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Pastor Mike will be speaking on The Light of the World. He will be in John 8:12-21.
The height of healing is to serve from the wounds and the scars of your life. And so you’ve walked through life and life has given you some difficult blows. And you have had to endure some deep valleys in your life.
But I am challenging you that as you are growing, I want you to serve. Hello, this is Pastor Mike Sanders from the Open Door Church. And we are delighted that you’re with us today, thankful that God has brought you here on this station to be able to hear this message.
Today’s message is John chapter 8 verse 12 through 21. And we’re going to be learning about the light of the world. Jesus was the ultimate, the ultimate teacher. And he used word pictures to help bring about his truth into our hearts.
And it was no accident that he would take this special time in Jewish festivals to be able to teach us that as they are lighting the candles, that he truly is the light of the world. Let’s get into our study and learn more about this great truth.
You have your Bible this morning. Join me in the Gospel of John chapter 8. Our continual study in the Gospel of John, we are in verse 12 through 21 this morning. The Gospel of John chapter 8 verse 12 through 21.
While you’re turning there, I want you to imagine eating at a restaurant devoid of light. Hard as it is to believe, there are people who are choosing to dine that way. Following a growing trend, sightless restaurants are opening up across Europe.
What is a sightless restaurant? restaurant. John Bohannon experienced it firsthand. He plunged into the inky blackness of the restaurant called Jusichte, a restaurant named for the German word, invisible.
To get to his table, it was necessary to place his hand on the shoulder of Magid the waiter, then allow his dining partner to put her hand on his shoulder. In single file, they carefully maneuvered to their chairs with the waiter as their guide.
Magid needed no light. Like most waiters at this restaurant, he is blind. Bohannon felt panicked by the utter darkness and the inability to see his own hand while waving it in front of his face. He heard a glass crash to the floor from a nearby table and the reaction was more desperate than the situation would really merit.
Since no lights of any kind are allowed in the dining room, a staff member must lead the patrons to a candlelit bathroom when the need arises. John Bohannon, his unease over this situation, began to build into his heart and mind and he wanted someone to take him to the candlelit bathroom just so he could see something again.
He pushed aside the nervousness when Magid arrived with the food and Bohannon soon discovered the difficulties of using a fork that you cannot see. At the end of this unique dining experience, the waiter arrived to lead Bohannon and his guests back out of the restaurant and into the light.
Whatever the pluses and minuses are of sightless dining, one thing is very clear. When choosing darkness over light, your best guide is blind. And I thought about that as I read that story. Now that is true in our own spiritual life, that choosing darkness over light is nothing more than simply the blind leading the blind.
When we come to the Gospel of John chapter 8 in verse 12 through 21, Jesus makes a bold declaration. It is the declaration that He is the light of the world. I want you to pick up with me in verse 12.
and note what the text says then spake Jesus again unto them saying I am the light of the world and he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness but shall have the light of life the Pharisees therefore said unto him thou berest record of thyself thy record or thy witness is not true Jesus answered and said unto them though I bear record of myself yet my record is true for I know whence I came and whether I go but you cannot tell whence I come and whether I go and you judge after the flesh I judge no man and yet if I judge my judgment is true for I am not alone but I am the father that sent me it is also written in your law that the testimony of two men is true I am one that bears witness of myself And the father has sent me,
beareth witness of me. Then they said unto him, where is thy father? Jesus answered, you neither know me nor my father. If you had known me, you should have known my father also. These words spake Jesus in the treasury as he taught in the temple.
And no man laid hands on him, for his hour was not yet come. Then said Jesus again unto them, I go my way and you shall seek me and you shall die in your sins. Whether I go, you cannot come. It is interesting that when Jesus spoke these words, it is at the conclusion of the tabernacle feast, which we shared with you the details of that in chapter seven.
In this conclusion, the tabernacle of feasts had a special light ceremony. There were candle operas all over the temple that were being lit to remind the children of Israel of how God led them, how he led them by a fire by night and a pillar of cloud by day.
How that God had been faithful to them and that God would always guide their life as long as we would follow his leading. It is in the midst of that ceremony that Jesus Christ would stand up and he would say those amazing words, I am the light of the world.
When we think about light, it has many qualities that are very important. I want you to note some of the qualities of light because light is a major theme in the gospel of John. First, I want you to see that light reveals what is hidden.
Anytime you and I walk into a dark room in our home or into a building, we want the lights on. I was recently preaching out in Indiana and of course I think I may have messed up but they had the lights down.
I was in Sunday school and they had the lights all down and I said turn the lights on because God is light. I need to see you who I’m teaching to, amen? I don’t think it went like that. They like everything to be dark but I believe God is light and light reveals what is hidden.
Light cleanses. Light has a cleansing power. Scientists have proven that light has a cleansing power. But I also want you to note that light heals. Even the scripture reminds us in Malachi 4 verse 2 that unto you that fear my name shall the Son of righteousness arise.
with healing in His wings. We love healing. We love light because it brings healing into our life. But I also want you to know that light guides us. Light guides us. If we’re on a path and we can’t see where to go, it is light that gives us direction.
The Bible says, thy word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path. I want you to go back to John chapter 1, and I want you to see this theme of light in the Gospel of John. I want you to note that John is really driving home this metaphor in our minds and our hearts to help us understand not only who Christ is, but the salvation that He offers each and every one of us.
Look at verse 4. The Bible says in chapter 1, in Him was life, and the life was the light of men. Referring to Christ, in Christ was life, spiritual life, and that life was the light of men. And light, and the light shineth in darkness, and the darkness comprehended it not.
Jump down to verse 9, or verse 8. He was not that light, referring to John the Baptist, but was sent to bear witness of that light. That was the true light, referring to Christ, which lights every man that comes into the world.
Think about that. The light of Christ lights every person. There is no person with excuse, for we all stand before God, and God has shone His light in our hearts. And you say, what if somebody in the darkest parts of the world, Mike, have never heard of the Gospel?
What if a missionary never makes it to that village or never makes it to that third world country, friends, the light of Christ shines brightly through creation. And the light of Christ shines brightly even in our conscience.
And the Bible teaches us that the light to which we have been given, we are accountable to. And though they may never have had a missionary, and they may have never had a church planted in their community, they still are accountable to respond to the light that they have been given.
Light is a metaphor that God uses for Himself throughout the Scriptures. The Psalmist said this, the Lord is my light and my salvation. Whom shall I fear? The Lord is the strength of my life, and whom shall I be afraid?
When Jesus Christ stood in that special ceremony in the temple and declared that He was the light of the world, there was no doubt in the mind of those Jewish listeners of the astounding claim that Jesus was making about Himself.
For in saying that He is the light of the world, Jesus was declaring that He is the Lord, that He is God. And the Jews understood that because throughout the Scriptures, God is associated with light.
It is a metaphor to describe Him. And Jesus said, I am the light. And He claimed to be the light, not just of a small band of disciples, but rather Jesus said, I am the light of the world. I am the Messiah.
I am the Savior. I am God. He was claiming to be 100% God. And this is what upset the Jewish people. I want us to notice we look at this text, our responsibility. We have a responsibility to follow Jesus.
A responsibility, because as we look at our text, after Christ claims that He is the light, He says to us, He that follows Me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life. Throughout the Scriptures, we see examples of Jesus calling people to follow Him, to be in the light, to have a relationship with Jesus Christ, to know God as your Savior, is to follow Him.
Jesus called Simon and Andrew in Matthew. He said, follow me, and I will make you fishers of men. Jesus called James and John. And the Bible says in verse 22 of Matthew 4, they immediately left their ship.
That means they left their job. They walked away from being a fisherman and their father and followed him. Can you imagine how mad dad was that day? When his boys walked off the job and they followed this guy who claimed to be the Messiah and the Savior of the world, the Bible says that Levi, who was a tax collector, was at the receipt of customs.
And upon hearing Jesus’ words, follow me. In Mark 2 .14, the Bible says that he arose and he followed him. We even look at our own passage in the Gospel of John, chapter 1, And verse 43, the Bible says the day following, Jesus would go forth into Galilee and he finds Philip.
And he said unto him, what? Follow me. You see, my friends, to walk in the light is to follow Christ. This is my responsibility. This is your responsibility. And Jesus extends the invitation to all of us today.
No one is left out of this invitation. Everyone is invited to follow Jesus Christ. Jesus said this in Matthew 16, verse 24. If any man will come after me, let him deny self and take up his cross and follow me.
The third thing I want you to note this morning is to follow Jesus is to walk in the light. Jesus said you will have the light of life. When your life is fully surrendered to Christ and you are following his example and you are following his teaching and you are following his commandments and you are following his leadership in your life, then you will have the light of life in your heart.
It will not elude you. Many people are walking in darkness and do not know the way forward. They do not know how to get out of the pit. They do not know how to get out of the rut that they are in. They do not know how they can take a step forward.
They find themselves paralyzed by anxiety, overwhelmed with problems, relationships that have become destructive and difficult to manage. And as a result, they are walking in darkness. But Jesus said if you follow me.
You will have the light You will have the light of life in you the key for us is that as we follow Christ that our life must be fully yielded and Surrendered to Jesus’s will we must surrender to the will of God for our life His ways are better than our ways his thoughts are higher than our thoughts We all have plans for our life.
We all have dreams for our life Agendas that we want to accomplish but remember this my friends God’s will is supreme to your will and Jesus taught us to pray in Matthew 6 and when he taught us to pray he taught us that we should pray thy will be done on earth as It is in what?
heaven This is the heart of Those who are following Christ It is that we desire God’s will, we obey his word, we look into the Bible for the principles that we live by. The world no longer dictates how we live, darkness no longer influences how we make choices in our life, but rather we’re in God’s word daily, significantly digging in, learning and growing in our fellowship and our walk with Christ,
following him, learning the principles, looking at his example that he has set before us, obeying the commands that he has given us that we might walk in the light. You see, my friends, if you’re not in God’s word on a day -to -day basis, you won’t be in the light.
If you neglect your fellowship with God’s people and you neglect your fellowship with God’s word and God himself, you will walk in darkness. There are many believers who have allowed the light of Christ to become dim in their minds and in their hearts because they have shrunk back from their fellowship with God and their fellowship with God’s word.
And the light of Christ is not beaming brightly in their hearts because of their negligence of being in the word of God. When you come to God’s word, by word is a lamp unto my feet, the scripture says.
It is a light unto my path. God’s word helps me to understand where I’m at. It looks at my feet and says, Mike, this is where you’re at. And you see, a lot of people are living in denial where they’re at.
And as a result of being in denial of where they’re at, they don’t know where to, or how to go forward. You see, if you punch in your GPS Yes, one of the things you’ll note, your navigation equipment that you have, is they wanna know not only where you wanna go, but where are you?
Where are you? Because what good is it to give me directions from Cincinnati to Lancaster, Pennsylvania when I’m in Chambersburg, right? And the point is that I want to know where I’m at spiritually.
And you cannot just assume somebody else’s location in your spiritual life, but you have to find out where I’m at, why? Because there’s three things God wants to do in your life as you walk in the light.
As you walk in the light, God wants to change your heart. He wants to change your life. And the only way that that can happen in your life is for you to have a knowledge and an understanding of where you’re at.
Because you cannot change what you will not acknowledge. So many people are suppressing and denying where they’re at spiritually. And so when you come to grips and you say, where am I? There is nobody that can help you understand where you’re at better than God’s word.
When you come to the light, the light of His word that emanates from the light of Christ into your soul, into your spirit, into your minds, into your heart, into your thoughts, the very essence of who you are, the light reveals where I’m at.
And as it reveals where I’m at, it helps me to know what God wants to change in my life. The second thing that God wants to do as you come to His word and are walking in His light is He wants you to confess in your heart your sins.
You see, the Bible teaches us if we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to cleanse us from all of our unrighteousness. And so I need for confession to be a daily part of my life. We sometimes as believers, we don’t want to be religious, we don’t want to be ritualistic, and we sometimes retreat from confession.
But here’s the beautiful thing, is that confession is to be a part of my life and it is to be every day of my life and it is something that I go straight to God about. There’s no need for a pastor in between, there’s no need for a priest in between, there’s no need for Verizon to be in between, there’s no need for any gossip to be in between, there’s no need for any of that because you have access to the throne of grace through Jesus Christ and He is the mediator between man and God.
So I confess. How do I know what to confess, God’s word? The light reveals what I need to confess. The light reveals where I am from. falling short. The light reveals what God wants to deal with in my heart.
The light reveals what God is pointing out to me that needs to not only change, but it needs to be dealt with in my life. And so what I’m encouraging you to do is to get into the light in God’s word so you can walk in the light.
Now, the third thing that He wants to do is comfort me. As I come to God’s word, the light comforts my soul because the light helps me even in my times of grief, even in my time of hurt. It is the light that brings healing into my heart.
It is the light that sustains me and supports me. It is the light that continues to infuse within me in courage -ments and the courage to be able to keep carrying on for Jesus Christ. So many of God’s people are discouraged.
They have encountered obstacles. They have faced deep valleys in their life, and they have been deeply wounded in their hearts, and therefore, they have come to the brink of just simply quitting and giving up.
But see, my friends, as I follow Christ, as I am following and walking in the light, He gives me the light of life, and part of that light of life is the healing that I need so that I can grow from my hurts.
Now look, when you and I walk through grief in our life, and we walk through hurts in our life, there are several things that we need to accomplish as we go through this. First, that we need to recognize and acknowledge the hurt and the grief in our life.
And it’s nothing bad, it’s nothing wrong. This is how God has designed you. God has designed you to allow you to go through grief, to allow you to go through hurt so that you can heal. I know you’re saying, I think our pastor’s losing it.
But think about it on a physical sense. Sometimes, before, you can get that better knee, Bill. You’re gonna have to get rid of that old knee, and that means you’re gonna have to let them cut you open, and you’re gonna have to go through some hurt, and some therapy, and some physical work to get that better knee.
Have you guys noticed Bill is standing taller and straighter now, got a brand new knee. And he challenged me to a race in the soccer field the other day. I said the only way I would race him is if there was a Mountain Dew at the other end.
But you see, this happens in our spiritual life. we have to make sure that we understand that it’s okay to grieve. It’s okay that we hurt because God is using this as we walk with Him in the light then letting the light minister to us and to bring healing into our life.
But second of all we must learn from our grief and our hurt and our pain. As we walk in the light God is teaching us. He is teaching us valuable lessons. He is teaching us truths that are going to make us stronger believers, that are going to reinforce our integrity and our character for the Lord Jesus Christ.
If you do not believe this, my friend, God bless you. friends, then read the book of James, James chapter 1, read the book of Romans, Romans chapter 5, and the Bible teaches us that as we go through these trials, that He uses these trials to bring about endurance and character, which leads to what in our life?
Hope. There is no hope unless you have the work of God in your heart. And as you have the work of God in your life, He will build hope in your heart. But I also want you to know that as you walk in the light, you must grow from your grief, your hurt, and your pain.
You say, Mike, you just said learn. Listen, a lot of people learn but don’t grow. Are you with me? A lot of people, I say, are educated beyond their obedience. They know a lot. They can quote a lot of verses to me.
And they know a lot of truths, but they are not growing. They don’t grow. What I want to challenge you to do is to grow from your grief, to grow from your hurt, to grow from your pain. And then the final thing I want to say to you relating to this point, not my sermon.
But people count how many times I say final, conclusion, whatever, so I always have to clarify it, sorry. They think, oh, praise God, we’re almost done. But I want you to minister from your grief, your hurt, and your pain.
You see, the height of healing is to serve from the wounds and the scars of your life. And so you’ve walked through life and life has given you some difficult blows. And you have had to endure some deep valleys in your life, but I am challenging you that as you are growing, I want you to serve.
The light of the world, it’s an amazing thought, but you and I are living in dark times, and the only way that light can be brought to this dark world is through Jesus Christ. There is a redeeming light that will truly cast out the darkness of every heart.
And so, when you come to Christ, this light is what Jesus shines on you so that you might be able to know Him and grow in Him. This is what God desires. I hope today that you will embrace the light of the world and follow Jesus Christ.
I hope that you’ve checked out our website, Hopeworthhaving .com. It’s a website where you can learn more about our ministry, and there are resources and materials there that will continue to help you to grow.
Take advantage of signing up for our newsletter by going to our website. and will regularly send out information that will be an encouragement to your faith. This is Pastor Mike Sanders reminding you that in Christ there is hope worth having.