The following is a sermon from Grace City Church in Denver, Colorado. Grace City exists to make and mature disciples of Jesus Christ. For more info, visit gracecitydenver.com. Today, our message is from John 8, 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. 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 came 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 declared 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. This is God's word. I want you to think, if you had lived during the time of Jesus, and you had heard some of his teaching, like what he shares in this text of scripture, John 8, maybe even seen a miracle of his or multiple miracles of his, heard some of his claims, I wonder how many of you would say, I think I would believe that he was the son of God and the savior of the world, And I think I would leave everything to follow him. You know, chances are the answer is no. Chances are you would not have, I would not have followed him. As we saw a couple of weeks ago at this Feast of Booths or Tabernacles, there are many reasons, there are many ways that people miss Jesus. They miss who he is. They miss what his claim on their life is. And they just continue to do something different. They worship someone else or something else or just live for themselves. And today's text centers on another reason why people missed Jesus. And this is very important. And very simply put, it's that nothing is obvious in the dark. A number of years ago, several friends and I would hike 14ers and we kind of were working our way up through the list of 14ers that were further away from Denver or they were longer trips where they required camping and things like that. And so often when you're camping and you can't sleep and it's 2 a.m., you think, we might as well go climb this 14er. That way we can get up. get to the pinnacle of this mountain and get back off the summit before the early afternoon storms roll in and there's lightning and all that up above the tree line. A couple of these different trips, you're walking by the light of this little LED headlamp, which is very bright, but really all you can see is the next step or two in front of you as it's pitch dark, you're in the middle of the wilderness around you. And a couple of those times, we would get partway through, and as you stop for a water break or something, just turn off the light. And you realize, very quickly, nothing is obvious in the dark. You have no idea where you would take your next step and be safe. See, if the light is off, what is so clear when the light is on, let alone when you're coming back down the same trail later that day, and you can see sometimes like, oh, there's a huge drop off right there next to the trail. I'm kind of glad I didn't know that when I was hiking up, or maybe I wouldn't have done it. But stuff is not obvious in the dark. And one of the important things that this text points out is that the darkness is not just out there. Sometimes the darkness is also in here. So the same thing, if you're on that same trail and you're walking that trail in the middle of the day, but you voluntarily decide, I'm gonna put a hood over my head. It's dark and nothing is obvious and you don't know where to go and you don't know how to be safe because you've done something that you've chosen. And I think that's illustrative of some of what we encounter here. So let's look at this theme. John is saying, follow Jesus, not your heart. It's basically what he's saying. I'll unpack that with you. There's four things here. We're kinda just gonna work our way through this story this morning, see how it's a narrative. We're not gonna look at all the nitty gritty details of every back and forth between Jesus and the Pharisees, the religious leaders, the crowds, but I think you'll understand this story as we go through these four things. There's an astonishing claim, an ignorant response, an underlying reason, and then an ominous warning. So let me set the context for you again. If you were here a couple weeks ago, you may remember this. If you were not, let me just get us all on the same page. So we're coming up on the end of the Feast of Tabernacles, which actually, in the Jewish calendar, that would fall in mid-October. So some of you may realize that if you have Jewish neighbors, they're right around the time of year, right now, where they're celebrating this feast. Because it's October in the Northern Hemisphere, they've basically done the last of their harvest. They've worked hard all summer, early fall. They've brought the fruit and the grain and the different things into the barns, into the storage houses. And now they're taking a break for this week to just worship God, to remember what he did for their ancestors, to praise him for this harvest, to feast together and celebrate God's kindness in their lives. But a lot of this feast of, again, booths or tabernacles or tents, And the reason for those tabernacles or tents is they're deliberately commemorating this period of time where God had delivered their ancestors from Egyptian bondage. And they had come out into the wilderness and they lived in booths. They needed to live in tents because they, instead of having permanent structures, God was often on the move, leading them across the wilderness. And when he moved, they had to pack up quickly and move. So there's this nomadic lifestyle to their ancestors that they're remembering. Two weeks ago, we honed in on this part of the festival called the water-pouring ceremony. You may remember this, where the priests go down, they draw water from the Gaihan Spring, they come back, they pour it on the stone altar, and as that water rushes across the altar and then spreads out in the temple complex, they're remembering God provided water from a rock in the middle of the wilderness for our ancestors. And there's that backward looking celebration, commemoration, remembrance. I want to tell you this morning about a different, a second major ceremony of this feast. And that was called the illumination of the temple. So again, you picture the temple not just as a building, not just as a sanctuary, but really you picture it as a large complex of buildings, much of which was just an open plaza, you know, like outside Union Station over here, where you've got Union Station, the building, but then you have these large plazas where people gather and do different activities, farmers markets, things like that. So in the middle of this court, are these four massive candelabras that stretch dozens and dozens of feet into the sky. And each of those candelabras had four bowls that held many gallons of oil. And every day, the young priests would climb up these ladders with buckets of oil, and they would fill these basins, and then they would light these four candelabras. And together, not only would it cast light on all the golden limestone of the temple complex and be well lit at night for the celebration to continue long into the night, but there was literally a shaft of light that went up into the sky, a shaft of flame that went up into the air that could be seen for miles. So you're approaching Jerusalem from any direction and during this feast, you see this massive column of fire burning up into the air. And it was a reminder. Again, of this nomadic lifestyle where God, Yahweh, in the Old Testament, led his people out of bondage. There was a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night. And we read this in Exodus 13, 21. This is important for the context of what every Jew knew who was there for this illumination of the temple. Exodus 13, 21 says, and the Lord went before them by day in a pillar of cloud to lead them along the way, and by night in a pillar of fire to give them light, that they may travel by day and by night. I said that the Feast of Tabernacles was not only this backward-looking, thank you God, we remember your kindness to our ancestors, it's also a forward-looking, we can't wait until the day when, like in the water-pouring ceremony, when the streams of God flow from the throne of God forever because the Messiah has come. But there are also a number of promises, particularly in the prophet Isaiah, of, hey, this Messiah is a light to the world, and when he comes, everything will change. There will be salvation, there will be hope, there will be infinite and eternal blessing for the people of God. So in Isaiah, you read things like this, Isaiah 42, six and seven, God speaks to his servant, who is the Messiah and says, I will give you as a covenant for the people, a light for the nations to open the eyes that are blind, to bring out the prisoners from the dungeon, from the prison, those who sit in darkness. Isaiah 49, verse six, still speaking to the servant, I will make you as a light for the nations that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth. And some of you may know this because we talk about it around Advent. These are more familiar verses in Isaiah 9. The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light. Those who dwelt in a land of deep darkness, on them has light shown. And by the way, he's speaking in past tense, but he's speaking of a future event. He's saying this future event is so certain to happen by God's promise, you can speak of it as if it's already happened. The light has shown because we know the light will be shown, but he goes on to this familiar verse that many of you may know, for to us a child is born, For to us a son is given, and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. And I read this last one especially so that you know the light is not just light in a generic sense, a scientific sense. The light is actually a person. The light has shone in darkness for a child has been born, a son has been given. And it's in this context that Jesus stands up on the last day of the feast and makes point one, an astonishing claim, verse 12, I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life. So you notice, first of all, the astonishing claim is I am the light that overcomes darkness. And I think there's a very specific and historic fulfillment that Jesus is speaking to. And then there's also a much more generic and almost universal way that Jesus is using this terminology. And let's consider each of those. First, in no uncertain terms, at the Feast of Tabernacles, at the illumination of the temple, Jesus says, I am the light of the world. And everyone, whether that torch, those four candelabras are still burning and that flame is launching up into the sky and it says he's saying it in the temple treasury, which is the courtyard. So I can just picture Jesus and just gesturing and saying, I am what that represents. Or if it's a point in the feast where they've extinguished the flames for the night and it's the middle of the day, he may be still saying, where you had that as just a flame, a fire, a pointer to a bigger truth, I am that bigger truth. and the historic fulfillment that you're meant to see here. And by the way, the force of Jesus' words would not have been missed on the single Jew who is standing there in the temple precinct. He's saying, I am the light that led your ancestors through the wilderness. That great God who appeared as a pillar of fire, I'm saying, I'm him. I am the light of the world. Secondly, as I said, there's a more general sense of just, he's calling all of us to think about what is the darkness in our lives, in our world, in our culture, in our society, and what is then the light? That when he says, if you follow me, you will follow me out of darkness into light because I am light. Darkness represents ignorance. Or you could say blindness. There's a mental ignorance, but there's also a physical blindness. And by the way, we're coming to this story very soon, where Jesus is going to heal a blind man. You know how often he did this, where he makes a claim, and it's a spiritual claim, and they're like, well, how could we really know that you're the light in the darkness? And he's like, I'm glad you asked. This man walks in darkness. He has never seen the light since the day of his birth. He gives him sight, and we'll come to that in a couple weeks. To say, if you don't believe the spiritual truth, see the physical truth, and then back your way into the spiritual truth, because it's important that you believe this. But darkness very often is just this ignorance, this blindness. It's that hiking in the dark. Where am I supposed to go, and how am I supposed to know, and how can I not be afraid, which is another piece of that. In the darkness, there's fear. You ever notice this, that everything that you're scared of in the light gets amplified in the dark? I remember a long period of time as a child just having night terrors. And it was the stupidest stuff. It was like poisonous turtles. I don't know, one day we're like jumping from my brother's bed to my bed to the desk in our room and all around, and what are we doing? We're pretending that the floor is the ocean and the ocean is filled with poisonous turtles. And I mean, to my knowledge, there is no such thing as poisonous turtles, but when you're a little child and it's in the middle of the night, you have to get up and go to the bathroom, you're like, if I step on the floor, And now I'm scared because the poisonous turtles are gonna get me and I'm gonna die and my parents aren't even gonna hear my screams because they're sleeping so well in the other room. And there's this fear. Darkness represents a coldness or a harshness. And you experience that even physically that as the sun goes down and then it's cycling around the other side of our world, it gets cold, it gets dark. Things are and things seem harsher than in the light. there's a hopelessness and a despair that is associated with darkness. We have even this phrase from, was it St. John of the Cross that coined this term, but we use it often today of just the dark night of the soul. which is a representation of something that many of you have gone through of just a period of hopelessness. And it's not that you've abandoned God, it's not that you don't believe in God, but just something has happened in your life that is so hard, so painful, the term that we use to describe that is a dark night of the soul. The darkness represents sin, it represents evil, and it represents God's response to sin and evil, which is judgment and even death. Darkness is represented in death. So what I want you to hear is when Jesus says, whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, he's essentially saying all those things that are in the darkness and that are the darkness, I've overcome all of them. And we're not meant to just think narrowly about the one thing. We're meant to think very broadly of He's overcome all the darkness because He is light. So backing up to the list I just shared, if darkness is ignorance and blindness, Jesus is saying, I am the truth. I give sight. I give leadership and direction in your life so you're not wandering around lost and foolish and blind. I literally open eyes with wisdom and direction for life. If the darkness is that coldness or harshness, then the light is warmth and consolation. Remember another one of these 14ers, Sunshine Peak. And we were climbing Sunshine Peak again in the middle of the night. We got above the tree line and the wind was just so fierce. We were huddling together, because we were not dressed for this. We're huddling together and just freezing. And you're watching the Alpen glow just start on the horizon. And our thoughts are, the moment that light comes, there'll be the radiant heat of the light. But how often is that metaphorically true in your life where there's just a harshness, a coldness, almost a deadness to something in your life, but you can see like the sun, the sun is coming, and it's coming with comfort. It's coming with its warmth to wrap around you so that you experience love. If the darkness is anxiety, It's fear, and the things that you fear are heightened in the darkness. Jesus is saying, as the light, I am peace, I am rest. I love that Hebrew word, shalom, like a total sense of well-being for your person. It's courage instead of fear. If the darkness is hopelessness or despair, the dark night of the soul, then the light comes on and there's hope. There's a future, there's a faith that gets reinforced in your life because Jesus has come. If the darkness is danger, Jesus comes as ultimate safety. If the darkness is sin and evil, Jesus comes as holiness and righteousness that is personified by light because it's only good, it's only pure. And if the darkness is judgment, death, wrath, the light is life. The light is salvation. And Jesus is making this audacious claim that I'm sure every Jew kind of almost audibly gasps. You're not only saying that light represented here by this tower of fire, You're not only saying I am that God, you're saying anything in your life, anything in our society, anything in our broken world that is darkness, I am the light to that and if you follow me, you will not have to continue to walk in the hopelessness, the despair, the fear, the frustration, the sin, the brokenness. You can walk out into the light with me. Now I want you to flip ahead to the end of this section where Jesus makes another audacious claim, verse 28. So he's in this whole back and forth with the religious leaders, and I'll come to that in a moment, it's a little bit shorter section, but in the middle of them saying, we have no idea who you are, he's in part claiming to be the son of God, the son of man, and he says this, verse 28, when you have lifted up the son of man, then you will know that I am he. And you might think, well, who's he? What do you mean, then you'll know that I am he? Who's he? Who's the he that we're supposed to know that you are? And I'll begin by saying it's actually not a great translation, but every translation says this, because that's how we would say it. The Greek is actually ego eimi, which Jesus said, when you have lifted up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am, period. So let me give you this punchline, then back up and kind of unpack this. So not only is Jesus saying, I am the light to your darkness, he's also saying, I am the one true God of your ancestors. I already showed you where Exodus 13 says this pillar of cloud to lead the people by day, this pillar of fire to lead the people by night, this fire is an imitation, follow me, come with me out of the darkness of slavery in Egypt, out of the darkness of not being a people, not having a law, not having the promises of God, into all of those good and beautiful things. Now he says, when you have lifted me up. That is a looking forward to his crucifixion when they literally lift him up and nail him to a cross. And he says, when you have lifted me up to die on a cross, then you will know that I am. Now, do you remember this back in Exodus? It's a few chapters before the pillar of light appears. But God is going to this one guy named Moses and saying, Moses, I'm calling you to go back to Egypt and to rescue my people Israel. So go in my name, tell them I'm here. God's heard your cries. He's going to bring you out. He's going to bring you into a new and promised land. He's going to give it to you because God is good. And Moses is like, you know, he has all these excuses. You may remember that story. Well, I can't, I'm not really articulate and all that. And he's like, well, don't worry because it's, I'm going to be talking through you. So just say what I tell you to say. Well, who should I say sent me? Because the people are going to ask, who sent me? And do you remember what God says? Exodus 3, he says, say this to the people of Israel, I am has sent me to you. And that's the covenant name of God. I am is Yahweh. It is him saying, I am eternal. I am self-existent. I am dependent on no one for my existence. I simply am. Now Jesus says, when you kill me, you will soon come to know that I am. And again, every Jew standing there hears what we probably don't hear or read in the English text. And by the way, when they do lift Jesus up to die, do you remember this? What happens in the middle of the day? When you lift up the light of the world to die, what happens in the middle of the day? It gets dark. And he's literally showing all the people, like when you extinguish the light, what do you think is going to happen? And God is showing them a spiritual truth. If you extinguish the light of salvation that I've sent in my son, it's going to be only darkness for you. And then, of course, there's the resurrection where he demonstrates his authority over death itself, proving I am. I am self-existent. I'm not dependent on you or anyone or anything to exist. By the way, there are commentators who are like, no, no, no, hold on. He's not saying I am the God of the Old Testament, but I would suggest that both contextually and linguistically, that's exactly what he's saying. Look forward to verse 58. Lord willing, we'll come to this next week. In 58, which is part of the same conversation with these same religious leaders, Jesus says, before Abraham was... Do you see what he says next? Before Abraham was, I am. Linguistically, that's weird. You would say, before Abraham was, I was. But that's not his point. His point was not just that this patriarch who lived 1900 years ago and is the first Hebrew ever, I was before him. His point was before Abraham was, I am the God of your fathers. And they're all sitting there like, whoa, this guy needs to die because he's claiming equality with God. And as a Jew who worships the one God, monotheist, one God, they're saying Jesus has to die. By the way, I'm reminded of the words of C.S. Lewis when he points to Jesus and he says, either Jesus was telling the truth, which means he's worthy of your worship, your surrender, your life, your obedience, your everything, or he was lying and he's insane or evil. And he says, let's banish the notion that we can follow Jesus as a good person, that we can follow or listen to Jesus as like, well, he was a good example on how to love your neighbor. And he says, nonsense. Either he was a liar from hell claiming I am, or he's actually God. Now here's this ignorant response. I'm just going to survey this instead of going back and forth with all the dialogue. Because Jesus himself is going to summarize their response to him. And he's going to say, you don't know where I came from, you don't know who I am, and you don't know where I'm going. But still you want to kill me. Maybe you should understand some of this basic stuff about me first before you decide what to do with me. But again, surveying. So there are four things in this conversation that the religious leaders respond, and they're all four wrong. Verse 13, they say, your testimony is not true. So when he's saying, I'm the light of the world, I am, I am the God who led your fathers through the wilderness, they're saying, you're a liar. Secondly, verse 19, they say, where is your father? So when he's saying, you don't even know my father, because if you knew my father, and this should be capital F, he's talking about God the Father. He's not talking about Joseph in Nazareth. They're thinking little f. They're thinking Joseph. They're thinking, okay, you testify that you're God. Your testimony is false. Where's your father? Maybe he can testify where you came from. How you're related, because then we can pin down the fact that you're just a person. Thirdly, another ignorant response, verse 22, will he kill himself? I mean, they're talking about suicide. Because Jesus has said, where I'm going, you cannot come with me. He's saying, I'm returning to my father, and because of your rebellion, because of your blasphemy, because of your unbelief, you can't come with me. And they're like, what's he going to do, kill himself? In those Jewish culture, if you killed yourself, you went to hell. And they're like, well, we know we're not going to hell, so I think that's what he's talking about. And then one more, verse 25, they literally say, who are you? We cannot make sense with our categories of who you are. We can't pin you down. We can't identify you. And Jesus is like, well, I told you who I am. And here's what I want you to get. The religious leaders don't know where Jesus came from. They don't know who he is. They don't know where he's going. In spite of the fact that he told them all these things and in spite of the fact that there's a mountain of evidence in front of them. For example, they don't know that Jesus is from Bethlehem. They're like, he's from Galilee and we know the Messiah doesn't come from Galilee. Well, they could have asked a bunch of people like his mom, his brothers and sisters, Half-brothers and sisters? Where did he come from? Oh, he came from Bethlehem. Oh, well, the Messiah is born in Bethlehem. The scriptures say that. But the most basic things that are right in front of their face escape them, and they can't be bothered to do the research. Think about that. These are the leaders responsible for the spiritual care of God's covenant people. And they don't have the first idea when their Messiah shows up in person, is making these claims that there's no way he could have known these things unless he was God. He's doing these miracles that he couldn't do unless he's God. And they're like, well, he's not God. We don't know who you are, but we know you're not God and we can't kill you fast enough. And it just has always troubled me that they're not even mildly curious. Could this be the one that we waited for? And what I wanna do with the balance of this text and the balance of our time here this morning is to ask the question, why? You're the people who know God's law. Ostensibly, you're the people in our culture who are closest to God because you've studied it, you've read it, you theoretically have tried to live it, and you've tried to live it in a way that you can teach other people how to live it. And yet here he is, plain as day, And at least at this point, it appears that not a one of you is actually surrendering to Jesus and saying, you might be the Messiah. And I think it's worth asking why, and this is point three, an underlying reason. I must share this with you, number one, because it's in the text, but number two, and more importantly, because it's a cautionary tale for every one of us. Is it possible that someone here, could miss the light of the world. Is it possible that you walk your life in darkness and it's just that clear, boom, the light comes on and you don't see it because of a self-imposed darkness or because of just, I'm not saying it's always self-imposed, there are forces of evil that don't want you to see it. We're in a cosmic battle, not with our neighbors, not with just the people who vote differently than us. The cosmic battle is not with them. It's with the evil powers who would love to, like in the New Testament Romans, Paul's like, the adversaries pulled the wool over their eyes. Nothing's obvious in the dark. So I want you to notice that Jesus makes two evaluations in this conversation of the religious leaders that explain their willful ignorance of him. Verse 15, he says, here's the problem, you judge according to the flesh. And verse 22, he says, here's the problem, you are from below, you are of this world. Let's unpack that. I don't think he's saying two different things. I think he's saying one thing two different ways. So when he says you judge according to the flesh, judge is evaluate. This is not the word for like you pass judgment on, you condemn. It is simply you're walking through life and how many times a day do you simply have to render a mental verdict on all kinds of things? You evaluate, you decide. You evaluate, you decide. And he's saying over and over and over again, you evaluate and decide according to the flesh, is Jesus' phrase. That is according to or characterized by the ways of this broken world. So as you view anything, as you evaluate anything, as you decide right and wrong and up and down and which way you're going and what you're gonna tell other people and how you're gonna live, he said all of your judgment is characterized by the ways of this present, broken culture, flawed human standards. Then when he says, you're from below, you're from this world or you're of this world, he's not really talking about like, what's your origin? Oh, you were born on earth. Well, all of us were. His idea is, again, you're characterized by, you are of this world. So even though these men are the religious leaders of Israel, their hearts and minds, Jesus is saying, are steeped in the ways of the world. The teabag that's been in the hot water of their lives for their entire lives is the world's teabag. And what's seeping out into every cell of their thinking is the world. Now they're doing it in very religious ways, but if you think about the Pharisees, they loved power. They loved control. They loved, we talked about last week, rules for thee but not for me. They loved not caring for God's people, showing compassion for God's people, forgiving God's people, letting them know of God's forgiveness. They loved manipulating people and using people so that they were somebody's. That's all the ways of the world. They exaggerate other people's flaws. They live for the praise of people. And a big part of their angst when Jesus walks in the door, as it were, is we just lost the praise of people. Because he's really something. Whoever he is, he's really something. And now everyone's looking at him, listening to him, getting his opinion on things, instead of coming to us, the experts that we are. And they're jealous, they're envious, they're blinded by all of these things. So what blinded them? Again, if we're trying to understand, if you know the law of God, how do you miss that this is His Son, the Messiah, the Savior of the world? And the answer is because their values were worldly. Their priorities were worldly. Their ambitions were worldly. Their agendas were worldly. Therefore, their assessment of everything was worldly. And I want you to think of it this way, if those values, those priorities, those ambitions, those agendas, you use a different word, those are lenses. So as they go through life and they're viewing anything, everything, their interactions with everything are colored by the lenses that they have on. Anybody ever have these in a driver's ed class? I was thinking back to driver's ed. The official term for these are alcohol impairment simulation goggles. We just call them beer goggles. Anybody seen these? So they're trying to teach kids like, okay, you're about to get behind the wheel of a car that weighs thousands of pounds and has several hundred horsepower. Before you do that, we want you to realize you should never, ever be doing drugs or drinking before you get behind the wheel of a car. Because here's what it looks like. And you put these goggles on, it looked like these big VR glasses. Without a drop of liquor in your system, you try to walk across the room with those things on? You're stumbling everywhere, and it's disorienting, and it's confusing, and nothing looks like it should. Well, do you understand that your values, your priorities, your ambitions, your agenda that you bring to Jesus are like those beer goggles? because you're putting something on and you're going through life. And maybe even after a period of time, it's completely subconscious in the sense that you're not thinking about, oh, I put these on this morning to go out, to interact with my world. Or I even put these on this morning to open God's word and to read it as my devotions. But those goggles are there and they're changing your perception of everything. And this really at the core of what Jesus is saying, how can you miss this? It's because you evaluate everything according to the flesh. It's because you're from below. You're of this world. Your values are so messed up that now as you look at me and you hear my words, everything's thrown off. And family, are we not in grave danger of doing the same thing to Jesus? If this can happen to the religious leaders of Israel, who had the Old Testament memorized, could it not happen to you and me, where your real agenda is control? Look, I love control. Like if you're like, hey, would you like this situation to be in your control or would you like it to be out of control? I mean, 100% of the time, I'm going to want that to be in control. But it can become a God. It can become the way you view everything. I avoid situations that I can't control because they're scary. They're too big for me and I don't trust God with them. Or maybe your real agenda is autonomy. And our culture loves this. Don't tell me what to do with my life, my time, my body, my money, my everything. It's me. It's autonomy. It's complete liberty to do, to think, to act as I want. Maybe your agenda is pleasure or happiness. And not that God is against pleasure or happiness, but if that is your agenda, You will pick and choose situations and friends and jobs and everything, depending on what feeds your agenda. Your agenda is prosperity. I wish I could trust you with this, God, but it involves a lot of financial sacrifice, or potential financial sacrifice. Here's a massive one that I see in the church right now. Your agenda is popularity, acceptance, or simply respectability. And you realize if I follow the ways of Jesus and I stand where scripture stands on some very basic issues, and I'll just warn you, I'll just tell you, you will lose the respectability of a lot of our culture. And at the end of the day, for some of you, that respectability is more important than walking with God in the light. You're like, I'd rather be in the dark with my friendships, with my affirmation, than I would to walk in the light with the affirmation of Jesus Christ. And you will never see clearly. This is, I mention all these things, values, priorities, ambitions, agendas, giving you examples of what they are, because all of this is darkness. All of this blinds us to the beauty and the desirability and the majesty and the glory of the Son of God. It all leads away from Him. And here's the problem with the religious leaders and us, if we're like them, we've already decided what's most important to us. Here's what I want. This is my priority. This is my value. This is how I view things. And how often do we insidiously and probably subconsciously Speak to God this way in our hearts. God, this is what I want. If you can deliver that, then I'll follow you. Then you're not really following him. You're saying, you follow me. You align with me. I read this quote this week I thought was super helpful where one of the commentators looking back historically over how people treat Jesus, and he said this. The socialists demanded a class warfare Jesus. The capitalists demanded a free market Jesus. The racists demanded an ethnocentric Jesus. The patriots demanded a nationalistic Jesus. Today, the worshipers of lifestyle demand a mystical Jesus who makes no demands and teaches no doctrine. The problem is the biblical Jesus gives offense to each of these earthly perspectives, which is why people with such agendas end up rejecting the true Jesus revealed in scripture. See, if you have your agenda and you're like, this is where I stand, this is my ideology, this is what's important to me, how does Jesus fit that? The answer is he doesn't. He's not trying to. That's why the religious leaders miss him. If your Jesus looks an awful lot like you, and he keeps jumping on board with your agenda, and he's not challenging you, and he's not pruning things off of your life, you probably don't have the historic Jesus. And I could simplify all of that by saying, if you love the darkness, the light is really, really annoying. By the way, can I share about the light? The light wins. Peek ahead at the end of the story. The light wins. You get darkness and light in the same place at the same time. 100% of the time, the light wins. And it's not because the light is doing anything. It's simply because the light shows up. It is the nature of light. to overcome the darkness. And that's why this entire text here ends with this ominous warning. In verses 21 and 24, Jesus says it a few times, because you don't recognize that I am, you will die in your sins. And I don't want you to hear Jesus doing some angry, threatening thing. The reality is, he's saying, you're in darkness. Why are you in darkness? Because that's the nature of our world, that's the nature of sin, and you are dying in your darkness. I didn't do that to you. You're doing that to yourself, and the darkness does that. The darkness kills, evil kills. And what he's saying is, as the light, I came, yes, to expose the darkness, but why? So that you could turn from it. I'm not creating the darkness, I'm not creating the death, I'm not creating the judgment. I came to help you out of the darkness. And he's saying, if you're sitting there just rejecting and ignoring the light, Jesus' whole point is then there's no remedy for you. You are in darkness. We, family, were in darkness apart from Jesus, but he comes, and the only reason that he comes to expose the darkness is not to humiliate you, to shame you. It is to rescue you. It is to say, now come with me into the light. Let's go to the promised land, and let's go live in the light. So negatively, the religious leaders missed the Messiah because they were blinded by their commitment to their own political, social, and religious agenda, and Jesus didn't line up. But positively, any one of you can follow Jesus today, and that is coming out of the darkness into light. One commentator says, to a world that is ignorant of God, Jesus reveals the truth of heaven. To a world suffering the misery of evil, Jesus offers a cleansing renewal and peace. To those condemned in judgment for their sins, Jesus shed his own blood for forgiveness. Into a spiritually dark and dying world, he shines the light of eternal life. Will you follow the light? You just listened to a recording of a sermon from Grace City Church in Denver, Colorado. We hope you can join us in person soon. Thanks for listening. The Lord bless you and keep you. Amen.