Believe in the Light (John 12:34-50)

Abel, would you please remain standing for the reading of

God's Word? Before I read it, I just wanted

to tell you that tomorrow I'll be going on sabbatical for three

months during the summer. I tell you that because I'm

going to say I'm going to miss you very much.

Look forward to seeing you in the fall, but also to ask for

your prayers. Pray for me and my wife and our

three daughters that the Lord would give us rest and a lot of

fun as we spend the summer together.

In the first part of our sabbatical we have the

opportunity to spend 5 weeks in England and Scotland visiting

pastors and church planters and missionaries and learning from

them and asking the question, what does it look like to preach

and proclaim and preserve the gospel in a post Christian

culture? It is a privilege every Sunday

to come into worship with you to preach the gospel.

And once more, it's a privilege to preach the gospel for you.

This morning from the Gospel of John.

Return with me to John chapter 12.

John 12 · chapter mention

Begin reading in verse 34. So the crowd answered him, We've

heard from the law that the Christ remains forever.

How can you say that the Son of Man must be lifted up?

Who is this Son of man? So Jesus said to them, The light

is among you for a little while longer.

Walk while you have the light, lest darkness overtake you.

The one who walks in the darkness does not know where he

is going. While you have the light,

believe in the light, that you may become sons of light.

When Jesus had said these things, He departed and hid

Himself from them. Though He had done many signs

before them, they did not believe in Him.

So the word spoken by the prophet Isaiah might be

fulfilled. Lord, who has believed what He

heard from us? And to whom has the arm of the

Lord been revealed? Therefore they could not

believe. For again Isaiah said He has

blinded their eyes and hardened their heart, lest they see with

their eyes, and understand with their heart.

And turn, and I would heal them. Isaiah said these things because

he saw his glory and spoke of Him.

Nevertheless, many even of the authorities believed in him.

But for fear of the Pharisees, they did not confess it, so they

would not be put out of the synagogue.

For they love the glory that comes from man more than the

glory that comes from God. And Jesus cried out and said,

Whoever believes in me believes not me, but in him who sent me.

Whoever sees me sees him who sent me.

I've come into the world as light so that whoever believes

in me may not remain in darkness.

If anyone hears my words and does not keep them, I do not

judge him, for I did not come to judge the world, but to save the

world. The one who rejects me and does

not receive my words has a judge.

The word that I have spoken will judge Him on the last day, for I

have not spoken on my own authority, but the Father who

sent me has Himself given me a commandment what to say and what

to speak, and I know that His commandment is eternal life.

What I say, therefore I say, as the Father has told me.

This is the word of the Lord. You may be seated.

Faith is the foundational activity of the Christian life.

No, I know that might seem obvious to some of you, but I

want you to think about your daily lives as followers of

Jesus Christ. It is through faith that we

worship. It is through faith that we

pray. It is through faith that we are

saved. Apostle John tells us that this

is the very reason that he has recorded all of the things that

he has written about in his gospel, that we may believe that

Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing we

may have life in his name. But you see, in our contemporary

culture, it is often assumed that faith merely belongs to the

religious, that there are two kinds of people in our world,

those who have faith and those who don't.

But the truth is, every single person has faith in something.

The question is not whether or not you have faith, but what or

who have your have you placed your faith in?

In many ways, it's a very question of the Gospel of John

through the question of the Bible.

What is it that you truly believe?

You see, faith is not merely an activity for the Christian.

Faith is the very activity as our lives as human beings,

everything we do, every decision we make, we live according to

what we believe. And so it's through faith that

people view the world. It's through faith that people

choose what rules they're going to follow and which they're

going to ignore. It is through faith that each

day we make the decisions that are before us and we decide

which way we should go. Faith in either ourselves, our

faith, and a God who loves us. The question before us is what

is genuine faith? And this morning we are picking

up where we left off last week and John's account of the

triumphal entry. Not only does John describe

Jesus coming into Jerusalem in triumph and that humbly mounted

on a donkey, he also describes in great detail how people

responded. They responded with unbelief.

But in our passage this morning we see how Jesus then responded

to their unbelief. And in Jesus's words we get a

glimpse of what genuine faith looks like.

Jesus will use three words, 3 words that we don't often

associate with faith to teach us what faith truly is.

Walking, seeing and keeping. So the first thing that Jesus

wants us to know about faith is this.

Faith is about walking. Look with me at John chapter 12,

John 12:34

verse 34. John tells us that the crowd

answered Jesus. We've heard from the law that

the Christ remains forever. How can you say that the Son of

man must be lifted up? Who is this Son of man?

Now this is in response to what Jesus said earlier in verse 32.

So if you have a Bible, I want you to turn to the Gospel of

John, John chapter 12. If you don't have a Bible, you

John 12 · chapter mention

can take the blue Pew Bible in front of you.

That is our gift to you. And John 12, verse 32, we're

John 12:32

told that Jesus said this. This is where we left off last

week. Jesus said, I, when I am lifted

up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.

And then John interjects and explains what Jesus meant by

this in verse 33. John says he said this to show

by what kind of death he was going to die.

Now what is remarkable is that the crowds who heard Jesus that

day needed no explanation. They knew exactly what Jesus was

talking about. They knew that when He said He

must be lifted up, they knew that He was talking about His

death. And that is exactly what they

have come to argue with Him about.

Look with me again at verse 34. They say we have heard from the

law that the Christ must remain forever.

How can you say that the Son of Man must be lifted up?

You see, they are appealing to their own understanding of the

Bible when they say the word law.

By law they mean the entirety of the Old Testament Scriptures.

And so they're coming to Jesus, the one who's claimed to be the

Messiah, the one who's claimed to be the Son of man.

And they're saying, wait a minute, Jesus, how can you say

that? You must be lifted up?

How can you be talking about your death?

The Bible that we read, the Old Testament Scriptures, describe a

Messiah whom we believe will remain forever.

You see, they expected a Messiah who is going to come and

triumph. They didn't understand why Jesus

had to come to die. Several years ago I had a friend

who is struggling, not with his doubt, but he was struggling

with his new faith. You see, it just become a

Christian and with tears in his eyes, he looked at me and he

said, Paul, why did Jesus have to die for me?

You see, that is the most important question any of us

could ask. It's very question that the

crowds are asking Jesus, Jesus, how can you say that the

Messiah, the Christ, the Savior King has come to die?

You see, because they couldn't imagine that Jesus came to die

in order to conquer death, and Jesus came in triumph into

Jerusalem to conquer sin and death by going to the cross.

So they're asking what kind of savior comes to Jerusalem to be

crucified? Jesus responds in a peculiar

way. He doesn't respond directly.

Look with me, verse 35. Jesus said to them, The light is

among you for a little while longer.

Walk while you have the light, lest darkness overtake you.

The one who walks in darkness does not know where he is going.

It's a strange way to answer a simple question.

They asked Jesus, who is the Son of man?

Jesus, answer The light is among you for a little while longer.

What is Jesus saying? Well, you know in the Gospel of

John that he has already said Jesus, John chapter 8, I am the

John 8 · chapter mention

light of the world. So here in verse 35 of chapter

12, Jesus is saying the light. That is Jesus himself is among

you for a little while longer. In other words, Jesus is talking

once again about his death, and he wants the crowds to

understand that while he is with them, he's given them a command.

He's called them to something, and it's to walk.

Notice what he says. Walk while you have the light,

lest the darkness overtake you. And so how should we respond to

the death of Jesus? Well, Jesus wants the crowds to

know that day, and he wants all of us to know 2000 years later.

Then, in light of his death and resurrection, he's called us to

walk. It's a strange way to describe

faith. Jesus says we must walk lest the

darkness overtake us. The one who walks in the

darkness does not know where he's going.

If you've been with us in the in our study, in the Gospel of

John, you should be thinking about John chapter 1.

John 1 · chapter mention

You see, John has already prepared us to hear these words

from Jesus. In his prologue, John one verse

5, John says the light shines in the darkness and the darkness

has not overcome it. So what Jesus is saying to the

crowds and to all of us is the light has come.

It's come to illuminate the darkness.

Jesus is here and he's calling us to walk with him.

He points out that those who remain in darkness have no idea

where they're going. Couple years ago, just when our

children reached the age where they were no longer waking us up

in the middle of the night as much, we decided to be a great

idea to get a dog. So now we still wake up in the

middle of the night and this even happened last night in the

middle of the night. I can hear our dog Burton

whimpering from his kennel, and I laid there thinking, surely

he's just going to go back to sleep.

But it just kept going. And so I got up in the middle of

the night and I stumbled in the dark over to his kennel.

And any of you who've had to get up in the middle of the night

and stumble through your house know exactly what Jesus is

talking about. If you're in the dark, you can't

see where you're going. But more than a poignant image,

Jesus is drawing on themes that are found throughout the Bible,

especially in the Old Testament, the themes of walking and light

and darkness. As we've already seen in our

study of John, the theme of light in the Bible refers to

God's presence, that God is a light to our path and a lamp to

our feet. And darkness refers to his

absence. And we experience this darkness

every single day, The darkness of our fallen world, a world

that has turned its back on God. The darkness of those who've

done wrong to us, but also the darkness of our own sin.

When the Bible talks about darkness, it is talking about

God's absence, the way that we turn our back on Him.

But Jesus is also drawing on the theme of walking.

Bible talks about walking. It's referring to life, and we

still use this kind of language today.

We often talk about life like a journey.

We'll say things like, well, I'm walking through life.

That's exactly what Jesus was referring to here.

When He calls us to walk in the light, we see this, especially

the prophet Isaiah. Isaiah 9 verse 2.

Isaiah 9:2

The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light

on those who dwelt in a land of deep darkness on them.

The light has shown. It's what Jesus is doing here in

John 12 is He's giving us an invitation to come out of the

darkness to walk with Him into the light.

Verse 36 He says while you have the light, believe the light,

that you may become sons of light.

He is connecting belief with walking.

Apostle Paul picks up on this connection in his letter to the

Ephesians, Ephesians 5 verse 8, where Paul writes for at one

Ephesians 5:8

time you were in darkness, but now you are light and the Lord

walk as children of the light. So what does all of this have to

do with faith? For Jesus to describe faith,

like walking it strikes against everything we've been taught in

the last 50 years of evangelical Christianity.

You see, we often describe faith as a decision.

We think of our belief in Jesus in ones and zeros in our digital

age, a box to check yes or no. Genuine faith is not merely A1

time decision. Genuine faith is to be lived out

each and every day. And anyone who's grown

accustomed to the darkness of our world knows just how true

that is. Because as we walk through the

darkness of this life, we often struggle with doubt and

questions. We believe, and yet we cry out,

help our unbelief in our own struggle with sin and

temptation. We strive after the one who's

gone before us, our trailblazer, the author and perfector of our

faith, Jesus, the one who has invited us to walk with him, the

one who's not left us alone. As if somehow we believe and now

we've just got to figure out the rest of life by ourselves.

But the one who says believe in me, walk with me, because I am

with you, even to the end of the age.

First, Jesus says faith is like walking.

Second, he also tells us that faith requires seeing.

We cannot walk through the darkness unless we see the light

of Jesus. And John tells us that when

Jesus had said all of these things, he departed and hid

himself from them. Now, this is not the first time

in the Gospel of John that Jesus hid himself.

Earlier in John 8, he'd hid himself because they wanted to

throw stones at him. But now he's hiding himself for

a different reason. I think it's a sign He's hiding

himself from the crowds because already they couldn't see Him.

Even though they saw them, him with their eyes, they couldn't

truly see Jesus for who He really was.

So verse 37, we're told that though He had done many signs

before them, they still did not believe Him.

These crowds that had gathered at the triumphal entry, many of

them had followed Jesus to see what He was going to do.

They'd heard about Jesus and all the things He had done.

They wanted to see with their own eyes the man.

They wanted to verify all of the miracles they had heard about.

And even though many of them had seen these signs with their own

eyes, John tells us they did not believe.

Even though they saw Jesus, they didn't really see Jesus.

And all of this, we're told, is because this is what the prophet

Isaiah said would happen. Verse 38 John says so the word

spoken by the prophet Isaiah might be fulfilled.

Lord, who has believed in what he heard from us?

And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?

The Jewish people rejected Jesus as the Messiah because of their

own understanding of the Old Testament.

Jesus was not who they were looking for.

He wasn't who they expected. They expected a warrior.

They expected a king coming with a crown on his head and a sword

in his first. What they got was a king who

came to lay his life down on the cross.

And they pointed to their own understanding of the Bible to

prove their point. And so Isaiah tells us the exact

opposite. And this is exactly what the

apostle John does in response the crowds objections to Jesus

as the Christ. It's almost as if John is

saying, OK, you want to have a Bible study, let's have a Bible

study. You want to look for the Old

Testament Scriptures about the Messiah?

Let's go to the Old Testament scriptures and let's learn about

the Messiah. And he quotes directly from

Isaiah chapter 53. Who is believed, what he has

Isaiah 53 · chapter mention

heard from us, and to whom has the arm of the Lord been

revealed word for word? What he is quoting in John 1238?

But of course, Isaiah doesn't end there.

He goes on in Isaiah 53, and he describes the Messiah like this.

He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows,

acquainted with grief as one from whom hid their faces.

He was despised, and we esteemed Him not.

John's point is as surprising as it is ironic.

Jesus is the Messiah because he is, exactly as the Scriptures

foretold, a suffering servant, a man of sorrows who came to bear

the grief and sin of his people on the cross.

And they couldn't see it. And in their own understanding

of the Scriptures they rejected, Jesus fulfilled the scriptures

that Jesus would be rejected. When I was in college at an

English professor who is a practicing Jew, he was an

awesome teacher, so smart and intelligent, creative.

He loved his students and we loved him.

We had a great relationship. He refused to call me Paul.

It's my Greek name. You're going to guess what he

called me. He called me Saul one day after

class. I went up to him because he was

talking about the Bible. And so I thought I had the

opportunity as humbly as I could to ask him.

I asked him about suffering Servant of Isaiah 53.

He knew the Old Testament and he knew the New Testament backwards

and forwards. And so I looked at him and I

asked him, how can you say that the suffering servant of Isaiah

53 isn't Jesus? Of all that we know that Jesus

said and did, how can you say that he isn't the Man of

Sorrows? The sad truth is my professor

just couldn't see it. He couldn't see it because of

what he thought the Messiah should be.

You see, faith, genuine faith, requires seeing.

Not just any kind of sight, but it requires spiritual seeing to

see what only God can show us. It requires our eyes being

opened. It takes a miracle, a work of

the Holy Spirit, for us to behold Jesus as the one whom he

said that He is. They couldn't see it, and they

couldn't believe their eyes become blinded.

So the question for us is, what is it that you really see?

Do you really see Jesus for who He is?

And if you did, how would you really know?

Well, John tells us that Isaiah saw Jesus.

I want you to look with me now, Isaiah 12 or John 12 verse 41.

John 12:41

John tells us Isaiah said these things because he saw His glory

and spoke of him. Did you hear it?

John just said that Isaiah the prophet saw Jesus.

Isaiah the prophet in the Old Testament before Jesus was ever

born, prior to his incarnation, Isaiah the prophet saw the glory

of Jesus. Well when did Isaiah see Jesus?

I think Isaiah tells us in Isaiah chapter 6, Isaiah 6 verse

Isaiah 6 · chapter mention

one. And the year that King Isaiah

died, I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne high, and lifted

up, and the train of his robe filled the temple, and above him

stood the seraphim, and each had six wings.

With two he covered his face, with two, he covered his feet

with two, that he flew. And one called to another, and

said, Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts.

The whole earth is full of his glory.

And the foundations of the thresholds shook at the voice of

him who called, And the house was filled with smoke.

And I said, Woe is me, for I am lost for a man of unclean lips,

and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips.

From my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts.

Isaiah saw the glory of Jesus Christ, and he was undone.

All he could do was to fall down at his feet.

If you have truly seen Jesus, it's all you can do but fall

down and humility at his feet. So my question for you and me,

is this, What version of Jesus do you see?

Is it a Christ that you can control?

A Christ that you can put into a box and take out when you want

him? Or is it the same Christ that

Isaiah saw? Christ brings you to your knees.

Don't you want to see Jesus like that?

Faith requires seeing. It requires us to see the

Apostle Paul called things unseen, the things of Jesus that

lead us to worship him. So the 3rd and final thing that

Jesus teaches us about faith. Faith leads to keeping Jesus in

verse 44, cries out to the crowd and he gives them this

invitation and invitation that he gives all of us as well.

Whoever believes in me believes not in me, but him who sent me.

And whoever sees me sees him who sent me.

I've come into the world as light so that whoever believes

in me may not remain in darkness.

In other words, what Jesus is telling the crowds and what he

is telling you in me is this. If you believe in Jesus, your

life cannot stay the same. Everything changes.

If Jesus is who he says he is, if he is the Son of God, if he

is the Messiah, if he is our Savior King, if he really did

die and rise again, if he really is coming once again to make all

things new, then everything in our lives must change.

We cannot remain the same. We cannot remain in darkness.

Jesus says, and I think the apostle John heard these words

of Jesus and he had them in mind when he wrote his first letter.

First John. I want you to listen to his

words in first John chapter 1 and listen to where he got these

1 John 1 · chapter mention

ideas from John one verse 5. John says this is the message

that we heard from him and proclaim to you that God is

light and in him is no darkness at all.

If we say we have fellowship with Him while we walk in

darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth.

But John is saying in first John I think is an echo of Jesus's

words here in John 12. Whoever believes in Jesus cannot

remain in darkness. So John goes so far to say this

that if you are a follower of Jesus, if you say you were a

Christian and let you remain in darkness, if you claim Christ

yet remain in sin, that makes you a liar.

Strong words. It's a very definition of

hypocrisy that Christians would claim to follow Jesus and yet

remain in darkness. Yet John doesn't stop there.

He goes on and describes another kind of hypocrisy in verse 7.

He says, But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we

have fellowship with one another, and the blood of

Jesus's Son cleanses us from all sin.

But if we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth

is not in us. In other words, if you say you

aren't a Sinner, well, that also makes you a liar.

It's a double hypocrisy. On one hand, anyone who claims

Christ and remains in sin is a liar, but on the other hand,

anyone who says they're not a Sinner is a liar.

And So what do we do? Because if you look at yourself

and your life honestly, I think every one of us would say I'm a

hypocrite. And according to what Jesus and

Apostle John are saying, we're all liars.

What do we do? We must come out of our

hypocrisy and come out of hiding and hear Jesus's gracious

invitation to us. Verse 47.

If anyone hears my words and does not keep them, I do not

judge him, for I did not come to judge the world, but to save the

world. What does he mean?

Well, His words are words of life, words of salvation, not

words of condemnation. We're not condemned by the words

of Jesus. No, we condemn ourselves when we

reject his words. So Jesus goes on to verse 48.

The one who rejects me does not receive my words, has a judge.

The word that I've spoken will judge him on the last day.

Anyone who rejects the words of Jesus and the free offer of the

Gospel that through his death and resurrection we have life is

choosing death and so hear his words.

Jesus is calling us to keep them.

He ends like this verse 50, the last words of Jesus in his

public ministry. Jesus said, I know that his

commandment is eternal life. What I say, therefore I say, as

the Father has told me. New Testament scholar Leon

Morris points out that Jesus's words here are important as he

describes his commandment. Notice what he says.

His commandment is eternal life. Jesus does not say his

commandment is about eternal life.

Nor does he say those who keep my commandment will have eternal

life. No, he says his commandment is

eternal life. So what is Christ's commandment?

Well Jesus said repent and believe the good news, the

gospel. Jesus said love the Lord your

God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength and love your

neighbor as yourself. Jesus said come to me all you

who are weary and heavy laden and I will give you rest.

Jesus said abide with me for apart from me you can do

nothing. Jesus said it is finished.

His commandment is eternal life, and He has called us to walk

with him, to see Him, and to keep His words because in his

words we have salvation, we have victory, and we have joy.

Let's pray. Father in heaven, may we now

live lives that walk with your Son Jesus.

May we see him as our light. May we keep His commandments and

abide in Him alone. We pray now as we sing this

final song and go from here, that we would live lives of

faith. That's your Holy Spirit.

We put our faith into practice and we see that you are with us

every step of the way. We ask this in the strong name

of Jesus Christ, Amen. Let's stand and sing.