We're gonna be in John 8, and before you guys, while you guys are turning to John 8, we're gonna be looking at verses 12 through 18. What if we had a remedy? A remedy for all the disparities in this world? Things like cancer, things like AIDS, The abuse of alcohol. Yeah, John Chapter 8. We're gonna be looking at verses 12 through 18. No problem. But what if we? With all the disparities in the world. The heart aches and the pain in life. I know we all have someone in here that's been affected in some way dealing with cancer. Or dealing with some type of form of illnesses. or just even anxiety, or the pressures of life. What if we had a solution for all these different things that grab hold to us, that brings us to the lowest point ever? What if we could just hit one button, and everything go away, and everything could just be so easy, and everything would work the way that we want things to work? What would that be like? Well, we do have a solution. But we have a solution for something much worse than what we see in our typical day of cancer, in which these things are very, very sensitive. These things are very hurtful. But something that these things come from, which we know is darkness. When darkness came into this world, through the sin of Adam and Eve, They were built against the Holy God. We see disparities. We see all these things that come from the sin of Adam and Eve. And they brought about all these other things in this world. You can see cancer. You can see all these certain things. You can see those that abuse alcohol. All these things that we struggle with on a daily basis came about in the garden. And some of you guys might ask that, what was so significant about the guard? What really took place in the guard that brought about these certain things? We see that God created Adam and Eve in his image, and they were created to love God with all their heart, mind, and soul. God deserved all the worship. So Adam and Eve, knowing this, They see the serpent and listen to the serpent, and the serpent tell them that you can be as God. And the serpent said, guess what? Don't worry about worshiping the God that created you. Worship yourself. And so by Adam and Eve worshiping themselves, guess what happened with their relationship with God? They're pretty much saying, God, you're not my God. I'm my own God. I can worship myself. And this brought about a what? A rebellion into the world. And this rebellion came into the world, it brought what? Death and darkness upon this entire world. And so we see a situation that's cancer or alcohol, we try to find solutions in this world to try to fix everything, but we don't understand that these things brought what came about at the fall, we will still try to put band-aids on a sore and not try to find why is that sore keep coming up. For example, I drive a car and my car is outside and I noticed this week my car was running hot. And I pulled the hood up, and I looked at my radiator. I saw water coming out, radiator coming out, this and that. So I had a bottle of water in my back seat. So I got some water, and I opened up the cap, and I pulled some water in so the motor wouldn't run hot. And so I put another bottle in. I closed the top. And then I got in the car, started up, and got to my next destination. Then I checked my car again. I noticed all the water that I put in is already gone. And so what I did, I put some more water in. And now it's Friday. And all week, instead of for me to go in and trying to find what's actually causing the radiator to lose water and radiating fluid, guess what? I keep trying to put water in. I'm not fixing the issue. And so that's what happened, though, is that until we understand the seriousness of the issue of darkness, we would not understand why we have struggles and the things that's going on around us. But thanks be to God, he gives a solution. His solution is our Savior Christ. Christ is the solution to darkness. Regardless of how much darkness is in our world, Christ's radiant light through his humble life and through his resurrection brings in what? Light and exposes all the deep darkness that is deep in our hearts. How do we know this? Well, we see it in our test today. And how are we gonna handle our test today? We're gonna handle it in three points today. The first point is gonna be Jesus introduces himself as God, and that's gonna be verse 12. Again, Jesus introduces himself as God, and that's verse 12. And point number two is gonna be the rejection of Jesus, the God-man, and that's gonna be verse 13. Again, the rejection of Jesus, the God-man, and that's gonna be verse 13. And point number three is going to be Jesus' rebuttal to the Pharisees' rejection. That's going to be verses 14 to 18. So let's get into our text. John 8, verse 12. Then Jesus spoke to them again, saying, I am the light of the world. He who follows me shall not walk in darkness, but have the light of life. Pharisees therefore said to him, you bear witness of yourself. Your witness is not true. Verse 14, Jesus answered and said to them, even if I bear witness of myself, my witness is true. For I know where I came from and where I'm going, but you do not know where I come from and where I am going. You judge according to the flesh. I judge no one. And yet, if I do judge, my judgment is true. For I am not alone, but I am with the Father who sent me. It is written in your law that the testimony of two men is true. I am one who bears witness of myself, and the Father who sent me bears witness of me. Thanks be to God for the reading of the scriptures. And before we jump right into our text, just a little bit of background. I know you guys have been going through John now for some time now, probably the last couple of weeks or so. John was written by the apostle John. John is also the one that we know that wrote Revelations. John of Zebedee, that people would say. John is one of the apostles also that wrote the Gospels. What are the four gospels? Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. But the synopsis of the gospel is Matthew, Mark, and Luke. These gospels, if you guys have read through them, they got a lot of the same stories. And we worked throughout the chapters in those books. But the three gospels are very similar in so many different ways. John is also a gospel, and it's very similar to them. But John focuses mostly upon what? He focuses mostly upon the passion narrative of Christ. And the passion narrative is what? Leading up to Christ's crucifixion and his resurrection. So John has pointed that this Christ is the light. So all throughout his book, he is pretty much exposing all of these people who are saying that, well, this Jesus is not really God. What John shows us in very detail, and a lot of people say, well, John is a pretty simple book. I would not agree with that. I think John has so much meat in it. John has so much great doctrine in it that gives us a great picture of the essence and the beauty of the righteousness of the glory of our God. So John is a great book to look at the glory of our God. And so John is exposing, throughout his book, he's exposing the darkness and showing that Jesus Christ is this light. And we know this is that, right here in our text in John 8, this is the time of the Feast of Tabernacles. Are you guys familiar with the Feast of Tabernacles? What happened in the Old Testament, what happened was in the Exodus, when the Israelites, they was enslaved in Egypt, And God brought them out of Egypt in a way to commemorate and remember what God has done for them. God brought them out and God gave them this festival of tabernacles to remember him. And they would go through this night and God would guide them by a pillar of fire. And you better see this bright, the essence of this light of God. Well, this same tabernacle right here feasts what's going on in our text in John 8, this text deals with also a light. And so that light that we see in the Old Testament, it turns into this marvelous light, which is Jesus saying, Jesus, I am that light, that God of the people. I am the only way that people can have salvation. And so Jesus does this in all throughout our text today, and John is exposing this over and over that Jesus is the one that exposed darkness. So with all that, given that background, let's get right into our point one. Jesus introduces himself as God. Look at verse 12. I am the light of the world. When you say he's the light of the world, what do you guys think about? Do you think about the creation, Genesis, how God designed and created the light? I think there's a great connection there, is that this same God we know created the heavens and the earth. He created the sun, so God, the one that brought everything into existence, nothing but darkness, God what? He brings about light. So Jesus said, I am the light. How do we know Jesus is the light? Let's look at John 1, 1. It said, in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. So we say this Word was God. And it goes on to say, he was in the beginning with God. So this same word was in the beginning with God. So the same word was also what? He was with God at creation. So the same word, we see what? He was there that created the world and brought the world into existence. How we know that? Look at verse three in John chapter one, verse three. All things were made through him and without him, nothing was made that was made. So the same word that brought things into existence, that created everything into the world, is the same God at creation, and the same word was in relationship with the same God. It goes on, it says in verse four, and him was life, and the life was the light of man. So the same word was what? The light of man. So they keep going on in verse five, and this light shines in darkness and the darkness did not comprehend it. So this same word shines into darkness. This same word exposes the deepness of darkness and what it does, it brings everything out because the light, nothing can be hidden. Verse six, there was a man sent from God, whose name was John. This man came for a witness, to bear witness of the light. So John is not saying he's the light, but John said, guess what? He's bearing witness of the light. So over and over, we see that over and over, it keeps saying this light and the word. And we just read right here in our text today, it said what? That Christ, what? He's the light of the world. So John is making a correlation is that the same creator of the universe that created the stars, that created all the universe, guess what? He's the same God. He's the same God that we see what? It's the light of the world. So Jesus, by being the light of the world, we see that in, we keep going and we see that in verse 29 in chapter one. It said, in the next day, John saw Jesus coming towards him and said, behold, the Lamb of God who'll take away the sin of the world. So John comes in and testify of this light to come. But now in verse 29, John said, guess what? This light is Jesus. So Jesus being the light, he exposes darkness, he brings darkness and put darkness to shame. It goes on and we see in our text today, we see that not only Jesus is the light of the world, we see also he said, he who follows me shall not walk in darkness, but have the light of life. So the ones that follow God, follow this light, guess what? They will have what? The light of life. Why do we need the light of life? We talked about it earlier at the fall of creation, at the fall of Adam and Eve. When they brought darkness into this world, they brought sin into this world. They brought enslavement to sin into this world. And by having enslavement to sin, sin doesn't just affect us. It just doesn't affect our neighbor, people around us. Sin is a rebellion to a holy God. So whenever Whenever sin is played out and sometimes when we see sin and we participate in sin, we look around, we see nobody sees us. We feel like we can get away with it. Guess what? Our neighbor might not be beside us. Our friend might not be beside us. But God that sees all, we cannot hide anything from him. His marvelous light exposes the darkness that we try to hide. So this darkness of man we see is that man tries to suppress, man tries to be so crafty in a way, and so man tries to be so hostile towards God, and man thinks that they're getting away with it. But man is hostile towards a holy God. We see that in John 3, 19, it talks about After getting through talking about how we see in John 3.16 how God so loved the world that he gave his only God's son, it goes on down to verse 19 in John 3.16. It says, and this is the condemnation that the light has come into the world, and men love darkness rather than the light. So Jesus came as a light. Men are enslaved to darkness. Jesus came what? To give man what? The light of the world. And men loved darkness rather than his light because their deeds were evil. Why are their deeds evil? Because of what happened in Genesis. That man was enslaved to their sins. Goes on to verse 20. For everyone participating in evil, practicing evil, hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed. But he who does the truth comes to the light, that his deeds may be clearly seen, that they have been done in God. that have been done in God. So now that the ones that are enslaved to this sin, that is in darkness, now what? When their hearts and everything is exposed to the light of Christ, they become followers of God. And so some of you guys might say, well, how does this take place, being a follower of God? God and His goodness God is his goodness before the foundation of this world. God loves the ones that he has called before the foundation of the world. And by loving those, God has given them his light. And by giving his light, man then at that point, man can turn into God only by the work of God. Man can turn and see that God is the only one that has light. So to finish up on this point one of Jesus being God, we see that Jesus is God, which is the light of the world. That brings me to our second point, is that, see, now we see that Jesus, we lay the foundation that Jesus is God. Let's look at the second point, the rejection of the God-man. Look at verse 13, chapter eight, verse 13. The Pharisees therefore said to him, you bear witness of yourself. Your witness is not true. So Jesus has already told the people that he is the light, so I'm the light of the world, and those who follow me can be a part of this light. But now the Pharisees, now they hear this, and they're saying that you bear witness of yourself. Your witness is not true. So the Pharisees bring about two accusations against Jesus. They're trying to say that what? That Jesus is about himself, and what Jesus is doing, guess what? Jesus is, everything he's doing is not true, and Jesus is about himself. These two acquisitions. What we know then is that Jesus is not just doing the will of himself. Jesus is doing the will of the triune God, which is the God, the Father, and the Son. And how do we know this? Jesus starts out, we say what? I am the light. When we say the word I am, do you guys think of Deuteronomy? You guys think of Deuteronomy when Moses say, I am that I am? So Jesus right here is that, it's no coincidence why he say I am. And the reason why he use an I am, Jesus is showing that I am that I am. Jesus is saying that he's God. And these Pharisees, even though they in darkness, I do believe that the Pharisees see that Jesus is saying something here more than just saying that he's just a light. Jesus is saying that he's God. And these Pharisees are already saying that, no, you're for yourself. But we know that Jesus and the Father are what? A triune God. They're in covenant relationship. They are in agreement with each other. The Father and the Son and the Spirit works within each other to bring about the gloriousness of God, of the triune God. So God is a God of truth. If God was by himself, why did he come and die for sinners? He didn't have to come. He lived in majesty. He lived in heaven. He was on the throne. Why did he have to come if he was just about himself? God, Jesus came because Jesus loves sinners. And he came to do the what? The will of the Father. So that's a debunk of the first accusation for them saying that, well, Jesus, you're doing, you come to do your own thing. We see a second thing, you say, well, Jesus, what you're teaching is not true. We know everything about Jesus is true. You guys know John 14, six. I'm the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. Jesus is the truth. There's no deceit found in Jesus. In his God, in his, that's one of the things, that's a, in his essence, the sin cannot come near God. God is too holy for sin to be in his presence. since God is holy and just. God, Jesus is not a liar, but the devil is a liar. The devil is the one to deceive Adam and Eve. Not just Adam and Eve, the devil is the one that's coming to deceive every one of us in here right now. And some of us that are believers is that we know this. That as we try to walk and we go through a program like this and you get so much good material and the staff here just trying to hold you guys accountable and get you guys to read your word. And as you study, try to meditate on the word and the devil just sneak in and try to tell you that, well, let's put the Bible to the side today. Let's put it aside for next day. And next thing you go, you go two weeks without reading your word. Or the devil try to bring up old lust or old sin. And once you try to get away from that old self, that flesh, you're trying to live in the life of Christ, and Satan try to drag you back into your old self, over and over. I'm going to tell you guys, I like to be honest. I'm going to believe, I'm trusting in God, but every single day, Satan is pulling at me. I remember last night, my wife, she's a stay-at-home mom, and I gave her the You know, she's take care of all the bills and things of that nature. I kind of forget certain things, so she take care of all the bills. And so I got an email last night, and it said that we haven't paid our life bill in a couple months. And so for me, I'm raising with, I'm angry, I'm mad. I'm like, man, our life's gonna be cut off. I have three daughters. You know, and I have a wife, and so my life's gonna be cut off. And so I was mad. You guys don't want me to be honest, do you? I was mad. But Satan knows how to grab, he knows what to throw at us to get us to call into sin. But at that point though, instead of me getting mad and lounging out at my spouse, my bride, I sought the Lord for grace. And it was tough, it was tough. Satan had wanted me to get in there and just say something, but for me at that time, it wasn't the right thing to say. It was the time to seek the Lord's face. And this is just not my situation. Times when you guys are alone, when the staff is not with you, when those sins try to come up and say that nobody sees us, guess what? Those are time to pull up your word and say, God, I'm gonna trust in you. Even though this flesh has been pulled to sin, God, I'm gonna trust you through it all. And for those that are believers, God is there is faithful. He will hear these prayers and God will restore you through these times of difficulty. You can trust God. He's a faithful God through these hard times. And I'm running out of time here. We goes on and we see that Jesus is the truth. Let's go to the point three, I mean the last point. So at point one we see Jesus is God, and the Pharisees try to say that you're not truth, you're not the real, you're not real, you bring about false accusations, and Jesus is already showing that he is God, that everything in him is truth. Now we're about to see Jesus is gonna rebuttal this. Now Jesus is gonna show you that he is God, and he's gonna put them to shame. Look at verse 14. Jesus answered them and said to them, even if I bear witness of myself, my witness is true. For I know where I came from and where I am going. So Jesus said, guess what? For I bear witness of myself, my witness is true, if he bear witness of his self. And so Jesus and the father are what? In one and in relationship with each other, like I said earlier. And so Jesus, everything he say is true. And so the Pharisees, he's saying that the Pharisees, what they're saying is actually, it's bogus. Because if you look at that in John 3.13, and Jesus said, well, I know where I came from and where I'm going. And how do we know that in John 3.13? No one has ascended to heaven, but he who came down from heaven, that is the son of man who is in heaven. Who comes from heaven? It has to be God. Jesus is God. And not only he's God, he's a judge. How do we know this? Look further in the text. But you do not know where I come from and where I'm going. You judge according to the flesh. So these Pharisees were judging according to the flesh. What I mean by judging according to the flesh is that they're trusting their own fallen nature. When I say fallen nature, is that when Adam and Eve sin, We have this original sin we have gotten from, inherited from our forefather Adam and Eve. This rebellion, which is our flesh, that is hostile towards God. This flesh right now tries to do the things of objection to God over and over, over and over. And so the Pharisees, they're not judging based upon the spirit of God. They're just judging upon what their fallen nature. And I don't know about you guys, is that for me, I don't want to trust my flesh. The flesh is corrupt. Over and over, we can see the flesh try to grab us and pull us back into sin. And so these guys are trusting into their flesh and saying that, that, that, that. So you judge, I mean, when Jesus said, you judge according to this flesh, that they were actually not looking for the wisdom of God, but looking at themselves. So the one that judges flesh is born of the flesh. but the one that judges of God is of the spirit. So we see Jesus is defending his credibility. He says that, I judge no one. Know what Jesus said here in verse 15. He said, I judge no one. But we know Jesus is the judge of the world, but right here he says he judge no one. When we see that when Jesus came into this world, he came and died for sinners, but at his second coming, He's going to be the raging, glorious King on the throne, that He's going to expose and judge all the wickedness in the world. But right now, He came not to condemn the world, but came to save the world. That's what we see in verse 16, say, yeah, if I do judge, my judgment is true. Jesus' judge is going to be true at the end. For those who continually walking in sin will be exposed by the radiant light of God. And by them being exposed, God would totally pour his wrath out on them. So where the hope do we have then? What hope do we have? I would say the only hope that we have right now is to trust in the son. A lot of us might have been baptized at a young age and probably said a couple of prayers every single night and feel like that's gonna be enough. Those who continue in sin, who does the work of sin, regardless of your confession at five or six years old, or even 20 years old, if you continue in sin and don't have any conviction and joy of sin, guess what? You're born of the flesh. How do you know you're born of God? That when you do sin, you fall on your face, you ask God for forgiveness over and over, you hate your sin. So ask yourself, do you hate your sin? Or sin is just not too bad? It's just not too bad? I can get away with this, I can get away with this. It's just not too bad. But guess what? If we base sin on our own standards, guess what? We'll be able to create our own God to judge. But guess what, if we see the standards of God, he's a holy God. We gotta see the standards of God where God sees sin. One little lie, one little deception is a rebellion to a holy God. One abuse of anything that God has given us, if it's alcohol, of any type of drug, anything that we use, guess what, it's a rebellion to a holy God. And so regardless of saying that, well, it's just not too bad. Based on your standards, yes. But on the standards of God, it's really bad. But it is a solution, though. The gods, in his glory, he came woven in flesh to die for those that are sinners. for sinners to what? Believe and trust in the work of Christ. Christ, guess what he does? All your sinful life, every single thing you've done before you made it here today, every single thing that you have done in your entire life, guess what? Those who believe in him, guess what? He takes your sin, and guess where your sin goes? Your sin goes on the cross with Christ. He absorbs your sin. by him absorbing your sin, he take your punishment. He take the punishment that you deserve. I deserve, we all deserve the punishment of God. But God takes, what's what? He takes our sin, put it on the cross. He tell the Father, punish me for them. And Jesus Christ is punished for our sins. In the glorious life of Christ, Christ never sinned. Guess where his perfect life goes? It goes on you who believe in him. Christ gives his life to you. And God the Father no longer sees anything you've done in your life. Regardless of what you've done, the worst sin that you think you've committed, if it's murder, if it's drugs, if whatever you have done in your entire life, Guess what? Christ's blood is enough to remove all your sins. So to never feel like, well, I've done too much for God to remove my sins. Guess what? The blood of Christ is enough to remove all sins that has been committed. And that's why Christ has came. So leaving here, I would say that Jesus Christ is God. and Jesus exposes darkness, and Jesus brings in His marvelous light for those who believe in Him. So trust in the Christ today, and He can give His life for you, and you can have eternal life and not depending on your flesh. Let us pray. Our gracious God, Lord, we thank You, Lord, for this time. Times, Lord, that even in my flesh that I fall, I am guilty, Lord. I am guilty for falling into sin, Lord. But I thank you for the cross. I thank you for your spirit that gives life to sinners, sinners that doesn't deserve anything from you. You give your spirit to them. Lord, let it be fertile ground today. Allow your spirit, Lord, today, that these men that are here, Lord, today, Lord, to be able to taste the glorious work of salvation. For them to see that, Lord, that life with you, Lord, it's a marvelous light. Lord, that nothing in this world can compare to being in relationship with you. Let them taste your goodness. Remove, Lord, that heart, Lord, of stone, and give them a heart of flesh. Give them a heart, Lord, of your spirit. They can see your marvelous work on a daily basis. Lord, as Satan tried to tempt them, they can turn to you, Lord, every single time trusting your marvelous work. We thank you, Lord, for this time. We thank you for the word that was preached. Allow your word, Lord, to fall upon their hearts and my hearts and all the hearts that are here. In Christ's name we pray, amen.