John: Stay Close to the Light
CoaH Somerville member Calvin Chu preaches from John 8:12-59 about Jesus’s discussion with the Pharisees. Discussion points: Jesus used the words “I am” to declare himself to be God, Jesus can illuminate our path when we trust his perfect understanding, apart from Christ we are bound to spiritual slavery.
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Scripture reader: [John 8:12-59] Again, Jesus spoke to them saying I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness but will have the light of life. So the Pharisees said to him, you are bearing witness about yourself. Your testimony is not true. Jesus answered. Even if I do bear witness about myself, my testimony is true for I know where I came from and where I am going. But you do not know where I come from or where I am going. You judge according to the flesh, I judge no one yet. Even if I do judge my judgment is true for it is not I alone who judge but I and the father who sent me in your law. It is written that the testimony of two people is true. I am the one who bears witness about myself. And the father who sent me bears witness about me. They said to him.
Therefore, where is your father? Jesus answered? You know neither me nor my father. If you knew me, you would know my father. Also these words, he spoke in the treasury as he taught in the temple, but no one arrested him. Because his hour had not yet come. So he said to them again, I am going away and you will seek me and you will die in your sin. Where I am going, you cannot come. So the Jews said, will he kill himself? Since he says where I am going, you cannot come. He said to them, you are from below. I am from above. You are of this world. I am not of this world. I told you that you would die in your sins for unless you believe that I am. He, you will die in your sins. So they said to him, who are you? Jesus said to them just what I have been telling you from the beginning, I have much to say about you and much to judge but he who sent me is true and I declare to the world what I have heard from him. They did not understand that he had been speaking to them about the father. So Jesus said to them when you have lifted up the son of man, then you will know that I am he and that I do nothing on my own authority but speak just as the father taught me and he who sent me is with me.
He has not left me alone for. I always do the things that are pleasing to him as he was saying these things, many believed in him. So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed in him. If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples and you will know the truth and the truth will set you free. They answered him. We are offspring of Abraham and have never been enslaved to anyone. How is it that you say you will become free? Jesus answered them.
Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin. The slave does not remain in the house forever, the sun remains forever. So if the sun sets you free, you will be free. Indeed. I know that you are offspring of Abraham. Yet you seek to kill me because my word finds no place in you. I speak of what I have seen with my father and you do what you have heard from your father. They answered him. Abraham is our father. Jesus said to them, if you were Abraham's Children, you would be doing the works Abraham did. But now you seek to kill me. A man who has told you the truth that I heard from God. This is not what Abraham did. You are doing the works your father did. They said to him, we were not born of sexual immorality. We have one father, even God. Jesus said to them. If God were your father, you would love me for I came from God and I am here. I came not of my own accord, but he sent me.
Why do you not understand what I say it is because you cannot bear to hear my word. You are of your father, the devil and your will is to do your father's desires. He was a murderer from the beginning and has nothing to do with the truth. Because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks out of his own character for he is a liar and the father of lies. But because I tell the truth, you do not believe me. Which one of you convicts me of sin. If I tell the truth, why do you not believe me? Whoever is of God hears the words of God. The reason why you do not hear them is that you are not of God.
The Jews answered him. Are we not right in saying that you are a Samaritan and have a demon. Jesus answered, I do not have a demon but I honor my father and you dishonor me yet I do not seek my own glory. There is one who seeks it and he is the judge. Truly, truly, I say to you, if anyone keeps my word, he will never see death. The Jews said to him. Now we know that you have a demon. Abraham died as did the prophets yet you say if one keeps my word, he will never taste death. Are you greater than our father Abraham who died? And the prophets died. Who do you make yourself out to be Jesus answered. If I glorify myself, my glory is nothing. It is my father who glorifies me, of whom you say He is our God. But you have not known Him. I know Him. If I were to say that I do not know Him, I would be a liar like you, but I do know Him and I keep his word. Your father, Abraham rejoiced that he would see my day. He saw it and was glad.
So the Jews said to him, you are not yet 50 years old. And have you seen Abraham Jesus said to them, truly, truly, I say to you before Abraham was I am. So they picked up stones to throw at him. But Jesus hid himself and went out of the temple.
The word of the Lord.
Preacher: I know that some of you may not know me. I know that pastor Fletcher gave me a little bit of intro at the Christmas member meeting. But I'm Calvin, I'm one of the Alice Mark said one of the newest staff folks here. And my family and I, we start coming to coa in September. So we're relatively new. We, I was a pastor at our previous church for about 10 years. And after, you know, serving there for, for about a decade, you know, we sense God's call to, for us to go and move out to find a new home church, a new place for us to, to plant family church roots and, and we found CO O A and happy to talk about all of the reasons that we, we the Lord brought us to CO A. But that's not the point of our message today. But I, I am really excited to share God's word with you. Because I think this passage really gives us something to, to really wrap our minds around.
And, and I think the thing that, that it made me think about is video games. Wait, what are you talking about? Listen for me, like, again, you don't, you guys are all kind of le learning more about me. I really like video games. I grew up playing video games. My family now plays video games. It's like a very, like a big thing for us and, and one thing I really, the types of video games I like playing growing up were RPG games and I, I don't know if you guys play video games but they're role playing games. And one, what's really great about role playing games is that there's these things called save points. Like if you don't play video games, you're just like, oh my gosh, like what is he talking about? But if you play video games, you're like, OK, tell me more. And what's really good about it is that you get to save along the way and So like for instance, if you know that there's gonna be like a big boss fight that's gonna happen soon. You get to save or if you, there's like a decision that you have to make between two options, you're gonna, ok, I'm gonna save here and then I'm gonna, I'm gonna go down one direction and I'm gonna go there and I'll save another save file or if I don't like that one, I'm gonna go back to the original save file, I'm gonna go make that other decision and see where that leads me.
And so for me, like, what's really great about that is, wouldn't life be amazing if we had safe points? Like if we know like a big decisions coming up, like where am I going to go to university? It's like, hm, I can go here, I go here and I say like a little save file here and then go down there and then, oh, I don't like that one. Let's go back here and go there. That would be amazing. But unfortunately, that's not how life works. Actually, life is much more like old school games. Like I'm, I'm a little bit older. So II I don't know if you guys know what like a game boy is.
My family recently started playing game boy, it's like a hand, we got some Game Boy fans. I love it. Um, and we start playing and, and what that's like is like there is no safe points. You go and you try to beat the level, you try to beat the boss and if you don't, you die and that is like, kind of how it feels like in life. You go, oh, I can't undo that. I can't go back to the safe file. That's, that's kind of brutal and, and, and like small things. It doesn't matter if you decided to eat. You know, you chose a blueberry bagel today or sit and raisin bagel that's not gonna affect your life. You don't want to save points for that one, right?
But like, oh, do I take this job or do I take that job? Do I marry this person? Do I marry that person? Do I move to this city? Do we move that all of these things? Those are the ones that feel like, oh, that feels incredibly weighty. And, and the, the reason that we have this feeling is because we want a life that feels meaningful. We want, we want a life that feels satisfying and so much of the things that we've experienced in our lives, especially if you kind of have experienced a good amount of life is, it's not all satisfying.
There's a lot of life that's actually quite dissatisfying. And if we could activate that safe point, we would, but we can't. So then how do we navigate life? Knowing that much of life will be dissatisfying? How do we navigate our world knowing that there are going to be moments that we don't love the outcome. Thankfully, our passage in and John, which are we're continuing with the series and John actually speaks into that. I say there's so much stuff thank you for like I, you know, I appreciate the reader reading it. It's, it's a really great passage. There's so much here. I'm not gonna get to all of it. But honestly, if you reflect on this, you know, in your own personal quiet times, I think you're gonna get a lot from it. But we won't be able to get to it all. And I, I do need to set up a decent amount of context and I'll get to that. But before I do pray for us, because I definitely need the Lord to guide me and for, for us to be prepared to hear his word this morning. So let's pray.
Father, I just thank you for the opportunity to share your word this morning. I thank you for all the people who are listening, who are also participating in this process by listening. I pray for the Holy Spirit to be moving in us, preparing our hearts to receive your word. Not so that it would fall on deaf ears, but that it would create a life change in how we live day to day. That when Monday morning comes, that God, we are starting a new process in how we live for the better for how you want us to live in God. We pray that what we read in John today, we read in John today, what we'll look at today, we create a, a heart change, a life change and God that we can look back and think back to the moment where we heard from your spirit this morning. And thank you because you are a God who was with us and pray all this in Jesus name. Amen.
So this whole passage hinges upon our understanding of verse 12, which is again, Jesus spoke to them saying I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness but will have the light of life. And our modern understanding, it's actually kind of hard to understand what Jesus means when he talks about himself as the light of life. This happens. Actually, all the time, words remain the same, but the connotations will change. So imagine, I'm I go back in time. You're coming with me. We'll go back in time 100 years and I'm walking in a crowd and I shout to everyone, I'm the go they'd be like excuse me, sir, you look like a man to me. Like what do you, what, what does that mean? But, but in, in 2024 when I say I'm the goat, but OK, he's the greatest of all time. I don't know what he's feeling he's claiming to be the greatest of all time about, but he's not saying that he is a horned animal like for like an animal, you know, and say, we, we are still back in time.
We're gonna go watch a baseball game. We're rooting for, you know, I'm rooting for my team and they get, they get a home run and I go, let's go. People are looking at me like, why, who is this man? And why is he so eager to leave? Like what is happening here? But now in 2024 we understand like I'm just, that's my declaration of excitement that something good has happened, right? So, so the words have that. And so here when Jesus says he's the light of the world, it's kind of like that. So, so for us, we just think, oh, he's gonna do good things. He's gonna like be bright and like, you know, like, like it's gonna be happy around him. That's kind of what we'll think. But actually when he's saying this, he's actually declaring himself to be the Messiah to be the anointed one, to be the savior. He, he's saying he and eventually he, he'll, he'll clarify even more. He's actually gonna say he's God.
And we see this in, in passage, in, in the scripture that would have been available to people in jesus' time. So what we say is Psalm 27 the Lord is my light and my salvation. Whom shall I fear? The Lord is a stronghold of my life, of whom shall I be afraid? Right? The Lord is my light, my salvation. So when Jesus says, I am the light of the world, he's declaring that Psalm one ti 1 19 105, your word is the lamp to my feet and a light to my path again, he's, he's equating himself with these things. And after he declares himself as the light of the world as if that's not enough. In verses 24 and 28 of the passage we read this morning, he amplifies it. He, he really doubles down on this and he says, I told you that you would die in your sins for unless you believe that I am. He, you will die in your sins.
And then in verse 28 so Jesus said to them, when you have lifted the son of man, then you will know that I am he and that I do nothing on my own authority but speak just as a father taught me. And so when he says that I am, he, that phrase is like, OK, like I'm, I'm, I'm the guy, I'm him. Like again, that's another modern thing. But when they heard it, when they would have heard that they would go, oh, he's referring to himself as God Moses. Famously, that phrase I am comes from Exodus 314 where God said to Moses, I am who I am and he said, say to this, this to the people of Israel, I am has sent me to you. But actually what this that I am, he is probably from Isaiah 43:10 where it says you are my witnesses declares the Lord and my servant whom I have chosen that you may know and believe me and understand that I am. He before me. No, God was formed nor shall there be any after me. So he is clearly declaring that He is God. He is the messiah. He is the anointed one. He is the savior. He is God himself.
And Jesus basically confirms this at the end of the passage. Your father Abraham rejoiced that he would see my day. He s saw it and was glad. So the Jews said to him, you are not yet 50 years old. And have you seen Abraham? Jesus said to them? Truly, truly, I say to you before Abraham was I am. So they picked up stones to throw at him, but Jesus hid himself and went out of the temple. So again, some context, you know, when it says the Jews, it's again, it's not all Jews, it's, it's, it's the specifically the Jewish leaders, the Pharisees in this instance. So just so that, that's, that's 100% clear Jesus himself was Jewish. So it's not like he's saying all Jews was saying the Jewish leaders, they got upset.
They were prepared to kill Him because to declare yourself to be God, to be equal with God was a crime that deserved capital punishment in their society. So for a man, a a non God entity to claim to be God, they said, wow, you were blasphemy against God, you deserve desire, which is why they wanted to kill him. So it was very, very clear that he Jesus himself says I am the messiah, I'm the savior, I am God. And the Pharisees understand that they get that message. So why am I going through all of this context other than like maybe you're gonna win in bible trivia this week or whatever. it, it what matters is because when we say when Jesus is declaring himself as God, we have to understand that he's saying those things, whatever He's about to say what he was saying in this passage, he's doing it with authority, the authority of someone who is God. So he's not just saying he's not just a guy saying things, he's God declaring things to his people to his creation.
And so what's he doing here? He does two things. Actually, he does. The first thing he does is he sets up a problem for, for the, the, the Pharisees who are listening to him and the people who are hearing this interaction. But since God gives us his word too, he's also setting a problem for us. And then he also goes and he gives a solution for everyone that's hearing too. And so that's also again, a solution for us. And so what's the problem here? Right? The problem is sin and you go, OK, here we go. It's the church mode. I, I can now turn my brain off because I know I know this part of the story. But actually, I think it's really important for us to understand some, some how we can feel what is happening here.
In verse 24 he says that I told you that you will die. I'm sorry, let me jump back to verse 12 1st where it says I, he says, I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness but will have the light of life. And then in verse 24 he says, I told you that you will die in your sins for unless you believe that I am he, you will die in your sins. And so what he's saying is that if you continue to walk in this darkness, you will die in that darkness is like sin. And if you continue to be there, you will die. And so for us, like in our, in our modern context, like I don't think we really understand what darkness is like.
If you live in Somerville, like you probably haven't seen a lot of stars in a while. You know what I'm saying? Because there's so much light pollution you, we like, and we're never really far away from a light source. Like we all have a flashlight, like right here. And so we don't know what total darkness. But you have to remember in, in jesus' time, there was none of that. They might have had torches, they might have had lamps, but that had a limited resource. They only had so much oil to burn so that they could see. And so going out away from like society, away from like a, a city away from an established community into like the wilderness, they would not have done that at night. Right. Because out there we don't know what's out there. We don't know what animals are out there. We don't know what, what, there's a pit that I can walk into. We don't know what that feels like.
The closest that I've ever come is uh, so this last weekend for the past 10 years, like I told you that I was a pastor. I ran a conference every single year. Um, and this is the close I've done is I, I, I, I would drive up to, to like pretty far up New Hampshire Alton, New Hampshire. If you know Alton and every single year without fail, I'm driving up, it takes about an hour and a half, two hours depending on the traffic. And I'm driving up and without fail, I, I drive right past the turn for, for the campsite like, every year I live the same. I've like multiple streets of this campsite for, for like a decade and ask my wife ask anyone who's ever driven. I always miss it. Like, oh, and so, and it's because it's on a rural road, there's no street lights. It's incredibly dark. It's so dark that there were some years in my younger days when I didn't have Children. Maybe I did do it once with my kids. I would turn off the headlights just to see what it feels like. And it's like utter darkness.
And like when you, when you like engage utter darkness, especially when you're in like a one ton like block of metal and glass, you slow down like instinctively, you slow down like you don't want to go faster, you don't want to go further and you, you just stop or very quickly. I don't feel comfortable. I turn my lights back on and that's the type of darkness that jesus' people felt by all the time and what we don't really understand because we don't, we're not, we don't have that type of darkness a lot. And so if that's the context of, that's kind of how we feel and we can understand that then that it's, it's, we, we have to understand, then we can better understand that when Jesus tells us that he is the light of the world that if you follow him, you will not be in that darkness, but you have the light of life, then you understand, it's like being out in the wilderness, being with no vision of anything, you can hear coyotes howling, you can see animal rustling.
And then Jesus saying he comes and he lights the area so that you can see clearly. And so Jesus is pointing this out to the Pharisees. He's saying that their world view is wrong. He's saying you are walking in darkness and for I can read all the verses. But if you, we heard it already, he goes through all of those verses, basically calling them out saying, hey, look, you are wrong. You say you're this, but I am this verse, I'll read some of them. 14. Jesus said, I know where I came from and where I am going. You do not know where, where you you do know where I know where I come from, where I am going. You judge according to verse 15, you judge according to the flesh. I judge no one. verse 19 J, Jesus answered, you know, neither me nor my father. If you knew me, you would know my father also.
Verse 21. He said uh uh to them again, I am going away and you will seek me and you will die in your sins where I am going, you cannot come. Verse 23. He said, you are from below. I am from above. You are of this world, I am not of this world. So they said to him, who are you? Jesus said to them just what I've been telling you from the beginning. I have much to say about you and much to judge Jesus is telling them I am the savior. I am God. And I'm telling you, you're on the wrong path. You are still living in darkness. You do not see me because you are stuck in that darkness.
He was telling that you need to recognize that you are walking in the darkness and if you continue to walk in that they will die in their sins. And Jesus is telling us the same is true. Frost. Imagine you see me driving to that same retreat center. I feel confident right in my navigation because I got my Apple Vision Pro on and I'm driving which you should not do, don't do that. This is, this is a sermon illustration. So this is kids, do not try this at home sort of thing. And I go, it's good. It's called the Vision Pro. So I must have, I have, I have my regular vision, but now I have provision on. So it's better than my regular vision. I'm good. Like I don't need to worry. Google Maps tells me to turn left here like I, I'm, I'm fine. You're, you're seeing me and you're like, Calvin like you stop you, you, you are dangerous. And I, I have this confidence thinking that I'm driving safely. But the truth is that I'm in utter darkness, my headlights are off is dangerous. You would call me, you say, hey, look, you need to stop right now. You think you can see the road but you can't, that, that, that, that 3d image that your headset is telling you is, is the way, is not actually the way.
And similarly, Jesus tells us this the same thing for us. We go about our lives unaware of the pervasive darkness of sin that surrounds us. We all enter this world engulfed by the same darkness of sin. That's a fundamental problem that we all face. Jesus emphasizes that we need to recognize the spiritual darkness to understand that we are driving in the dark even though we think we have vision and he tells us to stop, stop moving forward, stop being driven by what you think is the way take off the headset. See the darkness that you are in and call out for the light, find the light, seek the light.
And so when in verse 12, Jesus says that I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness but will have the light of life. It is an invitation for him to illuminate our path so that we can move forward to know where the pitfalls are, to know where the animals are, to know where the dangers are. To know what are the things that are going to kill us out there. And so this might feel like a message for like people who don't know Jesus. And remember this many people or people watching online, I'm sure someone here is wondering about who Jesus is. And absolutely, this is a message that is telling us to believe in Jesus, understand, believe in Him, that he is who he says he is, that he is the savior, he is the messiah. He is God. He is the Lord. Absolutely.
But this is also for those who do not who do believe, who haven't gone to church for a long time, who have maybe grew up in the church. I've been following Jesus for a long time because believing in Jesus as the one who died for our sins isn't just about securing a future in heaven, which very often we can have a overly simplistic view of what the gospel is, but it's about experiencing true freedom and fulfillment here. And now in this life, Jesus says this himself verses 31 to 36. So Jesus said to the Jews who believed Him, if you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples and you will know the truth and the truth will set you free.
They answered him. We are offspring of Abraham and have never been enslaved to anyone. How is that? You say you will become free? Jesus answered them truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who practices sin is a slave to sin. The slave does not remain in the house forever, the sun remains forever. So if the sun sets you free, you will be free. Indeed. And freedom is like one of those other things that are like kind of confusing for us in our modern context. Like for a lot of us, we think freedom means we can do whatever we want. Like, oh, if I'm free, I, I can, I'm totally unrestricted. But no, actually what what it means free here is that it's not that we have free will, right? Free. We, the fact that we can choose to send shows that we have free will.
So it's not that we can, we already have that whether we follow Jesus or not. But what this is is saying that slavery to sin means that no matter what choices we make apart from Christ, we will be bound to a state of dissatisfaction will be bound to spiritual bondage. And so no matter what we do, the end result is broken people all over the world. Many of us in this right here in this room, even even me, we chase after material possessions, success relationships, hoping to find fulfillment in these things. Only to discover that these pursuits leave us feeling hollow and unfulfilled.
One commentary I read said, true, freedom is not the liberty to do anything we please, but the liberty to do what we ought. And that is genuine liberty because doing what we ought now pleases us. So when Jesus speaks of us being set free, he isn't advocating for unrestrained autonomy. Rather. He's saying that we can be free from equating, having comfort and power and social standing with sinless, with a good life. You see, we can disconnect those things. It means that we can be free from looking at our jobs, our bank accounts, our homes, our kids, our education, our social media presence and wondering if I'm living a good life. He's saying that those are not measures of whether we're living rightly or not anymore. We are free from that. We are free from worrying if we have enough.
This passage shows us that our standing in this world means very little as far as it stands before our standing before God to know the freedom that Jesus offers us as a pathway to live a life that satisfies because we are doing what God wants because He designed and because he designed the world, the end result for us is true satisfaction. True freedom isn't found in the pursuit of self gratification, but is aligning our lives with God's will. So how does this change our lives? It changed our lives because it's, it's a reminder for us to stay close to the light. The darkness is the absence of light, right? And so darkness is something that's still here, something that we still experience. And so the only way to get rid of darkness is to flood it with light.
And Jesus says, I've come, I died for you, for your sins so that I could shine light on your world. And so we stay close to them until he comes back again and just shines light on everything and all darkness is lifted away, all pain is lifted away, all mourning, all, all all hurt is gone. We stay close to the light and, and, and when our present circumstances seem murky and uncertain, we stay close for a light when we feel lost or stuck and don't know what to do in life. We stay close to the light.
When you feel the weight of your failure, I don't want to feel the weight of my failure or we feel the failure of other people. We stay close to the light and when we're reminded of the weight of what's waiting for us back home or back at work or in the recesses of our mind, you stay close to the line and then that sounds great. Stay close to the light. Sounds like super like Christian me sort of thing. Like what does that actually mean?
It kind of means a lot of different things and I don't want to kind of like try to hit every single one of them. But I'd say for you this week, as you reflect on your situation, the darkness that you're in how close you are to the light. I would say, ask God God, what do you want me to do? For some of us? It's gonna be, yeah, it's gonna be I'm gonna, I'm gonna get back to reading his word because that's how I learned about what he's telling me about my life. But for some of us it's a oh I need to, I need to surround myself with people who will remind me to stay close to the life. So for some of us, it's to say I need to step away from the darkness that I've been in, that I've been choosing to put myself into.
But we know that when we stay close to the light and when we know who the light is and what it says about us and what it says about our world, then we're in a good place. We stay close to the light when we ask Jesus to shine into the darkness that surrounds us. And I hope that you guys will reflect in this passage. There's so much here. I, you know, honestly, I, when I was talking with Fletcher, he was like, he's like, there's a lot here. You don't go through all of it. I'm like, but it's so good. There's so much here because there's so much life here. And it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a small chunk of the whole Bible, but so much of it is so poignant that reminds us of how we can live a satisfying hopeful, joy filled life. So ultimately, I want to remember that our future is bound to his.
Even when we face difficulties right now, we can take comfort in knowing that in the life to come. For those who follow him, they will not walk in darkness, they will not walk in eternal darkness. They will not walk in internal separation. But as we follow him, as we follow the light, we will be with Him forever and ever. And we can anchor our hope to that. Even if that's the last thing that we have, if it feels like the whole world around us is falling apart, we can always know that He is the light. He is our hope and He will guide us safely through the darkness and any darkness that we encounter. I'm gonna pray and then Mark's gonna lead to me.
Father God. I just thank you for giving us the chance to reflect on your word. There is a lot here and God, I, I praise you for all the people who are not feeling that darkness who will feel very, can feel the, the warm glow of being close to you. God II, I thank you for all those who are there. And God, I pray that they will continue persisting there. But God, I pray for those who don't feel that who feel the coldness of being distant from that source from you. And God, I pray for those who aren't they they didn't even choose to be there. But life circumstances, the people around them, maybe whether intentionally or unintentionally are going to put them in a space.
And God, I pray that you would remind them this moment, this week, this month that you are the light, you are the savior, you come and you bring us, you call us to draw close to you. And God, I pray for those who are, are not sure about who you are. They're wondering who you are or maybe they felt like they were hurt by you or by the church and they're only stumbling this online by action or they're here because someone made them come that I pray that they would try to find the warmth, the light that can help them navigate this, that they would recognize that you died to give us navigation through the darkness and that they would see you as their Lord and their savior and God. I just pray that as we leave here, that you will protect us in the darkness and pray all this in Jesus name. Amen.