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Mar 02, 2025

Light of the World | Power and Promise

Light of the World | Power and Promise

Passage: John 8:12-59

Speaker: Matt Petty

Series: Power and Promise

Category: Sunday Sermons

Keywords: god's glory, light of the world, spiritual darkness, i am statements, divine presence, wilderness journey, pillar of fire, spiritual vision, temple worship, john chapter 8, burnt hickory church, matt petty sermon, temple courts, festival of tabernacles, temple lights, divine light, jewish festival, ezekiel's vision, abraham's joy, divine illumination, power and promise series

Discover the powerful meaning behind Jesus's bold declaration 'I AM the Light of the World' during the Festival of Tabernacles. Through ancient traditions of water, tents, and blazing temple lights, discover how Jesus boldly proclaims himself as the fulfillment of Israel's deepest longings. Pastor Matt unveils six transformative ways Jesus illuminates our lives: bringing comfort in darkness, providing safety in uncertainty, offering clarity in confusion, illuminating our path forward, revealing overlooked beauty, and giving true life. Learn why everything falls apart when Jesus isn't the light of your life and how surrendering fully to Him allows His light to illuminate every dark corner of your existence. This message connects the historical significance of God's presence in the wilderness with Jesus's profound declaration as the true Light of the World.

 Well, good morning church and thank you for being here. Before I jump into the message, let me just say this, I have thoroughly enjoyed all the food comments from last week's message. It warms my heart to know so many foodies are out there. To the point I might add that on Wednesday night, I received five loaves and two Swedish fish at dinner. I tried my best to bless it and feed everyone, but it didn't work.

Listen, if you have a copy of scripture today, would you just turn with me to John chapter eight? It is where we're going to hang out today because we're going to continue in our series as we march through the Gospel of John. In the first seven weeks of this series, we tagged it with the idea of coming and seeing.

And we tracked with Jesus through the eyes of John, where Jesus introduced us to who he was and his deity. And he introduced us to his miracle power and how he wants us to turn to him and believe. Last week, we kind of swung into John chapter six, and we moved into this idea that Jesus gives us these seven “I am” statements, in the Book of John, to proclaim exactly who he is, to show us that he is God and actually to meet some of our greatest needs. Now, if you weren't here last week, no big deal, I'll get you caught up. We started in the first “I am” statement last week by looking at Jesus's proclamation and promise to us that he is the bread of life, that he's the bread of life.

And it was an incredible moment. Once you saw that Jesus made this promise after he fed the 5,000 and after he fed the 4,000, and once you see that what Jesus is offering is the actual substance for life that we need to live, you begin to even more feel the power and the presence of who Jesus is. One of the best lines that stuck with me last week was, just as bread sustains our physical body, an intimate relationship with Jesus is what sustains our souls. And that's the whole point around this Bread of Life comment. Now, this week, we're going to move from the first bread of life into the second promise from Jesus. It's an equally powerful promise in chapter eight of John's gospel.

I'm going to go ahead and give you the promise on the front end. And then I want us to back into why it's such a big deal and why it is an incredible, incredible promise for not only their lives but for our lives as well. John 8: 12 says, when Jesus spoke again to the people, he said, I am the light of the world. I'm the light of the world. He says, whoever follows me will never walk in darkness but will have the light of life.

Remember last week it was Jesus saying that I nourish and I fill. I'm the new manna. I'm the lamb of God. This week, right on the heels of that today, Jesus says, I am the light of the world. And there's so much to this statement, it's so good. Can't wait to get into the biblical background of what Jesus is saying here. But first I need to point out something that every single one of us knows. Now, we might not admit it, but we know it. It is scary to be in the dark.

Listen to this, scientists have said that being scared of the dark is one of our most primal fears that we never totally conquer. Now, you might like to work on it a little bit. It might be a little bit easier now than when you were a kid, but we never totally conquer it. Let me give you a little personal illustration that shows you that I have not conquered it. If you hang out with me for long or if you follow me on social media, you know that after eating a good meal, my second favorite thing to do in life is that I love to hunt. I love to be in the woods no matter what time of year it is. Now part of hunting, for those of you non-hunting people out there, let me explain it to you for just a second.

Part of hunting is of course that in a lot of different areas you have to get there way before daylight. You want to get there as quietly as you can under the cover of darkness. You want to get yourself settled, get everything ready, and you want to be quiet. And most of the time when you do this, here's the great part about it, you are by yourself. Some of you're like, uh, not me. But it's beautiful. There ain't nobody there. Nobody is bothering you. It is pitch black, and it is dark. Well, a couple of years ago, I went down to South Georgia to go hunt in this place that I'd never been before. I get in the night before, it's already dark.

I get to the little place we stay, we wake up. I mean, it’s so early in the morning they have to draw me a little map with their fingers on a map on the wall. And they say, here's where you're going to be today. And you need to get there early to get yourself set. I was like, okay, I got it. So I jump in, I head out to the trail, I find where I think they wanted me to park the ATV. About half a mile away from the stand. It's like four o'clock in the morning. I'm getting out of the ATV. I don't want to use a flashlight because that'll, I mean when you use one little flashlight in the woods, it opens up, I mean forever. So I step out of this ATV, and I begin to walk down this old logging road that they said was going to be there.

Finally, I get to this little ditch of water. And they say, take a left right there. And I do. And all of a sudden, in the middle of the night, it felt like with this eerie fog out there right after it rained the night before, there was not a noise in the woods. I mean, I'm talking dead silent on this 5,000 acres. There was nobody within miles of me. And I'm sneaking into the woods and I'm doing a good job. I mean, I'm a ninja at this point. And, something happened. I don't know why I broke the cardinal rule of sneaking into the woods and I stepped on this really big dry branch, really, really big. And all of a sudden it went from no noise to this thing sounded like a gunshot going off below my feet.

And I mean, it startled me. You're saying, oh, great story, Matt. Oh no, that's not the story. Listen to what happened. Somehow in the middle of this farm, in the middle of South Georgia, I had managed to be quiet enough to sneak into, I don't know if you call it a herd or a pack - of wild boars. Somehow they were sleeping. And somehow when I hit this branch, I scared them. They scared me. It's dark everywhere. And guys, I'm telling you, if I'm lying, I'm dying. Sounded like an army surrounding me about to take me out. Trees were falling, hoofs were hitting the ground. There were squeals, there was, I don't even know all these noises pigs make. I mean they were just going crazy. I could smell them.

That's how close I was to these things. And I didn't know, like you would think, well Matt, you seem to be some brave woodsman. Nuh, I don't. I squealed like a little girl and hit the ground. I was so scared. Look, I didn't wet my pants, but it was close. I hit the ground and for 30 minutes y'all, I didn't know what to do. 30 minutes, it was still just black as black could be outside. And I was like, I ain't going nowhere. And finally, the sun started to come up over the horizon. And I made my way to where I was going. Do you know what would've solved that whole debacle? If I had just taken out my light.

Remember when you were a kid and your parents put you down for bed and all of a sudden they turned the lights off? You remember it was then when something was coming out from under your bed or coming out your closet unless you had a nightlight. Listen guys, that's what light does for us. I want you to write down a couple of things about light this morning. But it's not just about light. This is about the light this morning that's going to help us back our way into what Jesus is saying when he proclaims that he is the light of the world. Write a couple of these things down and then I want you to see them from what Jesus says.

Number one, light gives comfort. It puts our minds at ease and it shows us our surroundings. We feel more comfortable in it because we know what's ahead of us. Second, light provides safety. This is why so many of your houses are like a prison and you can't get within 50 yards of them without all the lights coming on. You got these motion-activated lights everywhere. One of the safest things you can do for a city is just bring in new lights and it deters crime. Number three, the light brings clarity, to literally everything around it. It takes away the ambiguity. If you lay ever laid in your bed at night, going is something over there? Until you turn the light on, it just takes it away. It shows us what's real. It shows us what's honest. It shows us what's right. Like when a crime is being committed or some financial thing is being discovered, what do we say about it? It has come to light. That this, it brings clarity. What else did the light do? The light illuminates our way. We see it all over the Bible which tells us that God's word is a lamp into our feet, a light into our path. Think about the headlights on your car. What if they weren't there when you were driving down the country road? It illuminates the way in front of us. Number five, it brings beauty. It reveals beauty in front of us. Every fifth-grade kid in science learns that everything we see around us is because of light. The landscapes, the people, the oceans, and the colors are all a result of light bouncing off of something and hitting us. It reveals beauty. How boring would it be to live in a black-and-white world? And here's the last one. I hope you see where these themes are going. Number five, light gives life. Did you know that light is the fundamental building block of all of life? Without light, we wouldn't have food. We couldn't go outside. And, at its core, we would not have existence at all because light gives life. Do you remember in the creation story when God created light, it was on the first day. It was before the sun, before the moon, before the people, before the heavens, before the earth, before all of it. God creates light.

So stay with me here, let's get back to Jesus. When Jesus steps onto the scene right here, and when Jesus says, I am the light of the world, what Jesus is saying is, I am all of these things. I'm all of these things that we just described. I'm all of those things that you ever heard about life. And I am even so much more. Jesus is saying, I am the one that brings comfort. I am the one that brings safety. I am the one that brings clarity. I am the one that illuminates the path in front of you. I am the one that shows beauty and he says, and I am the one that gives and sustains life because I am God and I am for you. That's the promise. That's what Jesus is saying right here. So the claim is that he is light.

Now, no matter where you are on your spiritual journey, whether you're the most absolute spiritual person, a spiritually mature believer, or if you're just kind of beginning to experience this thing called Christianity, this has implications for you. It has implications for you, and it has an application for you that we're going to see on the backside of this morning. This is an incredibly powerful statement that can bring us comfort, that can bring us direction, that can bring us away in our hearts, and that even in our darkest moments, we know what we can grab hold of. But on the other side of this claim, have you ever thought about how audacious this claim was of Jesus to make? I mean, if it was anybody else but Jesus who stepped onto the scene and said, I am the light of the world, we would just look at him like a crazy person.

But Jesus in this moment, and if you've been tracking with us through the whole gospel of John, you'll see that Jesus continues to make these claims over and over and over again. And it seems every time Jesus gets this crowd around him, he always stops the crowd in whatever they are doing. And he always turns everything to himself. To show us who he is and also to disprove this idea to them and us that he's just this good guy, this miracle worker, or even this prophet. He's disproven this idea that we can just have a little bit of Jesus, but just hold on to everything else that we want in life. We can have a little bit of Jesus where we want him and just bar him from the other areas of our lives.

Jesus stops the crowd every week in these “I am” statements to point at himself to say, I am God and I'm the only one that will fulfill you. That's the point. You see, Jesus is always stirring up things and he's always pointing to himself and he's always making it about him. Not because he's this jerk, but because he knows what he has to offer. Listen to me closely, he is better than anything that we can come up with to guide our lives. That's what Jesus knows. That's why he gets so upset. You're going to see it in a minute. That's why he gets so upset when people hear him and just turn their back on him. Not because he's just mad at the situation. He's mad because he knows that he is the light. And what he has to offer will fulfill them and light their path and give them eternity.

Let me give you a little principle that can kind of put all this together. I put it in your notes this morning. It's the principle that everything falls apart. If Jesus is not the light of your life, everything falls apart. If Jesus is not the light, pick out which you ever one in those six that you're struggling with, everything falls apart. Now with that being said, that's the message. You're like, whew, Matt, that was quick. I want us to grab some popcorn and I want us to see how Jesus makes this point. Because listen, you can understand that He's the light of the world just by outside looking in. But just like last week, if we see how Jesus makes this point, it's an even more incredible picture that he is God and he is for you and he wants to be in your life.

Now, I know we're in John chapter eight, but I want to give you the context from what Jesus is saying here in John chapter seven. John seven sets up the setting for the promise. Let me read it to you, John chapter seven, verses 38 and 39. Here's what he says in verse 37. It says, on the last and the greatest day of the festival, remember the idea of the festival. Jesus stood and said in a loud voice, let anyone who is thirsty come after me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them. All right, so listen, if you're tracking the timeline of Jesus, John tells us what we are about to see in the next text, in the next promise, where he tells us He's the light of the world.

What we're about to see happens during the festival. Now the festival that he's talking about is called the Festival of the Tabernacles or the Festival of the Booths or the Festival of the Tents. You can name it whichever one you want to. We don't talk about this festival a whole lot, but it was an incredibly important time in the life of Israel. It was a week in the life of Israel that they came together to celebrate God's faithfulness in what he did as they were in the wilderness how he prepared them, how he provided for them, and how he was with them. And a couple of things happened during this festival every year that are incredibly important to get us to what Jesus said. A couple of things happen. There are three that I want to point out. The first thing that happened every single year to help them celebrate was that if you were in Israel and the surrounding areas and you were a practicing Jew, you would get your family together and you would come to Jerusalem and you would build yourself a little structure, a little booth or a little tent outside the city to celebrate for seven days what the Lord has done for you.

So think of it as kind of like a campout for your family, to which I know I just lost some of you right there. They were celebrating how God gave them shelter in the wilderness during the 40 years of the Exodus. They were celebrating how God protected them and they lived like their ancestors lived. It was a celebration and a thankfulness time. That was the first thing they did. The second thing they did during this festival was that every night the people as well as the priest, would pour water onto the ground. What in the world's going on, it actually has some incredible significance to it. It seems crazy, but it's not.

This was a moment when they were thanking God for water. Because go back to the Exodus story. Remember in the Exodus, they ran outta water. They asked Moses what to do. And in Exodus chapter 17, Moses strikes the rock and water comes gushing out of the rock to give their families the ability to live. So at this festival, every year, they're celebrating how their ancestors lived, and they're thanking God for the sustenance that he gave them along the way with the water. In fact, I want to point out right here an incredible moment in the verses that we just read in 37 and 38. It was right after that they would've poured this water out. In John chapter seven, verses 37 and 38, watch what Jesus said again, on the last and greatest day of the festival, Jesus stood and said in a loud voice, let anyone who is thirsty, come and drink.

Whoever believes in me, as the scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them. Now it's one thing to read that, but when you read it in the context of what they're celebrating and what they're doing, Jesus steps up and says, living water that you have been thanking God for is who I am. I might add this, the same words that he gave to the woman at the well. So there's tents, there's water being poured onto the ground. And the third thing that they do every year is the most profound. This is the one I love. And the third thing they did was every year the priests would get together and they would build this huge structure in the temple courtyard. They would build this huge candelabra or this elaborate scaffolding that they put these big vats of oil onto every single evening during this festival, they would light them up.

Now when I say huge, it was 75 feet tall, had many, many lights on them, and the vats of oil would hold up to 46 gallons of oil. It was massive. The historians tell us that when they lit this thing at night during this festival, it would light the whole city of Jerusalem up. Don't think like today where you've got skyscrapers everywhere. Think of the first-century, Middle East, everything's kind of low. They build this thing huge and now they're lighting this huge light over the courtyard of the temple. Now as a result, it gave them the ability to worship God all into the night that they didn't normally have. So this celebration was a loud one. The temple musicians would come out, they would play their instruments all night long. The people would sing before the Lord. They would dance before the Lord.

They're obviously not old-school Baptists. They would dance before the Lord. They would celebrate before the Lord, recite the Psalms before the Lord. They would sing thanks to God all under the bright light of these massive burning fires or lights. So think Texas A&M bonfire. Think Burning Man festival, with none of the craziness. Think that in your mind. So this festival so far, they're celebrating the safety. They're celebrating the fact that God gave them water, but also in the fire. They're celebrating this idea. Remember this, when God was in the wilderness with them, what was it that led them? Most of the time it was the fire at nighttime. You see, if you remember right, the fire led them everywhere they needed to go. If the fire didn't go, they didn't go.

If the fire didn't move, they didn't move. So this light at night during this festival at the temple I might add, which was the symbol of God's presence, was to commemorate what God had done as he led them in the wilderness by the pillar of fire, cloud by day, and to remind them that God one day would send prophetically, it's in the Old Testament, send another light to deliver all of us that so believe to our promised land. That's the festival. This light is incredible. This fire is incredible. Actually in the Old Testament, when they received this fire, do you remember all that It did? It lit their way. It split the Red Sea. It stood behind them. When the army was coming at them. It hovered over the temple. This fire of God. The glory of God in the Old Testament was always with the ark.

If you remember right, when Solomon built the first temple and they dedicated that same fire descended from heaven, it entered into the Holy of Holies and it was a reminder of God's presence. It was God's presence to his people. So this festival, the celebration, the celebration that the fire and the presence of God was with them happened every single night during the festival of the Booths except for the last night. You say, Matt, why not the last night did they run out of oil? No, the last night they did not light the fires. They didn't light the fires because a hundred years before Jesus, the fire of the Lord had left the temple. It had left the temple. If you go back to the book of Ezekiel, you'll see in Ezekiel chapter 10, Ezekiel warned them and warned them and warned them and warned the people, Hey, if you don't turn back to God if you don't turn back to God, God will give you over to your ways and he will remove his presence from you.

And finally, they didn't listen to Ezekiel and God's people were given over to their own ways. In Ezekiel 10:18, it literally says this. It says, then the glory of the Lord departed from over the threshold of the temple and stopped above the cherub. Stopped at the entrance of the east gate of the Lord's house, and the glory of the God of Israel was above them. If you go down to chapter 11 and Ezekiel verse 23, it tells us that the glory of the Lord went up from within the city and it stopped above the mountain east of it. What's happening is the glory of God, this fire that has always been with them at the temple and in the wilderness because of their sin, it had left the temple. It went out through the east gate, which I might add is where Jesus rode the donkey back in to be crucified.

He went out the Eastgate up the Mount of Olives over the Mount of Olives, never to be found again. God's presence had left the temple. Now, the seventh night of the festival was this dark night. That was the symbol of where they stood in God's presence and their desire and their hope for God to send them his light. All the while they're wondering, God, when will your glory come back? When will you send this light? In chapter eight, Jesus steps into the temple Courtyards the night has gone. The next morning when he set the lady in adultery free, Jesus steps into the same courtyard. Now, I need you to picture something in your mind. Some of you, you're good at this, some of you, you're a little rigid and you need to like get a little bit of imagination.

I need you in your mind just for a minute to picture Jesus standing in the courtyard. He's standing in this courtyard right behind Jesus in this huge candelabra structure that had been dark all night long. It had been depressing all night long. The band didn't play. The music wasn't there. The light wasn't shining. Jesus had just set this lady free in the first 11 verses. You can read it this week in John from being in adultery. And now Jesus stands in front of this dark light that was not lit in chapter eight. Verse 12, I can just see his finger pointing at it. He says, I am the light of the world and whoever follows me will never walk in darkness but will have the light of life. Now listen, church, I know that might fire you up because it fires me up.

Jesus steps onto the scene, catch the fullness here he's saying, listen, listen, listen, listen. You've been celebrating this feast. You've been celebrating this deal. You've been pouring water. You've been living in these trashy tents. But now I am the one. I am here and I'm God's light and I'm his presence. I'm his peace and I'm his protection. What did we say earlier that light does - I am the comfort and I am the safety. I am the clarity. I am the beauty. And then he looks up and he says, and because you know me, you can have the light because I am the light. I am the light. Man, skeptic, listen to me. That won't happen by chance. That is God weaving through history, his purpose, and his plan. And Jesus stepping onto the scene and saying, I am the one that brings all that you need.

Write this principle down, just as Jesus claimed to be all that they had been looking for, he is also the only thing that will give us a fulfilled life. That's what he said. Listen, some of these people had been doing the same festival their whole lives just begging God, send us the light, send us the light, send your glory back here. And all the time Jesus was waiting till the moment the Father said, now go. And Jesus is now standing in front of this light saying, I am the one that fulfills all of you. Listen to me teenager, the rest of the stuff in your life will never fulfill you like Jesus. Listen to me adult, your kids will never fulfill you like Jesus. Listen to me, adults, your job, your career and all of what is around you will never fulfill you. Will never light your life. You can try it all you want to. You can chase it all you want to, but all you will find yourself is in the fetal position surrounded by pigs, shrieking like a girl. Jesus is the light of the world. Listen, this is the promise. This is what is on the table. This is what Jesus does. And he starts again with this idea of I am, which should have been significant enough. I mean, like we said last week, the next words in this because of how Jesus did it at the temple, when he did it during the festival, he did it in front of this huge structure. And once he said that he is the one that they long for like we said last week, we would expect revival to break out. We would expect everybody to fall on their faces and go, oh, thank you.

This is what I've always been looking for, which really should happen. But because of the sinfulness of man and the religion that had taken root in so many of the people, even after he says all of this, they miss Jesus. You gotta read the rest of this chapter this week. Alright, we ain't got time or we are never getting out of here today. But this is what I want you to just promise me. You'll read it this week. Because in verse 13, they start dogging on Jesus for testifying about himself. And they're like, Hey, you gotta have somebody else with you to do that. And he's like, oh, I do. It's the father. And we win. All right. We win in verse 20. They get so mad at Jesus, that they try to arrest him, but somehow he is protected and they can't touch him.

I don't know if he had the force field. I don't know how it works. You decide in your mind in verse 27, that they still wouldn't believe him even after they like couldn't touch him. They still wouldn't believe him in verse 27. To make it worse, in verses 29 and 30 in this chapter, many of the common folks saw the power of Jesus we're drawn into the deity of Jesus. And some of the common people, many of them, verse 30 said, they gave their life to Jesus on the spot. We just made the old crusty religious people even madder at this point 'cause they were losing power. So they began to challenge Jesus's claim to be God and challenged Jesus's claim to be with a Father. And then all of a sudden Jesus in verse 42 looks at these people and says, if God were your Father, you would love me.

For I have come here from God and I've not come on my own. God sent me in verse 51, he looks at him again and says, very truly, whoever obeys my word will never see death. But they doubled down and called Jesus demon-possessed, which is never a good idea. That's a whole other message. All the while Jesus just keeps showing His love keeps showing that he is God keeps showing that he wants them to walk, and keeps showing that he wants to illuminate their life. He keeps on and keeps on, but yet they keep pushing him away. It gets so bad that in John 8:56 it says this, Jesus looks at him and says, your father Abraham rejoiced at the thought I see in my day.

Now this was the ultimate trump card to peeve them off... Jesus, he saw and was glad. Verse 57, you're not 50 years old, they said to Jesus. And you've seen Abraham? Very truly I tell you Jesus answered, before Abraham was born, I am. And at that, they picked up stones and they tried to stone Jesus. But Jesus hid himself. How? I don't know, but it's awesome. I gotta ask him one day and he slipped away from the temple grounds. You're like, Matt, what does this have to do with me? It has everything to do with you. Because you are in this story not physically but spiritually. You are in the story. And I hope you're seeing it, that Jesus's offer is on the table for him to be the light to your life.

But the question is, what will you do with the light? What will you do with it? I mean, in many, many ways, many of us are like these religious people. We go to the religious stuff. We have the religious moment. We might even wear the religious garb. We treat our lives as this religious thing. We do the deal every year. We might even sing and we might even dance. But what are we doing when Jesus shows up on the scene and demands us to give him our lives? He doesn't just demand a little bit. He demands all of it. And when we give all of it to him, he gives all of himself to us and he illuminates every single piece of who we are. Some of us are like those religious leaders, but you know what? Some of us are the, like the others in verse 30 who saw Jesus for who he is and believed. And believed and gave their life to Jesus.

But I'm just going to ask you this morning, which one of those are you? Let me give you three quick walkaway action steps based on what we just read in scripture. Number one, for some of you today, your next step is just to recognize Jesus as the light of the world. It's just to recognize that I'm not even saying like fully recognize some of you, you're so new to this thing I call Christianity, that your first step is just to start thinking about spiritual things, just to start thinking about Jesus. That is an incredible step when your heart just begins to release a little bit of the hardness and you just begin to see Jesus as the light of the world. Let me let me talk to you guys for just a minute if that's you here in the room.

Listen, there is evidence that he is who he says he is. There is backed-up evidence that everything is true and he says it every single week. And on top of that, the offer is there for you to turn your heart and turn your life over to him. So listen, if you're new to this thing called Christianity if you're just starting to peep into this thing where Jesus is, Lord, can I just ask you to do something for us this week? Would you just let us know that that's where you are? And would you just ask us, Hey Matt, listen, I'm just now into this. Would you just pray with me that God would continue to show himself to me? Listen, 'cause here's what I want to do with you. Number one, I just want to pray over you this morning, but number two, I want to put you with a mentor.

I want to put you with somebody who can just keep showing you what it looks like to recognize Jesus as the light of the world. Maybe that's where you are this morning. Or maybe some of you, you've already kind of processed through that you've been thinking about Jesus. You've been kinda walking this path for a little bit and now you find yourself being drawn in. You know what I'm talking about? Being drawn in being, the Bible's word for that is being convicted. And something in your soul is telling you today that today you need to go from recognizing Jesus as the light that today you need to take the next step and you just need to repent and believe. I'm not talking about just believing that there is a God. I'm talking about changing direction, inviting Christ to be your king, giving him your life, and asking him to forgive you and move in your life.

Listen, I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that some of you in this room, that is your next step for Jesus to light your world. I've talked to you, and we've had conversations around it. There are things in you that may be up until today that have held you back from making that step. But I'm telling you, do you today need to give your life to the light of the world? That's the question, love in John chapter 12, I didn't put it in your notes. In John 12:35, Jesus speaks of him being the light, listen to what he said to these people. This is for some of you today. Jesus said, then Jesus told them, you are going to have the light just a little while longer. He's looking at them going, Hey, we've been doing this for a long time.

We've been walking this path for a long time. He says, walk while you have the light before the darkness overtakes you. Listen, for some of you in here, you might be creeping into that territory. You like the temple in Jerusalem might be creeping into this idea where God finally just gives you over to the desires of your heart and he removes the conviction off of you. And then you walk as you want to walk. Listen, some of you need to take advantage today to trust Jesus. Now, what's holding you back? He's the light of the world. He's the one who brings comfort safety and clarity. He illuminates. He shows beauty, he gives, and he sustains life. I can tell you what's holding you back. It's only you, but he gives life. So maybe today, that's your step in just a second to walk up to me or one of these counselors and say, Hey, I need to trust Jesus with my life today.

Or maybe you are a believer in Jesus today. Here's number three. Jesus didn't mention it. Maybe today what you need to do here it is, is you need to realize that in Christ you are the light to the world. Maybe you have moved past just seeing Jesus, you've moved past repenting and believing, but maybe you, you've been a Christian for a little while, that your next step is to realize that in Christ, you are now the light of the world. Do you realize that you are now the temple structure? You are now the candelabra that glows the light in the love of Christ you are now. Paul says it like this in Ephesians 5:8. He says, for once you were in darkness, but now you are in the light of the Lord, live as children of the light.

Matthew 5, Jesus says it like this in verse 14. He says you are the light of the world. A town built on a hill cannot be hidden, and neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. No. Instead, they put it on a stand and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, catch this believer, let your light so shine before others that they may see your good deeds and they may glorify God in heaven. Believer, what part of your life is not lighting the world for Jesus? Listen, we're going to walk into a time of invitation today, and I fully know that many, many decisions need to take place here today. Some of them may be private, and some of them need to be public. Some of them just need to have a moment at this altar to say, here I am Lord Jesus. Let me be a light on a hill. But here's what I know. They all revolve around the name of Jesus, the light of the world.

 

Follow Along with the Message

Light of the World

March 02, 2025

John 8:12
When Jesus spoke again to the people, he said, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”
The Light

1. Gives

2. Provides

3. Brings

4. Illuminates the

5. Reveals

6. Gives

PRINCIPLE: Everything falls apart if Jesus is not the of your life.

John 7:37–38
37 On the last and greatest day of the festival, Jesus stood and said in a loud voice, “Let anyone who is thirsty come to me and drink. 38 Whoever believes in me, as Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them."
Ezekiel 10:18,19
18 Then the glory of the Lord departed from over the threshold of the temple and stopped above the cherubim. 19 …They stopped at the entrance of the east gate of the Lord’s house, and the glory of the God of Israel was above them.

 

Ezekiel 11:23
The glory of the Lord went up from within the city and stopped above the mountain east of it.
John 8:12
“I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”

PRINCIPLE: Just as Jesus claimed to be all that they had been looking for, he also is the thing that will give us a fulfilled life.

John 8:42
“If God were your Father, you would love me, for I have come here from God. I have not come on my own; God sent me.
John 8:51
Very truly I tell you, whoever obeys my word will never see death.
John 8:56–59
56 Your father Abraham rejoiced at the thought of seeing my day; he saw it and was glad.”
57 “You are not yet fifty years old,” they said to him, “and you have seen Abraham!”
58 “Very truly I tell you,” Jesus answered, “before Abraham was born, I am!” 59 At this, they picked up stones to stone him, but Jesus hid himself, slipping away from the temple grounds.
3 Walkaway action steps:

1. Recognize Jesus as the of the World.

2. Repent and in Jesus.

3. Realize that in Christ are now the light to the world.

Ephesians 5:8
For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live as children of light.
Matthew 5:14–16
14 “You are the light of the world. A town built on a hill cannot be hidden. 15 Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. 16 In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven."
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