Today, as I mentioned earlier, is the celebration of communion. And today, the place where we have reached in our study of the Word of God is John chapter 8 and verse 12. And this is what that verse says. And you might want to turn there. 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." Now, I don't normally preach topical sermons, and in a technical manner this isn't. I'm just going to be expounding this particular verse, but it will end up seeming like a topical message nonetheless. Yesterday I had the privilege, and I thank you so much for underwriting my part of the Walk for Life, And I was early and I ran across the dam and I ran over to the parking lot and it was a gorgeous morning. Absolutely exquisite. I ran one direction and looked at the lake and it's sparkling in the early morning light. And when I come back, I look out, and you look over the valley, and it's just this immensity of grandeur, this beauty filled with light as the sun is just pouring down. And it just gives you a feeling like, oh my goodness, what a privilege it is to be here, to see these things, and to be able to say, I know the Maker. I know the One who has fashioned this and spread this out for the eye of man to look and to marvel and to give thanks. But it is not always the case that the light in the world meets with a comparable light in the soul. even in mine. Sometimes when I look out, I have to look through the shadows that trouble my own heart and mind. In those moments, it is critical for me to remember, I do not live by my light. I live by His light. And I desire in all things that it would be His light that illuminates my inner person and radiates so that others sense the reality of His presence and they know something of His grace. It is essential for us to understand if we will walk faithfully what it is that Jesus has actually saying to his disciples at this point. And we're going to take the morning and let ourselves focus on it. And I'm anxious, I'm desirous that as you hear, you will anticipate remembering the price paid for the light we receive. In chapter 7, verses 37-39, if you recall, Jesus said that He would give people something to drink and that this would become like a fountain upwelling within them, flow out from their hearts. John clarifies there in chapter 7 of John that Jesus was referring to the gift of the Holy Spirit and that when you and I receive the Lord Jesus Christ and what God has done for us, one of the things that we receive in addition to forgiveness for sin is we receive the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit. The statement here in John 8 verse 12 is different than that. Jesus does not say He brings or gives us light. Notice that what He says is that He is light. He is light. The statement, therefore, is that light and Jesus are identical. In Matthew 5, verse 14, Jesus says, We are the light of the world. It's important to understand that when He says that as is cited in Matthew, He uses exactly the same language that He used when He said, I am the light. All He does is change the verb from a singular to a plural. So exactly as He said, I am the light of the world, He then says of His disciples, you are the light of the world. How can that possibly be? The point is, we are the light of the world because Jesus is with us. We are one with Him. Such that when we speak, He speaks. When we act, He acts. This is the same truth that Jesus was trying to push home into the understanding of His disciples in John 17. And we'll get to that a little later on. But this is what He says in John 17, verses 20 to 23. Now listen to this. He's praying to his father, and Jesus says, I do not ask for these only, meaning the 11 disciples in the upper room. When we get to that portion of the gospel, you'll understand that. He says, but also for those who will believe in me through their word. So all of us who have received the word of life passed down through the centuries, we are those included now as the object of Jesus' prayer. through their word that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one. I am them, you and me. that they may become perfectly one so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you love me." Now, as I say, we will spend some time reflecting on and trying to come to as full an understanding of those statements when we get to the 17th chapter, but I will say at this point, that what we have just read represents the heart of the salvation which the Lord Jesus Christ has accomplished for us. Later on, if you read through the New Testament, you will read in Peter, and Peter says that you and I partake of the divine nature. We are altered or changed beings through the grace of God. Indeed, it can be said ultimately that we are the amen to all of God's purposes. That is the intention of God in dealing with us. That is the future He has laid out before us. Now, it is obvious, right, that this degree of identification, this sense of oneness is not something that simply happens on the day that we bend the knee, cry out to God and say, I surrender, I recognize I'm a sinner and I can only have hope through You. And we close with Him in faith. It doesn't happen in a moment. Some of us have a bit of a struggle in coming to that place. We should recognize that when we take communion, what we are doing is we are affirming and we are celebrating the grace of God that is pulling us to oneness with God. Indeed, we are bound to this unity with God and therefore with one another. We are bound to it. You see, the journey to unity in Christ and oneness with Christ is not something we can escape from once we have closed with God in faith. Once we have signed the document, we're in. Which is one reason why the battle begins after you bend the knee. In his prayer, Jesus had already asked the Father in John 17, verses 17 through 19. This is what he asked. This is, again, back to the prayer we'll be studying later. He says, Sanctify them. Jesus talking to the Father. He says, Sanctify them in truth. Your word is truth. As you sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world. And for their sake I consecrate myself that they also may be sanctified in truth." To be sanctified is to be set apart for something. In the traditional liturgy for Christian marriage, Christian marriage is described as holy matrimony. Now in our day we kind of think Holy matrimony. Why don't you use contemporary language? It seems a little bit awkward and archaic. Well, it shouldn't. The point of the reference is simply that in Christian marriage, the husband and the wife are promising that their love is exclusive to one another. It is set apart from all other relationships. It is unique, singular, Exclusive. That's what it means to be sanctified. And so when Jesus says that we are to be sanctified in truth, what He means is our hearts and minds are to be devoted specifically and uniquely and exclusively to that truth which has been given to us by God and inscripturated in His Word. It's an exclusive relationship. Jesus is praying that all those who believe will be set aside for the truth alone, the truth which God has revealed to us. When we neglect the Word, therefore, we are resisting the purpose of God in saving us. So every time we decide in our busy schedules, I don't have time for the Word today. You need to know that you are putting a hedge and a check against the purposes of God, for it is God's intent that our minds would be saturated with the Word of God such that we are changed in how we think and how we view reality. That is the intention of God. When we resist in this way, when we neglect the Word of God and hold ourselves, therefore, to some degree aloof from the Word, what we experience is a falling short of His purposes. Because we don't know. We either don't know where we're going or we don't know who we are well enough to go there. Not only, of course, will we fall short of His blessings, of His purposes, but we will fall short of His blessings as well. Now, there's a spinning out of this, and this is not unusual. Most of us in this room know that the normal pattern of conversion, right, is an initial excitement because someone says, hooray, I'm out of the mess I was in, right? What a great thing this is, being saved by God's grace. And usually the most important pronoun in the early days of your redemption is, I am me, right? And that's correct. God loves me. He doesn't hate me. God loves me. He doesn't reject me. God accepts me. He doesn't condemn me. Of course. And so in those early days, there was an eager reading of the Word of God and eager listening to the Word of God because we just wanted to get this all in and make sure it's confirmed and established and settled within us. But then a change occurs. And as we return to the normal activities of life, we begin to return to our habitual patterns of thought and feelings. How can we counteract this? There are a whole variety of ways. The one which is in front of us at the moment is by disciplining ourselves to be constantly back in the Word of God, reminding ourselves of the truths of God, and seeking the support, guidance, and illumination of the Word so that the Spirit will give us the strength to be obedient. If that doesn't happen, it's not just that we are starved and therefore weaken faith, that will be true, but we also become tentative regarding what is and is not true of the faith. You see, the things of God begin to grow dim. We can then begin to become uncertain of our relationship with God. not totally clear on whether or not we had it right the first time that He loves us. And then more profoundly, a person can, when they neglect the Word, drift to where they become indifferent as to whether or not God loves them at all. And now they are in a condition of contention with God. Because God does not change His purpose and you cannot escape the relationship And so now, of course, instead of finding God as the welcoming, loving savior, you will experience him as a disciplinarian wanting to drag you back where you belong. Now, Paul actually says very much the same thing, no surprise, right? that Jesus was speaking of when John cited Him in the 17th chapter of John's Gospel. If you turn to Romans, chapter 12, and in this classic statement, most of us probably have memorized this, it says, Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Now, here's what I want you to really pay attention to. It says, that by testing, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect. Now, it's worth grasping what this actually is about. And what it's about is saying this. You and I need to be testing God's Word virtually on a daily basis in order that we would discern, that we would see His will. I don't think I am wrong in saying that ignorance or at least uncertainty regarding or indifference to knowing the will of God is the general condition of Christians in our day. You know that as well as I. Every survey taken by those who inquire about such things tells us over and over again that the knowledge by those who profess to be Christians, their knowledge of the Bible and their knowledge of the doctrines is abysmal. They don't know. So, consequently, they cannot test. We consider this to be normal, but it has not always been so. There was a time when people knew the Word of God, knew it well. Knew the doctrines. Knew them well. And there was a time when it was assumed that a person would know God's will for their lives. But we have come a long distance from that mindset. Indeed, there are preachers and teachers today who say that certainty Or the claim to know God's will is arrogance. It's arrogant. You think you know the will of God? What an arrogant person you are. Who could possibly know the will of God? God is immense and fantastic and mysterious. We only can guess. We only can guess at the will of God. We're always tempted to. We never want to say anything specific or strong or exact or demanding. Everything is sort of shadowy and uncertain. And that is considered to be wisdom. There's a statement in 2 Timothy 3, verse 7, that says this. It describes a certain kind of person who is always learning, but never comes to a knowledge of the truth. They're never willing to say, oh, I've got it. Or, oh, I know. It's like, well, maybe. Maybe not. Listen again to what Paul says. By testing, you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect. Paul speaks of ignorance in Ephesians. Ephesians chapter 4, verses 17 to 23. Listen to what he says there. Now this I say and testify in the Lord that you must no longer walk as the Gentiles do in the futility of their minds. They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to their hardness of heart. They have become callous and have given themselves up to sensuality, greedy to practice every kind of impurity. But that is not the way you learn Christ. Now understand he is describing people who are Christians. He's talking about people who are falling back into the same mindset, the same flow of sentiments that is true of the pagan world. He says, that is not the way you learn Christ, assuming that you have heard about him and were taught in him, as the truth is in Jesus, to put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, to be renewed in the spirit of your mind. There's nothing automatic about this. I accepted Jesus when I was 12. Okay? How's the putting off and putting on process going? Are you shedding the habits of mind that the pagan world pushes on you? And are you putting on the habits of mind that you find in the Word of God? Or do you just keep repeating to yourself, I'm saved. Jesus loves me. Be renewed in the spirit of your minds. According to Ephesians 4, verses 17-23, ignorance of the will of God, ignorance regarding the ways of God, which is rooted in the ignorance of the Word of God is not a sign or mark of the renewed mind. The renewed mind is the mind that knows the Word of God. That tests the Word of God. And as a consequence, is confident in the knowledge of the will of God. The renewed mind in and by God's truth is the enlightened mind. It is suffused with the light of God, which is the light of the life of God in the soul. Now, the reference to God's truth is not primarily nor is it ultimately a reference to knowing information or facts. You can know all... In fact, I know people who have memorized huge chunks of the Bible and they know nothing at all. That's because knowing God's truth is knowing Jesus Himself. Remember, Jesus says, I am the light. So the knowledge that we gain has an intention beyond itself. It is not that we would simply be highly informed about the Bible. It is so that we have a clear and increasingly deep and compelling knowledge, personal experience of Jesus Christ. If the sum total of your experience of Jesus is the day when you were saved, if the sum total of our experience of Jesus is the day I came under conviction for my sin and I came to believe that He died for me, and I have no further increase in my experiential knowledge of Jesus, I have no further certainty regarding the answering of my prayers, the direction of my life, the challenge that Jesus brings for me to change aspects of the way I am so that I more fully allow His Spirit to work through me. If I cannot give a testimony regarding any of those things... Knowing God's truth is knowing Jesus. Now, such knowledge as this comes by faith. What do I mean by faith in this case? What I mean is by trust. Jesus says, Lo, I am with you even to the end of the age. So there I am. I'm filling out my tax forms and I realize that IRS will never know. And so then the question is, do I turn and I say, Jesus, what should I do at this point? And I'm faced with the reality that if I actually put down the facts, the truth, I will probably owe taxes and I may in fact have to pay a penalty and I'm not sure I have that much money. And so then I turn to Jesus and I say, Jesus, can I be confident that you will help me and take care of this so that as I tell the truth, it will be alright with me at the other end? That's what I mean by trust. We're lightbearers because by the presence and power of the Spirit, we carry Jesus with us all the time. And He, He carries us to the Father. In Hebrews chapter 7 verses 25 and chapter 9 verse 24, we are told this. Consequently, Jesus is able to save to the uttermost. What is the uttermost? Well, it means you get through your taxes. Or whatever other problem you might have. You've got some problems, right? Okay, now Jesus. It's Memorial Day weekend. No, no, it's Mother's Day and my mother-in-law is coming. Can I be nice to her all day? I'd rather tell the truth about my taxes and get penalized. That's a bad thing to think. I don't want to say that. But Jesus, can I rely on you, see? Can I rely on you to be an inward presence, to monitor my tongue? Ah, but not just my tongue. Jesus, I need help in my heart. I need to know how to love this person. That's trust. So consequently, He is able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through Him. Sense. This is the deal, right? Sense. He is alive. Now, we know that. He's alive. We're excited about the fact that Jesus is alive, but we don't always remember that He's alive, standing in the presence of the Father, praying for us as we wrestle and deal with the situations that confront us and test us in our faithfulness as we seek to apply the truth of God's Word to our lives. That's the relationship. For Christ has entered not into holy places made with hands which are copies of the true things," which is the reference to the temple, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God on our behalf. We often speak of the finished work of the cross, and that is right. We should speak of the finished work of the cross. Jesus satisfied the demand of the law of death for sin. We're going to be celebrating that. We remember that when we do the communion. There is nothing more to be done in clearing us of guilt before God. It's done. Hallelujah. We are accepted in the Beloved. But the work of Jesus was not finished when He finished His work on the cross. any more than the process of our salvation is finished when we place our faith for personal salvation in the work that Jesus has done. Because Jesus is the light, those who follow Him are not in darkness. They walk in light. What is this light? What is the nature? How does it work in illuminating the path we are to take? Hebrews chapter 12, Verses 1 and 2 say this, Let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith. It is as we look to Jesus that we have the necessary light to understand ourselves and the world around us and to know the will of the Father and the direction we need to go and the dangers we need to avoid. In that statement, the word follows is Jesus' statement. Whoever follows me, would be better translated as, is following. It's a matter of the tense in the Greek. Following is, in other words, not a one-time decision. Following is a commitment, a commitment that sometimes we have to renew daily and sometimes we have to renew it hourly. You ever been in the grip of an attack of temptation? I am Jesus' child. I am Jesus' child. I know the blood covers my sin and I do not need to give in to this. Can we do that? The tense in the Greek is a present participle and was used to describe a continuous action. So we would have, if you rewrote that sentence, whoever is following me as a steady course of action or way of living will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life. You see, one of the marvelous things about this business of walking in faith and turning constantly to Jesus Christ and knowing the word of God is that you understand the temptation when it hits you. Oh, this is a forbidden thing. The person who is unacquainted or ill-acquainted with the Word of God, who has not long experience with the Lord Jesus Christ, may walk into a place and feel like, I don't know what's going on, looks alright to me, looks good, feels good, guess I have a good time. Three weeks later, somebody says, where were you and what were you doing? Oh, I don't know, what was I doing? Drinking death? Remember last week when we talked about the woman caught in adultery. In the end, she was not condemned by Jesus, but that did not mean she was innocent. And she bore the scars of that fall into sin. And so do we, whether we recognize it's sin or not. Our consciences are not the measure of God's truth. God's truth measures our conscience. And when we run afoul of that which is true and right and good, the good and acceptable and perfect will of God, it leaves a mark. And sometimes they're not easily erased, although the guilt has been removed. You see, at this point, that present participle is in contrast to the seed planted in Jesus' parable, the seed planted in the rocky soil, or the seed planted in the weed-infested soil. Those with stony hearts, those filled with worldly desires and concerns, simply are not those of whom one could say, so and so is following Jesus. As it says in the verse, whoever follows Me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life. The shallow soil and weed-infested ground produce only withered and fruitless plants. Following Jesus means we do as He did. And by the way, that is a lot more than attending worship services and Bible studies. It means a life that is shaped like Jesus' life. And this brings us to the last thing to take into our understanding. The one who is following Jesus says has the light of life. There's a lot of interest today in the Holy Spirit and that is right. We should all of us be very interested in the Holy Spirit. But if we're going to be interested in the Holy Spirit and hearing from the Holy Spirit, we need to be certain we understand what it is the Holy Spirit has been given to us to do. The Bible never tells us to follow the Holy Spirit. Instead, what it says is that the ministry of the Spirit is to help us follow Jesus. That's the relationship that should always govern our understanding and response to the Spirit of God. You might want to turn here. John 16, verses 12 to 15. And again, we will study this thoroughly when we have opportunity. As we get there, I'm thinking I should be there in about seven years. And we'll pick it up. We're moving forward here. Anyway, this is what it says in John 16, verses 12 to 15. Jesus says, I still have many things to say to you, but you can't take it right now. When the spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth. For He will not speak on His own authority, but whatever He hears, He will speak, and He will declare to you the things that are to come. He will glorify Me, as Jesus is talking, for He will take what is Mine and declare it to you. All that the Father has is Mine. Therefore, I said, He will take what is Mine and declare it to you. It is wise for us to remember that there are many spirits in the world. We're not always conscious of that. 1st John 4 1 is where that statement is given the Holy Spirit which is being spoken of here And if you read a little earlier verses 8 to 11 in chapter 16 and again We'll look at this later the Holy Spirit's first job. What he does is he first of all convicts us of sin and Then he convicts us of righteousness through faith in Jesus Christ and And then lastly, he convicts us of judgment. Now, it's not judgment on us that's primary here. That's the conviction of sin. He convicts us of the judgment of God against Satan. Letting us know that through the death and resurrection of Jesus, which is what we're going to be celebrating here, that Satan has been stripped of his authority to rule our lives. So we are no longer subject to the authority of the accuser of our souls. But instead, we are under the authority of the Savior of our souls. And so we ought to be directing our attention in the right direction. You and I live on this side of the cross. What Jesus has done for us is overwhelming. The new covenant is not a covenant of works as the Mosaic covenant was. God sent Moses to liberate the children of Israel from slavery in Egypt. That was grace. Moses liberated the Israelites from Egyptian slavery and led them into the into and through the wilderness They met with God at Mount Sinai that is grace God makes it perfectly clear The rescue and blessing of Israel was in no way an indication of that they merited salvation more than anybody else. In Deuteronomy chapter 7, verses 6 to 8, verses 11 to 12, don't turn there, just listen. God speaking to His people says, You are a people holy to the Lord your God. The Lord your God has chosen you to be a people for His treasured possession. Out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth, It was not because you were more in number than any other people that the Lord set His love on you and chose you, for you are the fewest of all peoples. But it is because the Lord loves you and is keeping His oath that He swore to your father, that the Lord has brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the house of slavery, from the hand of Pharaoh, king of Egypt. You therefore shall be careful. to do the commandment and the statutes and the rules that I command you today. Deuteronomy chapter 9, verse 4 to 7. Do not say in your hearts after the Lord your God has thrust the Amorites out before you. It is because of my righteousness that the Lord has brought me in to possess this land, whereas it is because of the wickedness of these nations that the Lord is deriving out before you. It is not because of your righteousness or the uprightness of your heart that you are going in to possess their land, but because of the wickedness of these nations the Lord your God is driving them out from before you. And you may confirm the word that the Lord swore to your fathers. Remember and do not forget how you provoked the Lord your God to wrath in the wilderness from the day you came out of the land of Egypt until you came to this place. You have been rebellious. So here's the way it works in the Old Covenant. At no time did Israel deserve anything other than condemnation from God. They were consistently and stubbornly disobedient, unbelieving, and a constant pain in the neck. Ask Moses. The continuance of that covenant was by grace, but the terms of the covenant were works. Do this and you will be blessed. What did they do? Other things. But the new covenant is different than the old. The new covenant is one of grace. It is through the blood of Christ, Jesus has died for us and he saves us from the just or righteous punishment of sin. He also breaks the power of sin. He changes us into the image of his own holiness. Hebrews chapter 12, verses 1 and 2, lay aside every weight and sin which clings so closely and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus. The law told the Israelites what they needed to do. It did nothing more. And therefore, they were condemned. Because, of course, they couldn't do it. The grace of God, through the shed blood of Jesus Christ, gives us new hearts. and with the presence of the indwelling Holy Spirit, calls us to read the Word so that we have new minds. And those new hearts and new minds enable us both to desire and to do the will of God. We are a people incredibly blessed. By His grace, you are the light of the world. Let's pray. Gracious Father, we are about to celebrate together, to commemorate the death of Jesus for the sins of all humanity and the resurrection of Jesus as the statement that the work has been done and that all who believe are justified through that shed blood. Father, confirm these truths in our hearts and minds. Receive our worship as a thankful people. Hear our repentance in the acknowledgement that we often fall far short. But then, Father, comes the upwelling of joy For we know you will never abandon us. We are yours. And we would have it no other way. For you are the God who has saved us. Father, it is in Jesus' name that we pray. Amen.