I Am the Light of the World

So we're in a summer series about the I ams of Jesus. And today we've come to the second one where he says, I am the light of the world.

And I believe this text, and hopefully this message will speak to especially two groups. You know, we've just come from Romans and we've looked at salvation. We've looked at heard in Romans 8, where it says that we were chosen to be transformed, to be conformed to the image of his Son, of Jesus. And perhaps some of us asked, how does it even happen? How do we get changed to become like Jesus?

And I believe this text will really give some answers to that. The house, how Jesus changes us, how we're made to be more and more like Jesus. But I believe it's also for another group, I believe there's some here that perhaps question, is Jesus really God? You know, we hear from the religions, Jesus is honored as a great prophet, as a guru, as a wise teacher, a very moral man. But they cannot accept that he is the Son of God.

He is God himself. And I've heard this even in church, that some people really doubt. And they're like, they're struggling with this. And it sounds so exclusive, right? Sounds.

So what? Jesus is God. You know, I can accept him as a great teacher, but this text will show us that he really is God. And my prayer is that we all meet him, that we meet today the light of the world. Let me just pray.

God, I pray that you would speak to us through your word, that you open our mind, our eyes, to see you. Would we see today, not just hear about, but see this light of the world. Would we be wrapped up in this light, enamored in love with this amazing light of God that shines into the whole world? Jesus, would you meet with us? Would you speak to us through my weak human words?

Come, Lord God. Amen.

Before I go into the text, I want to give a little historical context. We read in chapter seven in John that Jesus came up to Jerusalem to the feast of Tabernacles. And the feast of Tabernacles was one of the main feasts that all the Jews came to Jerusalem. And. And so he's up there.

And I want to share something. Perhaps we can go to the next slide, a couple pictures. Yes. Here you see the temple. And this is all lit up because there was a special celebration at that time at the feast of Tabernacles.

And of course, the feast of Tabernacles reminded the people of Israel that they were going after the Exodus through the desert for 40 years. But God was with them. There was a column of fire at night that was guiding them. And it was really a sign of God's glory with them. And we call it the Shekinah.

The Bible calls it the Shekinah glory. And Shekhan really means dwell God in his glory, dwelled with his people. And we will see that a lot. What Jesus doing, what he's saying is really directly related to this story and the Exodus and going through the desert and the glory of God being with the people of Israel. And so in this week, in the feast of tabernacle, there's a special celebration, and they called it the torchlight ceremony in the court of the women.

And so if you look the. The part that's extra lit up, that's the court of the woman. Yeah, the hole is the Temple Mount. Then you see the temple. And in front of the Temple Mount is the court of the women.

And that's where it was taking place. If we could get the next picture. And this is happening at night, every night. They were coming together. They had four color.

I always struggle with that word. Candelabras. Is that right? Candelabras. Okay.

They had four big candelabras, 23 meters high. Can you imagine? And on top they had four basins and they were filled with 40 liters of oil. All right, So a huge fire. And the wick was not a little candle wick.

They used old, worn out belts from the priest garments and whole garments they put in there. And that was really the wick to flame everything alight. And in the Mishnah, Jewish writing, it says that the whole city of Jerusalem was lit up with that fire. And you see on top of these column colonnades, there's the women, okay, they were looking down and on the floor you see men with torch lights and supposedly were dancing all night long and was celebrating about God who dwells amongst his people. And he comes, he has come with a great fire.

And this is our God.

That day Jesus called out, I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of the world. And he said it right there in the temple. We read in verse 19, it was in the treasury that was a part of the court of the women. That's where Jesus stood.

And that's where he said to the people as they were celebrating these days about the glory of God dwelling in the people of God, I am the light.

And we read in the prologue of Gospel of John, and you know, as I was Looking at these verses in this whole chapter, perhaps you also, you felt like, you know, Jesus right away when Jesus says I'm the light of the world, there was right away an argument. They saying, who. Who's your witness? Who's testifying for you? How can you make such a grand claim?

You know, and perhaps today it's more usual that we say, hey, I'm really good at this. In antiquity, you normally wouldn't do that. You wouldn't praise yourself, and especially you would not say, I am the light of the world. Okay, that was unheard of. So they're like, how dare you say something like this?

This is, this is just too crazy. And so we look at these verses and it just this big argument and they're fighting. And it doesn't seem to expl much what it means that Jesus is the light of the world. And so when we're struggling to, to understand what, what he's saying, we look at the context of the whole book, right? We look at the context of the whole Bible.

And so I've looked at the whole Gospel of John because the whole Gospel of John talks so much about the light and the darkness. And we read in, in the prologue, in the first verses of the Gospel of John where it first describes the Jesus is the word of God, that everything was made through him. There's nothing that was not made by him. And then the next verse it talks about in him was life. And the life was the light of man.

The light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it. You see, life and light are so closely connected. That's what Jesus says, I'm the light of life. It makes sense, right? Light and life are closely connected.

You just look even at the light we have and how we're dependent on light. I read if the sun would stop in an instant to shine, if it would go dead in one moment, you know what would happen in a little over eight minutes, we would have no more light. There would be no more photo things. Synthesis. Synthesis.

That's the word, all right. The planes would not be creating any food for us, humans and animals anymore. There would be no more oxygen. The earth would grow cold. In a few weeks, we would be under 70 degrees Celsius.

It would be death all over. You see, light is so enchanting and so it's so decisive for life. But when Jesus talks about, when Jesus described as life, this is not life only in the sense of natural life. Because the Bible, the Greek, in the Bible uses very specific words. We have the Word.

Bios. Bios, Psyche. And so. And these first two words, you know, that's where biology comes from. Bios and psychology.

That's the human life, the soulish life. But every time when it talks about God's life, it talks about tsoe. And that's the word here. He is the. In him is life, in Jesus is life.

And he is the light of man and something we will see through this whole series. I am. I'm not gonna take too much away from the next preachers, but we've heard already Jesus is the bread of life. Right? So it.

Every time when it. We have an I am word, it's about who Jesus is and that he brings life for us. He brings eternal life. You have eternal life in Jesus. It talks about the good Shepherd.

Next Sunday we'll hear about the good Shepherd. What does it say? He lays down his life for the sheep so that they may have life, eternal life. And they have it abundantly. Overflowing.

It's like a life that is just like it says in Psalm 23. It's. It's overflowing. It's not just to the rim. It is excessive.

More than we can take. Jesus said, I'm the resurrection and the life. So this is the first thing we see. Jesus is the light of life. You can only have life in Jesus.

Yeah. So you could call. We're like, you know, everyone who doesn't believe in God is like a walking dead. Okay? And I don't want to steer up too many images in that, you know?

But we're really without God. There is no true life. And that's why it also talks about the darkness we see then that Jesus says, if you follow me, you will not walk in darkness. Because darkness, that's what describes our world. That's what this world is about.

It is first dark because it's without God. Because we have said we don't need God. We can live without him. We can do it on our own. And we have cast out the light.

We don't want the light.

And Jesus talked about it in John 3. He says, I didn't come to condemn the world. I came to save the world. And perhaps you also sometimes wonder why your friends, your family, your people, unbelievers, why so hard for them to come to faith? And Jesus explains it why.

He says, I've come to save, but the light has come into the world. But people love darkness instead of light because of their deeds were evil. Everyone who does evil hates the light and will not come into the light. For fear that their deeds will be exposed. I that's the reason people don't want to be saved, because we all, as humans, do evil.

And I wouldn't want everything that I've been thinking this week to be. Just imagine every thought, every bad thought, every frustrated, hateful, angry thought to be. When we sin, we do it in hiding. We don't want people to know what we're thinking, what we're saying, what we're doing. That's the sinful man.

And we do it in a place where no one finds out about it. And that's why we don't come into the light. Even though God only means it well with us. We don't come to him for salvation because we're afraid that everything we've done is going to be exposed. It's going to be in the open and everyone can see it.

You know, I have a little saying, we humans are like toothpaste tubes. And what I mean with that is, you know, as long as everything is fine in our lives, we're nice, right? We're really sweet, we're really nice people. But if you apply pressure, then stuff comes out what is really not hard. When things go hard in our life, then suddenly the evil and the evil thoughts, the frustrated, the angry thoughts, lustful thoughts, everything comes out.

We're like toothpaste tubes. As long as you don't touch us, as long as everything is easy, we're going to be nice. But you. Some pressure comes in our life. Difficulties, hardship.

And you really see what's in us. And that's. That's who we humans are. And that's why we need the light of the world. That's how we change.

That's the only chance we have changed. We have for change. You know, just another verse and we're going back a little. Sorry, I chummed one verse. This is John 1:14.

Because what happened is really. When Jesus spoke up at this feast of tabernacles, it really is what it just described in John 1:14. And the word became flesh, the word that made everything, the word of God that was in the beginning. Like it says, God spoke something light and everything came into existence out of nothing. God created, and then it became reality and the Word became flesh.

He came as a human into our world and dwelt among us. And this world is very specific. Dwelt is not a normal word. Like I'd live somewhere, I live in Lichterfelde. Dwelt is really tabernacled.

This is the word. Just when God was in the desert with the people of Israel. He tabernacle, he was in a tent, dwelling amongst his people. So John is saying, just like God's glory was there in the desert, Jesus came in human form. He came as a human.

And we have seen his glory. We have touched him. He said in 1 John 1, we've heard him with our own ears. We've seen him. The glory of God has come to us.

Now we go on in the text. So after Jesus says, I'm the light of the world, they question him and says, who are you? Who. Who is your witness? Who is testifying for you?

And Jesus answered them. And he says, I know where I come from, and I know where I'm going. Where's Jesus coming from? He's coming from the Father. He's going back to the Father, to the glory of God in the heavens.

And he says, Verse 18, I am one who testifies for myself. My other witness is the Father who sent me. He knew where he's from. He knew his origin. He knew his destination.

And just like it says in Hebrews 1:3, he is the radiance of the glory of God, the exact imprint of his nature. See, Jesus is the shine. For from the glory of God, he's the radiance that came. And that's what Jesus says, if you see me, you see the Father. If you meet with me, you meet with the Father.

You cannot cut off. You cannot separate the sun ray from the sun. They belong together. Jesus said, I am the shine into this world. The Father is invisible.

You cannot see him. But I've brought the Father to you. I've come to be that radiance. I've come to be that shine. That's that ray of the glory of God.

In verse 18, then he says, no one has ever seen God. The only God who is in the bosom of the Father. He has made him known is this image of Jesus. Bosom, the chest. Jesus leaning on the chest.

And actually, literally in Greek, it says, into the bosom of the Father. And the Orthodox have this idea, what they call perichoresis, what I believe is a biblical idea that the God is into each other. They're three person, but one God. And they. There's a.

It's like a twirling in eternity, dancing in eternity, in harmony, in love, in absolute fellowship. He says, that's where I come from. I come from this fellowship with the Father and the Holy Spirit. That's my origin. That's enough.

You know, when. When the Jews were questioning how can you? Who testifies for you? He didn't need any human testimony. He didn't need.

The Father's testimony is more than enough. Right? The Father's testimony is a witness. He says, in eternity I love my son. He said, at the baptism of Jes.

This is my beloved Son, in whom I'm well pleased. This is my son that I love with everything I am.

Jesus is from the bosom, from the chest of the Father. This is his origin. And see, the Evangelist Moody said about the whole Gospel of John. He says, jesus who came from the bosom of the Father, that's the beginning of the Gospel of John and it leads to the end that a sinful man like John leans on the bosom of Jesus, isn't it? That's the Gospel of John.

Jesus came from God, from this harmony of this circle of love, this wonderful relationship. And he invites us in to lean at the chest of Jesus, to hear his heartbeat, to be close to him, to experience intimacy with God. Isn't that amazing? We sinful, we just talked about us sinners really being so lost. But the gospel is not just that you just barely make it to heaven.

It's God inviting us in to know him, to have relationship with him, to lean on the chest of Jesus.

And then we go to the end of this chapter. What we've read is. And we see Jesus makes it very clear, I am God. Because the claim I am is three times in this whole. We didn't read the whole thing because it was so long, but three times in this, in these verses, in the church, chapter eight, it talks about, he says I am.

And we see it ends with the Jews understood he is claiming to be God. That's why they picked up stones and wanted to stone him. See, when people today, atheists, Muslims, other religions say, oh, Jesus never claimed to be God, the Bible is not so clear. Oh no, it's very clear. Jesus said, I am.

He is the I am that I am. We humans all have a beginning and an end. We humans are all have conditions that we can live. Like we said, we need light. If there's no light, we're gonna die very quickly.

If you don't have oxygen, you're not gonna survive. If you don't have food over days and drink, you're gonna die. But God is self existing. God doesn't need anyone in anything. That's why it's a, it's, it's a heresy when people claim, oh, God needs us.

He created us because he needed someone, you know, to praise him. Or to love him, or God doesn't need us.

God is all sufficient. Jesus is all sufficient. See, this is one thing where Muslims get it wrong when they say, oh, but Jesus was also created. No, he was not created. He is the Creator.

See it, it's a bit hidden in the Old Testament, but Jesus claimed, I was all over the Old Testament. I was there from the very beginning. He was the word that through it everything came into existence. And so they were upset. What are you claiming?

He said, I, I, I saw Abraham. He says, you're just not even 50 years old. No, he was glad that he would see my day.

See, this is one thing that the sun or the light does also, right? It makes us clad. Just think of a long winter with little sun and darkness and coldness. And I've talked to some of you Indians and you know, people from other nations. You're like, oh, it's rough, it's rough.

Here in Germany and I, we live at a canal and there's a nice walkway. And I sometimes see when the first sun rays come in March or April, people just stand there. Ah, right. They're soaking it up. That's what the sun does.

Jesus is the light of the world. Just like Abraham said he was glad when he saw my day. Are we glad to see Jesus? See, we're gonna have a whole series on Philippians. I'm really glad because it talks so much about rejoice in the Lord.

It's a command. And I remember a few years ago we had a little church called Gospel House, and I preached on that. I said, God commands one thing to rejoice in him. You know, we had one guy in the middle of my sermon who spoke up, Jonathan, no, no, that cannot be. I mean, I'll do anything God expects of me, but then I should rejoice in that.

Yes, yes. See, this is, this is where it becomes legalism. If you just do to be a good Christian, just, just muster it up and just, just do the right thing and go to church and do your prayers and speak your, you know, and press, give a testimony.

Have we met the light? Have we met the light that makes our hearts glad? In the Bible, it's full of people who just glad in God. It's not enough just to do the right things. The light calls us to rejoice in him.

And again, they picked up stones. It says, because they, Because Jesus says, before Abraham was I am. He's not saying I was there. He says, I am. I'm always there.

I was in eternity, I am I will be in eternity in the future. I am. I am.

I told you in the beginning. I want to talk about what it means for us. How does that apply to us? What does it mean to become like Jesus? See, it's quite astonishing, right, that Jesus not called himself only the light of the world.

He says, you are the light of the world.

I was always in bit confused. It's like Jesus, I'm not the light of the world. I don't know what you mean by that. And of course it's not the same. We're not.

Jesus says I'm the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not be in darkness. That's not the kind of light we are. But he says we are cities set on a hill. We're like a lamp in a house that brings light to everyone in the house.

So it's a local light. It's wherever you are. God calls you to be a light.

He is the all encompassing light for the whole world. And he calls everyone to follow him, to be in the light. That's not us. But I want to talk a little. How does that happen?

How do we become light of the world? And I've mentioned two weeks ago already that the idea, you know, God made us as image bearers. And it's. When you look at the Old Testament, it's almost a bit confusing because it, it uses words when he says image and in the likeness of God. These are two words that are later used for idols.

Selim and Demut. These are words that are used. Do not make graven images, do not make image of anything to be worshipped. But he says we're making man as image, as Selim and as Demut as likeness. But you know what went wrong is we were supposed to reflect the light of God into this world.

We're supposed to be authorities. He's given us authorities over the animals, over the ground and everything. But instead of reflecting him, reflecting God's light, God's glory into the worlds, we made images and now we reflect them. That's what it says in Psalm 115. It talks about you are making out of dead materials.

You're making idols. And just as they are dead, just as they are deaf and cannot hear and cannot see, you're becoming just as lifeless. See, when we reflect the light of God, when we live in the light of the world, in the presence of Jesus, we come alive. But when we make idols, that's anything material. What are idols?

These are things that you can live for your, for fame, for what people Think about you. This is so closely related to this whole thing because Jesus said, God the Father honors me. I honor the Father. But earlier he said, you humans, you Pharisees, you religious people, you seek the honor of people. Isn't that true?

That's what we often, we want to be honored. We want people to look at us like, hey, that was well done. Wow, great, awesome what you're doing. We want the honor of people, but God wants that we just seek the honor of God. We want.

We live for the lusts of this world. We live for power, for money, material things, and we worship these things, and we will become lifeless. But when we worship the true God, the light will come to light. And this is what Second Corinthians 3 describes. And we all, with unveiled faces beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed, or it could also be translated are reflecting into the same image from one degree of glory to another.

This is what God calls us to. To see him. Beholding is not just quickly glancing at something, just quickly looking at something, but beholding. Have God before you. How do we do that?

When we read our scriptures, not just read quickly through it, but meditate. Think about what God has done for us. When we read a gospel story, when we read something about who God is and what he's done for us, just to think about it and to see, wow, God, how awesome, how wonderful, how great are you. That is beholding his glory, to see Him. We're not talking about something mystical.

You go into a cave and have some mystical experiences. It's about meeting the living God, meeting Jesus through his word, through his speaking to you and seeing him, how he is the light of the world. And as we do that, we are transformed. That's how we are transformed. That's how we are changed to become more and more like Jesus.

Just like when we do idolatry, we become lifeless like the idols. We come to life when we look at Jesus. And again, it's. It's not just filling our mind. You know, sometimes I believe some Christians think that the main thing is you just need to ascent.

And it's not that ascending is right. You need ascend to good theology, to good doctrine. But it's more than assenting. It's not just agreeing. Okay, I believe in the virgin birth and I believe in the death of Jesus and the resurrection.

Yes, we do all these things, but will it make our heart glad? Will we say, wow, this is so great. This is so wonderful. Will it lighten up our heart? And then we reflect the Glory.

That's how God has made us from the image, from the beginning to be image bearers, to reflect his glory into the world. And this is what through Jesus, through his death and resurrection has accomplished again, that we now can look at Jesus and say, yes, I see the glory of God on the face of Jesus. That's what we're going to read in a minute. And even if our gospel is veiled, is veiled to those who are perishing, he goes on in chapter four and he says, why do people not come to faith? Because they have like a veil, they cannot see the glory, they cannot see how great Jesus is.

It's like a veil, their eyes are dead and it keeps them from seeing the light of the gospel, of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.

See, we're church talking a lot about the gospel. The gospel itself is a light. It lights our life up. What is the gospel about? I said it last time two weeks ago.

The message of the gospel, really, yes, it is about justification, it is about being sanctified, it's about glorification, all these things. But the main content, the center of the gospel is a person, Jesus Christ. And here it says it's even, it's the glory of Jesus Christ. This is our gospel. How glorious, how wonderful Jesus is.

And then he says, for God, who said let light shine out of darkness, has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. See, we need God to shine in our hearts because they're dark, they're dark thoughts. He wants to shine in it. And only when our hearts are enlightened we can see the glory of God on the face of Jesus Christ. And I believe people.

We've been many years, I come from Germany, but we've been many years here in Berlin. You know, there's many hard sought atheists and perhaps you've encountered that too. You, you could, you could argue all day long. You're not going to get anywhere. I truly believe and have seen it with some people when they have encountered something of the glory of God, something how precious, how wonderful Jesus is, have encountered the love of God, suddenly the heart will break open and they say, yes, God is real.

I don't understand it, I don't know it. And I have heard many testimonies. People see church is something different. That's the Shekinah glory, God dwelling amongst his people. It's not argument.

Sometimes it's good to have arguments, it's good to explain things. But I believe many Germans especially, it will not convince them.

But if they encounter the glory of God, they see something of the. How wonderful Jesus is, how full of love, full of mercy, full of grace. It will capture their heart. That's what I believe.

That's my prayer coming to the end in the next chapter. In chapter nine is the healing of the blind. Of course. See, Jesus didn't just heal people. It often had a very deep spiritual meaning.

The way and who he healed and what he healed. And so he's the light of the world. You know, in German, we say, you know, we talk about the augenlicht, you know, eyesight. We say, eye light, you know. And so he gave this person eyesight, augenlicht.

And then the Pharisees were all upset, and it's like, what happened? No, we don't know where this guy is from this. You know, you were. You were not blind. And they arguing with him.

They called, call him in and. And he says. And he's like, we don't know who this guy is. We don't believe you were really blind. And he said, no, I was blind.

And I don't understand what you're saying. You don't know where he's from. God has never used any sinner to cause a miracle like this. This guy must be from God, otherwise God would not do a miracle through him. So he understood something already of Jesus.

And then they kicked him out. He's, like, angry with him. Shut up. Who do you think you are? And so he left and Jesus went to him.

He found him. And then it says, do you believe in the Son of Man? He asked him, who is he, sir? Tell me so that I may believe in him. Jesus said, you have now seen him.

In fact, he's the one speaking with you.

Then the man said, lord, I believe. And he worshiped him.

See, sometimes we talk about worship as, you know, a part of the service. That's what we do. We sing our songs. But I believe for someone to come to faith like I believe these verses shown is you have to see. It's not just assenting to some theological doctrine or something.

You have to see Jesus, who he is and how wonderful he is. And I believe, worship also. This guy. This was not just in theory, Jesus healed him. But it's not enough to that someone gets healed.

I've met, you know, I was doing confirmation class in the Lutheran Church. I met a guy who confessed he was healed by Christians. People prayed for him, and he was healed by God. He still didn't Believe in God. Healing doesn't necessarily bring people to faith.

And so. But this guy had a revelation of who Jesus is. He first knew this guy is from God. I know his origin is with God, but then he realized this is God. And I think perhaps for us it's, you know, he worshiped.

That probably meant the word means proskoneo, means he fell flat on his face and worshiped Jesus.

Perhaps for us this is almost normal. We would think this is normal. But you all know that a Jewish man, if you grew up a Jewish boy, you confessed every day of your life. Do not worship anything but the only true God. There's only one God.

Shema Yisrael, Adonai Eloheinu Adonai Echad. Hear O Israel. There's only one God.

He believed he met Jesus. He understood this is the light of the world. He is God. That's why I can worship him. And that's my prayer for us.

I'm going to finish with a prayer. Perhaps you want to pray with me. Perhaps if you're one of these who says, yeah, I still, I struggled with is Jesus God? This is central to our Christian faith. Jesus is God that you meet Jesus and recognize.

Yes, Jesus, you are the light of the world. You are the I am that I am. But I also want to pray for all of us that we would live in this presence of God, eye to eye with the glory of God, seeing him who he is. That we would be reflecting this glory into the world.

Jesus, we praise you. You are the light of the world. When we do follow you, we get out of darkness and we live in the light. You are the light of life. You give us true life.

You give us eternal life and God. I pray anyone who's here struggling to recognize you as the only true God, I ask that you open their eyes, that the veil would be taken away and they could see who you are and come to faith in Jesus. And I pray for us as a church God, that we could be like the people of Israel, living in the. In the presence of God, the Shekinah glory of God, knowing that the light of God is God is in our midst. And we can celebrate because we have the living God with us.

God, I pray that we would be like these reflectors, reflecting the light of the world into this world, reflecting your love, your mercy, your grace, your light, so that people can see you and come to faith. Amen.

Yeah. Thank you, worship team. And thank you, Jonathan. You would truly magnify Jesus Christ among God's people today. And you reflected God's glory in the preaching today.

Yeah. And I think the final benediction here, it's about God dwelling among his people, his glory shining upon them. So I want to dismiss you all with this benediction. The Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you.

The Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace. The Herr zigned the hairless uber dear loishtan on zadik nedic de freedom. Amen.