Jesus the Light: Truth and Understanding from the Father

Well, good morning. Open your Bibles to John chapter 8, please. The Gospel of John, chapter 8. Let me read the text and we'll go to our Lord in prayer. John chapter 8, we'll start in verse 12. 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 pharisee said to him you are bearing witness about yourself your testimony is not true and 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 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 and 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 this hour had not yet come let us pray well father will you will you help us this morning this moment now will you help us to be edified by your word and would you help us to have ears to hear and a heart to receive the truth that is found in your word it's the truth that the church has looked at for thousands of years. It's the truth that the Spirit has applied to the saints' hearts and have sanctified and grown in holiness by it. It's this same truth, timeless, that you have given to us as an act of kindness and love to us.

So would you help us this morning, this Lord's Day morning, to receive it as your truth and has the power with the Spirit working in it to change us. God in heaven, we are so plagued and weighed down by sin. Even as we have been found righteous in Christ, we know that there's the flesh that hangs on. Lord, it's such a burden, but we know that Christ calls on us to come to him and he makes our burden light.

So help us, Lord, to rely upon Christ now as we gather together around your word. I pray that you would help me to proclaim your truth, help me to do it in a way that honors you and glorifies you, and that is full of truth. So that, Lord, together we can grow in the likeness of Christ and reveal Christ to the world around us. Thank you for this mission.

Thank you for this Christ. Thank you for the light. May we rejoice in that light now together as your people. In Jesus' name, amen. Well, I've been interested in the Carmelo Anthony trial and everything that's been going on with him. At first I thought it was a basketball player that played back then, but I got to know more about the details of it.

And I'm not going to get into that. It's not the point here. But anytime I get into a trial, it's always fascinating for me to look at the response of the person that is facing the judge, facing the jury with the results of the verdict when it comes in and everything. It's always fascinating to see if it's a result of guilty, the response, and not guilty, the response.

And it got me thinking, just considering that and watching some videos on that, it got me thinking of here we are in John chapter 8, and here Jesus is in the middle of this feast, and he's proclaiming these very big things about himself, as we talked about. He has said already that he is the water of life. And now we see in verse 12, he declares himself to be another great claim.

He declares himself to be the light of the world. And it's fascinating if you look at verse 20 again real quick, in chapter 8, verse 20, he says these things in the treasury as he taught in the temple. And one of the big things about that is the treasury was right around the same area where the Sadducees, the Sanhedrin, the Pharisees got together to make judgments.

And so you can imagine, I can imagine them in their meeting, and they're trying to come up with decisions and everything, and all of a sudden they hear this Jesus making these wild claims about who he is. And what they do is they respond to these wild claims. We talk about the conflict that's involved here, that Jesus says who he is and what he provides, and then there's this conflict with the religious leaders who challenge him with these claims.

And now where we are now in 12 and moving on to 11 and the following, or I'm sorry, to 13 and the following, we have a challenge from the religious leaders, from the Pharisees, making a judgment call saying that what you're saying is not true. And what the Pharisees are used to, whenever they challenge someone and they judge someone, they are used to the person folding. They are used to, with all the clout and all the authority, them folding under pressure.

But what we see from Jesus here is he uses the judgment of the Pharisees who declares that his witness is false and he uses it as a teaching opportunity to teach how he truly is the light that he just claimed to be I think it amazing that he makes the claim and then he uses the enemy of his that says that you're wrong as a talking point to then teach on the claim that he just made. It's hard enough to come up with with teaching major teaching points whenever you're teaching to be nice and orderly and clean. Jesus uses the his enemies and their accusations as a talking point to go and teach the claim that he just made.

And this is what we're going to see here, is that Jesus, they respond to Jesus in conflict to this claim, and Jesus is going to turn everything on its head and says, you're not the judge, I am the judge, and you need to submit. And that's exactly what he's going to say to us this morning, and we'll see how we oftentimes want to become the judge. We oftentimes want to be the Pharisees and judge Jesus and make him submit to us.

And Jesus says the same thing to us. You're not the judge. I am. And you need to submit in order to have the light of life that I promise to all those who look to me. And so let's look at that together this morning. Again, let's remember the claim that he made in verse 12 of chapter 8.

He says, 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 I want you to remember three major things from that because it's going to color the rest of this, most of this chapter as he teaches on these three main things that he claims here. And what these three things I want you to remember is that he's saying that he is the son of God.

He is truly God. I am, remember, I am the light of the world. And so I want you to remember the first thing is he is claiming to be truly God. And then we have to remember what light means. What does it mean? What is light in this context?

Well, light means both illumination and it means warmth. You think of light, you think of illumination, and you think of warmth, as we talked about last week. And illumination just, it reveals. You know, you understand. And so when Jesus says, I am the light, he is the illumination. he is the you can know you can understand and the light also is warmth of moral or righteous living and so Jesus is both the light that is he gives understanding and he gives warmth of righteous living so he is God he is illumination and he is the warmth he gives the moral or the righteous living and these three things are going to color their next several verses we're going to see those themes play out as he teaches in light of the conflict that the pharisees bring to him because of this claim we're all in the same same same boat here and so what is that conflict what is that judgment that they make to jesus what do they say in light of this claim well in verse 13 they say so the pharisees said to him you are bearing witness about yourself your testimony is not true.

That's our judgment, right? There's two things we need to see in this. The first one is the explicit thing, and that is they're saying basically this huge statement that you made, this witness that you made to yourself, this lofty claim, it's only one witness yourself, and so therefore not true. And so the explicit thing is that your testimony doesn't matter, doesn't hold up in the court of law, according to the law of Moses, because it's just you who's bearing testimony to it.

And they're referring to the law of Moses, and it's in a few different areas, but one place is Deuteronomy 17.6, on the evidence of two witnesses or three witnesses, the one who is to die shall be put to death. A person shall not be put to death on the evidence of one witness. And so they're referring to that in the law of Moses as Pharisees, as those who are in authority, and they are declaring that your witness does not count because it's a witness that is alone. and so the explicit thing they're saying is your witness doesn't count but there's an implicit thing going on here and that is they are declaring themselves to be judge over Jesus they are declaring themselves implicitly by saying we are determining that your testimony doesn't count they are judging themselves they're declaring them to be judges over Jesus now just think of the irony for that for a moment.

Jesus is the word made flesh, and they are trying to say that they're judges over Jesus. The irony is incredible. And the fact that Jesus just doesn't just wreck them all is amazing grace abounding. But the fact is, is they are setting themselves implicitly as judge over Jesus. And so this is the challenge. We have these religious leaders who are seemingly judges over Christ and they're saying that your testimony does not count according to the law of Moses.

And this kind of mentality of thinking we could be a judge over Jesus runs wild everywhere. I hear unbelievers, I've heard it several times, along the same lines of, I've heard on believers say, when I die and see God, he'll have some explaining to do to me, right? That kind of mentality that I'm the judge when I face God, he's going to have to explain some things to me.

And believers, we do it too. Each complaint, each murmuring, as we talk about, because that's, I think I talk about murmuring a lot, because I got to tell myself, that's the beginning of a lot, a whole lot of sins. And each murmuring, each complaint within our heart is trying to set yourself as judge over Christ, over God. And this is what the Pharisees are doing here.

And so Jesus answers this judgment from the Pharisees, this complaint or this conflict from the Pharisees, and he uses it as a teaching tool to explain how he further is light to the world. And so look at what he says in verse 14. Jesus answered, even if I do bear witness about myself So what he doing here is he saying okay I grant to you that I bearing witness about myself right I grant to you your original complaint right that you bearing witness about yourself therefore your testimony doesn matter right judging it over him And so he going to grant that for a second for the sake of argument, for the sake of teaching something.

And then he's going to return back to this in a few verses and say, but I'm not bearing witness to myself, there's someone who bears witness with me. But for now, he is granting the argument that he's bearing witness to himself. He says, even look at again in verse 14, even if I do bear witness about myself, he says, my testimony is true for I know where I came from and where I am going.

He says, he says, even if I do bear witness about myself, my testimony is true. And he says, the reason why it's true is because I know where I come from and where I'm going. Notice the word know there. I know. If you remember what he says with his claim, light is knowledge, is knowing. And he says, I can bear witness about myself because I know.

I am in the light. I am light. I know everything. I am light itself. Notice he says, I know where I came from and where I'm going. And the question is, where did he come from?

Where is he going? Well, he came from the Father and he's returning to the Father. So what Jesus is saying is, even if I was bearing witness about myself, I can do that because I know the Father. And as we talked about, to be light, the light, means that you are truly God. That's where light comes from. And so Jesus is saying, I came from the Father as God's Son.

I'm going back to the Father as God's Son. Therefore, I can bear witness about myself. I know. he knows where he comes from and where he goes and more importantly who he comes from and who he's going to that is his father jesus as the son of god knows the father and you see this is what qualifies him to be the proper judge to make such claim he knows he knows the father he's of the light he knows but then he says something to then flip the tables on those who are judging him when he says, but you do not know, look at verse 14, where I come from or where I'm going.

You see, now he's flipping it. This is again where they think they're judge over him. And now Jesus is all of a sudden turning it and saying, you do not know. I am the light. And he's saying, you are not the light because you do not know. He says, you do not know where I come from or where I'm going.

The Pharisees do not know Jesus. They don't know where he came from. They don't know where he's going. And what he's saying is this, you do not know the Father as I know the Father. And if they do not know the Father, how can they be proper judges to say his testimony is false? How can they be a proper judge over Jesus if they don't know the Father who is the light?

And so Jesus is making a very important point at this point. You're judging me. You don't know. You're not of the light. You are ignorant. You cannot be the judge over me.

But I know the Father. I know I am of the light. And here's the fascinating point that we made before in the Gospel of John, and we'll make again because it's a common theme, is that the Pharisees knew the Scriptures. In fact, they were using the Scriptures to say your testimony is wrong. But Jesus is saying, you know the Scriptures, but you don't know the Father.

Therefore, you're no judge at all. We can know the scriptures and yet not know the Father and make all sorts of wildly false judgment calls. This is what Jesus is saying to the Pharisees. You know the scriptures, but you do not know the Father. With our children, we want to make sure that when they leave our homes, they are masters of the scriptures. I think it's important that when you have kids you raise them up let them train them up in the things that they like and let them be masters of those things before they leave your home right whatever that might be they like a certain sport they like music let them be masters of that but don't do that at the expense of not making them masters of scriptures I do not understand how Christians can spend 18 years with their child in their home and not have them leave mastering the scriptures you are wasting time if you're not doing that let them master other things that's good and great, but don't do that at the expense of not mastering scriptures.

And one of the things that we say often to our children as we catechize them, as we have a memorized scriptures, is we say that you can know the scriptures, but you cannot know the Father. You can know the scriptures abundantly well, like the Pharisees, and memorize it, but have no understanding, not know the Father. And this is what Jesus is saying here to the Pharisees.

You know the scriptures potentially, or you know the scriptures, but you do not know where I come from, where I'm going. You do not know the Father. Jesus is the proper judge since he knows the Father. The Pharisees are not proper judges since they do not know the Father, despite their knowledge of his word. and so what does their faulty judgment without knowing the father look like what does it look like to not know the father and have faulty judgment we'll look at what he says in verse 15 he says you judge according to the flesh you want to know what it looks like to not know the father and make judgment calls as you judge according to the flesh that's what he's telling the pharisees again who made an accusation and he's saying who are you to judge you don't know the father and your judgment is according to the flesh.

You're in no position to judge my claim at all. What does it mean to judge according to the flesh? What does it mean that the Pharisees do it? Anyone who doesn't know the Father will do this. They'll judge according to the flesh. What does that mean?

Well, the first thing we should say about it is it's not a sinful thing initially. So to judge according to the flesh is simply limited knowledge It limited understanding We are people of the flesh and we limited and we don we don know everything we don we not the light we don know everything we limited um and so the first aspect of judging according to the flesh which isn't necessarily sinful is that you judge or is that you are limited in your understanding but then the second aspect of judging according to the flesh is that in that limitation you rely upon yourself your sinful flesh to make judgments right so the initial is you don't know everything you're limited as a fleshly creature and then the sinful part comes into judging according to flesh is that then you rely upon yourself your desires your fleshly desires your own glory in order to make judgment calls and Jesus has both in mind when he tells the pharisees you judge according to the flesh. You're limited.

You're not I am. You're not the son of God. You're not me. And you then rely upon yourself despite that to make judgment calls. You know, Adam and Eve had limited knowledge about the fruit, and that was okay. God didn't create them to be gods to know everything.

But the problem came that whenever they are tempted to do something with the fruit, they relied upon their own desires to make a judgment call. That's the error. And so when Jesus says, we should feel the weight of our limited understanding and immediately reach out to the light for understanding, like we said last week, like a vine plant searching for the sun.

We should feel the weight of our limited understanding. And when we make judgment calls, we should long for, yearn for the truth, the light that comes to us to make proper judgment calls. And to judge according to the flesh is to have that limited knowledge and yet to rely upon yourself to make judgment calls anyways. So Jesus says, you judge according to the flesh.

You are no good judge at all. How do we know if we are judging according to the flesh? How do we know? Because again, we got to be careful that we don't just look at this story and say, stinking Pharisees, you guys are goofballs, and then just move on with our day. We need to see ourselves in the Pharisees. And the fact is, we might not be judges like in the Sanhedrin, but we make judgments all the time.

How do we know when, like the Pharisees, we are judging according to the flesh? well, when our first thought on something, whatever that might be, is not outward, then we can be assured that we are judging according to the flesh. When we are considering something and we don't immediately think of, I need outside understanding in order to understand this rightly, we can know that we are judging according to the flesh. Again, we should be like vines reaching for the sun, in which when we're trying to make sense of something, we need to think outwardly, not inwardly.

We can know that we're judging according to the flesh, that when our judging, when our understanding of something, when we make judgment calls, when our judging never comes with repentance, we can be assured that we are judging according to the flesh. If you make judgment calls after judgment calls after judgment calls, which we all do, and it never comes with, oops, got that one wrong. It never comes with a repentance of, yep, I was mistaken there.

If it's always just, I'm always right, I never repent, it's just you can be sure that your judgment is centered in your own flesh of what feels right, and that's what is driving you. You can be sure that your motivation and judging is probably connected with the glory of your own flesh and not the Father's glory. I have a feeling that you didn't hear the Pharisees repent of their understanding too often.

So the Pharisees here in our text were quick to judge the testimony of Jesus to not be valid when their motivation for judgment was in the flesh and not the Father. And what does Jesus say in light of his own judgment? He says in verse 15, he says, me on the other hand I judge no one he says you judge according to the flesh I judge no one and probably what he means by that is not like he never judges anyone so much as it means that I do not judge in that way I judge no one according to the flesh because he's going to say later on we'll cover it next time we cover John here this this text look at verse 20 8 nope 26 sorry 26 he says I have much to say about you and much to judge but he who sent me is true and I declare I declare to the world and so I don't think Jesus here is saying I don't judge anyone ever never do it but I think what he's saying is I don't judge anyone in that way you judge wrongly according to the flesh I don't judge people that way in fact he goes on to say in verse 16 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 so again notice what he's saying he's saying that the judgment is true because it comes forth from the father he is god's son coming forth from the father therefore it is proper judgment not according to the flesh but connected with divinity and this is what jesus has said all along i am the light i am the son of god i am truth i am understanding i know it all because i am the son and it comes directly as the son from the father and again as opposed to that he's saying and you judge according to the flesh now with a heart of the argument answered, right?

Because notice, again, the explicit thing said on the outside is, hey, your testimony is just alone, therefore it's not true. Jesus got straight to the heart of it and says, yeah, your judgment is worthless because it's according to the flesh. And now connected with, and I'm from the Father and I judge rightly, he's going to then go back to the statement that they made and then answer that as well.

So he's going to answer the explicit statement while he just answered the implicit get into the heart statement of, you are no judge at all. And now that I said that, let me get back to what you said. And so he says in verse 17 and 18, and your law is written that the testimony of two people is true. And he says, I am the one who bears witness about myself and the father who sent me bears witness about me.

So he acknowledges in verse 17, answering their initial issue they had in verse, you remember in verse 13, the Pharisee said to him, you are bearing witness about yourself. your testimony is not true and so he says in verse 17 answering that in your law is written that the testimony of two people is true so again he's acknowledging the truthful statement what they said you do need more than one testimony in order to make sure something is true the reason why he says your law there in verse 17 is he's probably just simply saying the law that you know so well the law that you're supposed to be master of teacher of that law right there even though you're not a good judge. He says, in that law, it says that you need more than one testimony. And then he says, okay, verse 18, I am the one who bears witness about myself.

Remember, he knows. And he says, and the father who sent me bears witness about me as well. There, there's your two witnesses. And so Jesus, again, is saying, I am the son of God. The father bears witness as well. So therefore, what I say holds weight.

I am the proper judge. I am the light. and then how the religious leaders respond to this just kind of buries them further into their grave and jesus uses it accordingly look at verse 19 they said to him therefore where is your father where is your father and jesus answered them you know neither me nor my father you see what he's saying there? It's the same statement over and over again.

You are not a judge. You don't know the Father. You don't know me, and you don't know the Father. You know the scriptures, but you don't know him. Therefore, you have no credibility as you're trying to say that I don't have credibility. He says, you don't know where I come from and where I'm going, and he makes the statement more explicit when he says, you do not know the Father.

In fact, he even takes it a step further, though in the same verse. He not only says you don't know the Father but he says that in order to know the Father you need to know me. He says in verse 19 if you knew me you would know my Father also So not only is Jesus saying you are bad judges since you do not know you do not judge according to the light of the Father but you cannot know the light of the Father if you do not know me.

In order to know the Father, one must know the Son. So there's a major reversal here on the Pharisees. And it's seen in the fact that they try to make a judgment call on him and saying, you cannot make this statement. And he says, you cannot make the judgment on that statement unless if you know me first because in order to know and to judge you need to have the father and you cannot have and know the father unless you know me so it's a major just like jesus isn't being judged here jesus is the judge and he's saying since you don't know me you don't know the father and you have no right to make any kind of claim at all about the faultiness of my claim so instead of looking to judge me jesus is saying you should be looking to bow down to me in order to judge rightly and know the father so i mean since we are not the light ourselves since the pharisees weren't the light themselves they were relying upon something else and since in sin we're caught in darkness our first step of being in the light is to submit to the one the father has made to be light for us not to cast judgment on him and that's what the heart of what's being said by jesus you are not to judge me you are to submit to me because i'm your only ability to know the father and judge rightly we are to submit not to judge philippians 2 5 through 11 Paul says, earth and under the earth and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father.

Jesus is saying submit to me as the true light instead of trying to cast judgment, faulty judgment on me instead. And so as we conclude here, we return to the original claim of Jesus in verse 12. 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 we see Jesus telling the Pharisees that he is the Son of God, the I Am, the light, not to be judged, but to be submitted to as the judge.

And the only way they can have the light of understanding or judge rightly is to start with Jesus being true God who came to provide this light Now we may not be the Pharisees who told Jesus his witness is not lawful in the temple as he proclaimed it and so set ourselves as judges over the word made flesh, but we all make countless judgments through our life, some big, some small, many in between. Your only hope in making proper judgments in this life is to first and foremost submit yourself to Christ for his glory and not to try to put yourself in judgment over Christ. You have no ability of yourself to make proper judgments without Christ, who is the Son of God, who gives you the ability to make proper judgment calls.

And it is so easy for us to think that my first step needs to be to put him at the bar. And instead, what Jesus is teaching us here is that our first step is to submit to him as judge and the light. The answer is to put your trust in the one that was sent to be your light. Is your life marked by reaching out to the son of light and life? or is your life marked by autonomy?

Can you say, as you look at the totality of your life, can you put equals seeking Christ? Or do you instead, can you put equals, whatever seems right in my own eyes? That's what I'll do. The lie of Satan is to say that you have light of yourself. But the truth of the matter is it's only darkness. So the first step of anything that makes sense is for you to say Christ is Lord.

He is the light that was given for me if I repent and believe and he can light the path of my way. We are in darkness. Since we are in darkness, it can be the hardest thing. The first step of acknowledging Christ, who he is, what he's done, the light given for us, the hardest thing to do is to submit to that. It's like when you get up, when you sleep in too long in the morning, everyone here should wake up before the sun comes up.

Everyone should do it. We should all do it together. It's great. But if you wait too long, and someone, don't give me that look. I saw that look. But when you sleep too long, and the sun's been up, and someone opens the curtain, it hurts.

You hate it. You're offended by it. You don't want it. but imagine if you were to then just go like this and walk your whole day like this you would be a mess you actually become very thankful for that same light that was hurting you but now you walk in that light and whenever we are told even as believers your first step here in this issue is to acknowledge Christ as Lord as the light and submit That can be like ow especially to the unbeliever No ouch, don't want to do that.

But then as you put your faith and trust in him, all of a sudden you start becoming, what's the word I'm looking for here? Start becoming used to it. You start becoming used to the light. You start becoming used to the righteousness. And you say, wow, this is much better than walking around in darkness. We are to be a people who submit to Christ first and foremost and not think for a moment we can be judges of ourselves, for we are only darkness.

Submit to Christ, for he came not to blind you to death with light, but to rather give you the light of life to walk by by his gracious hand. Let us submit to him together and praise him together. Thank you, Father, for Christ. Lord, I'm constantly thinking about how Christ could have came, and he's talking to his enemies here who, talking to the Word made flesh, and they want to put themselves as judge over him.

To see his ability to use this as a teaching moment for those around him, instead of just dropping the hammer, is amazing. Lord, you do the same thing to us. Lord, we know that even the unbelievers, the believers in this room, we know that we so often want to put Jesus. We want to be judges. We want our own way. We want him to submit to our understanding.

And we're offended by his. I pray, God, that you would help us to actually find joy in encountering a situation and submitting to Christ in that situation for light. Lord, I'm thankful that he came to offer grace and mercy, and mercy in abundance. And that mercy and grace is even offered to us now in this moment. So may you help the unbeliever who is in darkness, may you help them to turn away from that darkness, to submit to Christ, to presume upon his truth, and to assume their own folly.

And may you help the believer who has been murmuring or who has fallen into sin, who maybe they don't say it out loud, but their practice in life is to think that they are the ones who are the judge. Would you help them to renew their repentance and to understand rightly that there is only darkness within them but there is only light in him. And help them to not only submit to Christ but do it with delight within their souls because this light is the light of life and not hurt.

So help us to see these things. Let us not be like the Pharisees. Let us not be like the hypocrites. Let us not be like the proud. Let us with joy humble ourselves to our loving Savior, Jesus Christ, who is the light. In Jesus' name, amen.