they don’t. Their lives just go on and on and on. And it may not be horrible, you know, but it sure isn’t much fun for themselves or for the people around them.

We need to be people that are searching out counsel, not content with the problems we’ve created for ourselves in our isolation. To follow Jesus, to shine as light in the world, means to be connected up to the One who is called in Isaiah 9:6: the wonderful counselor, mighty God, everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. We get to peace as we follow our counselor and hear the wise, sage advice of those that he has placed in the context of our lives.

I know husbands and wives that don’t talk much. Wow. Can’t imagine it. Can’t imagine trying to go through a week or even a day without getting counsel from my wife on a whole wide variety of things. If you’re not married to your best counselor, I’m sorry. You know, God will provide other things. He’s sovereign. I understand that. But you know, maybe what’s going on is you haven’t sought out following the counsel of Jesus by seeking the counsel of your wife or your husband, listening to it, seeing how it comports with the scriptures, and following counsel.

And if your life you think could shine more, start there. Start by analyzing how well you listen to other people, how well you listen to other people.

The final implication of this particular word has to do with rules and commandments. Again, to quote from our grammarian: “The word is often used of giving obedience to the laws of a city or of a state. The Christian, being a citizen of the kingdom of heaven, accepts the law of the kingdom and of Christ as the law which governs his life.”

So to follow Jesus means obeying our king. A king has a set of laws, okay? And those laws govern our conduct in our life. And if we think that we’re following Jesus and don’t know his law, then we’re not shining light.

Why does Jesus go immediately from being the light of the world to talking about the fact that he wasn’t getting rid of the law, but fulfilling it? Because he wants us to put together that our relationship to light is heavily tied up with our relationship to following a king and the laws he’s particularly given to us.

“If you love me,” he says, “you’ll obey my laws. You’ll obey my law, okay?” So if we’re going to love Jesus, okay, so following Jesus means following our captain. We’re part of his army. It means following our master. We’re attached to him. We’re his servant. It means following our teacher—meaning we understand his word. We hear his word. We hear his voice through the word, and the Holy Spirit speaks to us by that word. It means following our counselor as we dialogue with each other and listen to Jesus talking through other people in our lives, helping us make application of what we’ve learned from the scriptures in the specific areas of our life.

And it means following our king, obeying the laws of the Lord Jesus Christ, knowing and obeying them as well.

These are all implications of that one word where Jesus says, “If you follow me, then you’ll have the light of life. You won’t be in the darkness, but you’ll walk and actually possess the light of life.”

God says that’s what we’re called to do. He says that he’s freed us, and he’s freed us for a particular task. Yes, he’s freed us from our sins, and he’s freed us from the fear of hell because he’s conquered hell for us. He’s taken care of eternity for us. But he’s done more than that.

In Hebrews, it says that we—through fear of death—were held in bondage to sin all of our lives because Jesus has freed us by destroying the work of the devil. And that’s what Hebrews 2 says as well. We are now freed to follow the Lord Jesus Christ because he’s taken care of the fear of death for us. And if we’ve been freed from the fear of death, it means that we’re not free just to kind of coast along. We’re freed so that we might be that city set on a hill, that lampstand uncovered, that lights the whole world—that takes the beauty of Christian art, music, and food into a celebration here at this church that next year will be opening up to other churches here, the rest of the church in Oregon City.

If we’re following him and being light-bearers, it means we’re going to gather together as many will do this weekend, and talk about how to bring people best out of darkness. And if we go about doing that, seeking that kind of justice in the world, that kind of help to people based on the law of the king, it’ll be effective for shining light and driving back the darkness of our particular culture.

Being freed from sin and fear means we’re not so afraid of what’s going on at the civil government that we don’t speak up. It means we do speak up, bringing the truth of Jesus’s word to bear on political issues, and we shine light when we do those things.

We’ve been freed for a particular purpose. We have been given the high privilege of being called the sons of God. The Holy Spirit moving in the context of who we are cries out to God, “Abba, Father.” That’s what “Abba” means: Father. We’ve been made—we’ve been brought into the glorious liberty of the sons of God. And Romans tells us that the whole creation groans awaiting the manifestation of those sons.

In other words, the world was cast into darkness through the sin of man. But the world is moving definitively into light. And the creation groans as it sees that light beginning to dawn with the coming of Jesus Christ—to create a whole army, a whole group of students, a whole group of people that seek counsel from one another that they might shine bright into the darkness of the created order, cast into sin by Adam, and drive back that darkness and bring light to all the world.

The manifestation of the glorious sons of God, the sons of liberty in the law of Christ. This is where true liberty is. We’ve been freed, but we’ve been freed for a particular purpose. That purpose is to shine in the world.

Let’s pray. Lord God, we thank you for today. We thank you for the wonderful truth of what you have called us to be. Help us to wake up to it. Help us not just individually, but as a church and as an extended church throughout this world. May the church of Jesus Christ wake up to its calling to be light.

And then may we not bring forth the light that is the phosphorescence of decay and death—light that doesn’t find its source in your light. Light that somehow applies human reason to social justice, the issues of our day. Help us not, Lord God, to be allured by that false light, the phosphorescence of decay, but rather help us to be empowered people who know your word, seek counsel from one another, follow our captain into the battle, have broad courage across our lines to engage our culture, to bring light-bearers to this world, to light up the house, the extended culture that you have placed us in.

Amen. Bless us, Lord God, to this purpose as we offer ourselves to you anew in Jesus’s name we ask it. Amen.