SEVEN Series: Week 12 - Light of the World

Every one of those baptisms represents a life transformed by the blood of Jesus.

Every one of those represents a story of who somebody was.

But more importantly, and eternally who they are now in Christ Jesus.

Yeah.

Praise God.

If you're new to Crossroads, or if you've been here the whole 30 years, you need to know that this is why we exist.

This is why we exist.

We exist to be a community where people encounter Jesus, where we equip Christians, and where we engage our community.

And I am so grateful that you've chosen to make today's worship experience and celebration a part of your weekend.

My prayer is that you will have an encounter with Jesus that will render you wrecked.

And that you believe you're so different than you came in today.

That you have an encounter with Jesus that you'll say today, August 23rd, 2026, my life changed forever.

May that be your prayer as well.

Father, as is my prayer.

Come, move, and have your being right now in this place and in this space.

We give all glory and all honor and all praise to you and you alone, the author and perfected of our faith.

Come now, Holy Spirit, move in us.

Open up our minds, prepare our hearts, ready us for an encounter with you, the living God.

We pray in your name.

And the whole church said, Amen and amen.

Hey, y'all may be seated.

Yes.

It is so good to have you guys here.

And as you're being sat, as you're being sat, grab your Bible and turn to the New Testament book of John, specifically chapter 8.

And if you don't have a Bible with you this morning, or you didn't bring one, I invite you, I encourage you to raise your hand.

We have ushers that are gonna come around the worship center right now.

They're gonna find you, they'll come to you.

Just hold your hand up, let them know you'd like a Bible, and they're gonna bring you a Bible.

The Bible that they give you today is your Bible.

We expect that you take it with you when you leave today and bring it back next week when you come.

We're gonna be in John chapter 8.

John 8 · chapter mention

If you go a little more than halfway in your Bible to the right, there'll be a collection of names.

Matthew, Mark, Luke, and the fourth book in the New Testament is the Gospel of John, specifically chapter 8.

If you're newer to the Bible and you're not familiar with the old or New Testament, go to the very beginning of your Bible to the table of contents and look in the New Testament for the book of John, the fourth one.

They'll give you a page number associated with that.

You're gonna want to go to the large black number eight.

That's the chapter of the small black numbers of the verses.

We're gonna be in John chapter eight, verses 12 through 20 together today.

Listen, as you're turning there, I want to turn your attention to something that if you walked through our worship center doors today, you absolutely could not have missed.

We are starting September the 16th at 6 p.m.

midweek groups.

We've got life groups, we've got an essentials group, we've got a belong group, we've got all kinds of groups.

And that's a byproduct of why we exist: to be a community where people encounter Christ and where we equip Christians.

That's what these life groups are intended to do, is to give you space to build relationships with others, to grow in your knowledge and in your relationship with Jesus and to study his word together.

So I want to encourage you, if you're not actively in a group right now, would you please think about stopping by our Connect Center on the way out?

You can get more information there.

You can go to the display we have in our lobby, pick up some information there, or you can go to our website and make sure that you go to the link there and download all of the life groups we've got going on.

If you are new to the faith, maybe today is gonna be a day of salvation for you.

I want to encourage you to go to our essentials group where we're gonna learn about the fundamentals of our faith.

This is gonna be an incredible time together.

Let's read, beginning in John chapter 8, verses 12 through 20 together.

John 8:12–20

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're bearing witness about yourself, and 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'm going.

But you do not know where I came from or where I'm going.

You judge according to the flesh.

I judge no one.

Yet even if I do judge, my judgment is true, for it's not I alone who judge, but I and the father who sent me.

In your law.

It's written that the testimony of two people is true.

I'm the one who bears witness about myself, and the father who sent me bears witness about me.

They said to him, Therefore, who is your father?

And Jesus answered, You know neither me nor my father.

If you knew me, you would know my father also.

These words he spoke in the treasuries, he taught in the temple.

But no one arrested him because his hour had not yet come.

Father, these are your words.

True, active, alive, transformative, powerful, perfect and complete.

Today, Lord, I pray that you would use your word in a transformative way.

For those of us who would call ourselves seasoned in our faith, who are familiar with this passage, Lord, would you give us a fresh revelation?

And for those of us who are brand new to faith and maybe even here this morning and don't have a faith, would you give us a new revelation?

Reveal yourself to us.

As we worship you right now through reading your word and studying it together, I pray, Lord, that we would be so much more than objective observers, but that we would be intentional in living out our faith.

So, Lord, we give you our time together this morning.

Come and move and have your being.

Now may the words of my mouth, the meditation of our hearts, be received as a gift, holy and pleasing to you alone, our rock and our redeemer.

And the whole church said this July, my wife and I took our family on a little more than a week's vacation.

We decided to go to the upper northeast.

We've been to many of the states in the United States of America, but there is a pocket of six states in the upper northeast that we hadn't been to: Maine and New Hampshire and Massachusetts and Vermont and the like.

One day, uh, after all of our big kids went home, it was just my wife and I, and we had our two youngest daughters, 13 and 11, and I let them manipulate me, I mean convince me, to go into New York City.

We've been in New York City several times, but we had to go into New York City, and the picture that you see that just came up is actually a picture of Times Square.

If you have never been to New York City, it's something.

It is a spectacle.

There are sounds that you have likely never heard before, smells that I promise you've never smelled before, interactions that you've never seen before, food that you've never tasted before.

There is an experience that you have never experienced before.

We had a very limited amount of time in New York City.

That wasn't the purpose of our trip because we had been to New York a few times before.

And so we were going on our way up to Massachusetts, and we thought it was just along the way we would stop in for a few hours and check some things out, primarily or principally speaking, because my daughter said, Dad, they have an American Dream Girl doll store in downtown Manhattan.

And I said, How's that my problem?

So they manipulated me, I mean, convinced me to go to this store with them.

Now there's more to this story, and I'll share with you later at some point, it will come up in conversation, I promise.

But here's what you need to know too.

Not only was New York packed and busy and chaotic and crazy, but the day that we decided to just stop in for a little bit was the day that Jay-Z was in concert in the Empire State.

It was what it was more stupid than normal.

The sounds were crazier than normal, the smells were stronger than normal.

It was wild.

It was crazy.

I was thinking about New York City as we were standing in downtown Manhattan, and I am allowing, allowing, letting, I don't know if I had a choice.

My daughters and my wife went into the store.

I stood outside.

I was just making sure they were safe.

And I looked around, and all the skyscrapers, the Empire State Building, all the all the things everyone, just crazy.

Chaos.

The first time we took our girls there was 2019 after the women's national team won the FIFA World Cup.

We went and saw the parade.

That was nuts.

Millions of people, I mean, just it's it's crazy.

I got to thinking, man, the number of people that had their heads down on their phones was really the majority.

It was wild to me.

Now, some of them, rightly so, were using their phones for directions.

We were those people where we're walking directionally and doing this, and the little bubble changes direction, but we just turned that way, and so we did that.

But there were also, I noticed, people that were on their smart device using it for translation.

They were speaking whatever language they speak.

There's so many nationalities that come together in New York City, and so they're talking into their phone, looking for a translator, and they're sharing this information with others.

And I wanted to research a little bit about New York City, so I started to dive in.

One of the things I found interesting was actually from a journal of the American Medicine Society or Medical Society, JAMA.

Did you know that New York City is one of the largest populated cities in the world for nearsighted people?

Random, I know, right?

Track with me.

This study was done on over a hundred thousand people.

There's actually closer to 200,000 people in New York City, and they determined that in urban areas, one larger than New York City was like Hong Kong.

These four doctors from all over the world did this study, and they determined that people living in Hong Kong and New York City and urban sprawls like this, that were surrounded by skyscrapers and with sensory overload coming from all sides were so much more likely to be nearsighted, struggling with what's medically known as myopia, an inability to see long distances.

In other words, they can see what's close in front of them, but they can't see in the distance.

So I got into the journal a little bit more and I started studying a little bit further.

And what I found out was the reason that people in New York City and urban sprawls like New York City are more likely to be nearsighted and not able to see distances is a fascinating reason.

Because of all of the skyscrapers that surround every city block, the people who stay within that area and have their heads down on their phones, their eyes never have to adjust to distances.

And so their ability to see far off is unnecessary.

In other words, there's so many objects in their way that it limits their ability to see things beyond what's right in front of them.

Now, the the the the the opposite is true of states like Montana, the big sky state, or Colorado, where you can look out and see the mountains and the trees, then miles upon miles upon miles, the vast expanse.

Their vision is so different because of what they see.

But in urban areas like New York City, with all of the obstacles in the way, it limits one's ability to see distances.

It obscures their ability to see things for the way that they are beyond what's right in front of them today.

That's what I want to talk about as we study this text together.

Our obstacles that stand in our way from seeing Jesus for who he really is in our lives.

We're gonna go through verse by verse.

John chapter 8, 12 through 20.

John 8 · chapter mention

We're gonna stop three different times and we're gonna look at parallel passages.

One is gonna be in Exodus 13, one will be Deuteronomy 19, one will be Matthew 7.

If you want to write those down in the margin of your Bibles or in the journal that you're taking notes on, you can go back and study those later this week as well.

But I want to go back through.

Now I want to do something a little bit different today.

I want to actually start at the end.

We want to start at the end because in verse 20, we see contextually what's going on.

Here at Crossroads Church, we preach the way that we do because we believe that culture and context helps us better understand and apply the Word of God to our life.

We believe that the more we understand, as we rightly divide God's word, culture and context, the better able we are to understand the word of God and apply the word of God to our life.

So let's begin in John 8, verse 20.

John 8:20

It says here, these words he, Jesus, spoke in the treasury as he taught in the temple, but no one arrested him because his hour had not yet come.

So to maybe shore up a little bit of the information that I need to give us today that will lend itself to our conversation, I want to encourage you to go back and watch last week's message.

If you didn't get a chance to see, we talked about Jesus' declaration that he is living water.

In John chapter 7, you can do that by going to our YouTube page.

John 7 · chapter mention

And if you do, please make sure you subscribe because we have augmented teachings that we give out all week long that follow along, podcasts and different teaching videos and things.

Or you can check it out on our website and go to our media page.

Last week I introduced this principle idea of pilgrimage festivals.

There are a lot of feasts, festivals, and ceremonies within the Jewish tradition and the Jewish faith.

But there are only three pilgrimages.

They're called pilgrimages because, regardless of what land you live in or how far away you are, the expectation or the standard established between God and his people, and I say established between, it's because it's a covenant relationship where God establishes his standard, the nation of Israel agree, and so they have this mutual understanding that three times a year, any able-bodied Jewish man will take his family and his workers and will make the pilgrimage, preemptively setting aside means and whatever is necessary to get to the holy city of Jerusalem, to go into the temple for intentional worship, and enough for his family and his workers as well for the journey.

Sometimes days and days to get there.

They would go into Jerusalem for three primary festivals, these pilgrimage festivals, one being Passover or Pasak, another one being a festival of weeks, the third being what we're talking about right now.

And that is the festival of tabernacles, also known as a festival of booths, or the festival of tents.

Last week I introduced the idea behind this festival, that it was unlike most festivals that you might imagine, or church services, if you will, I actually paralleled and talked about how we have turned the church into little more than a Christian library.

Where we come into the church in the presence of the Lord and we shh we're in church.

And we've got to be subdued and we've got to be collected and we've got to be composed.

But the festival of booths wasn't that at all.

I explained last week that it was more like a state fair, and that it was loud and it was uh fun and it was energetic and engaging, and people were coming from everywhere.

In fact, the city of Jerusalem, the inhabitants, the residency, as it were, was somewhere between 20,000 and 40,000 throughout the year.

But in during these pilgrimage festivals, as many as a million people, hundreds of thousands, but as many as a million or more, would coalesce.

They would gather together, coming to this common place to worship God.

People would set up all over the place and they were staying in homes and outside of homes.

I mean it was everywhere, sprawling.

Jerusalem turned into an unbelievable place to be.

And in the festival of tents or booths or tabernacles, whichever you prefer, it was a celebration of unbelievable joy.

It was a harvest celebration where the nation of Israel was thanking God for his provision from the year before and the harvest.

And also on the eighth day, preparing and praying for another bountiful harvest.

You see, the festival of shelters gets its name because we see where God tells the people that during this feast you will set up for yourself temporary housing, shelters, booths.

They were three-sided temporary dwellings with a thatched roof.

The idea is that they would be adjacent to normal homes and they would be everywhere, and people for that period of time would actually sleep outside in these temporary dwellings with an open-faced wall and the thatched roof that you could see up to the sky.

You could see the expanses, the stars in the sky, and off in the distance, you could see all of the land.

And the idea then behind this ceremonial celebration is that as often as you go into these tents and you look out upon the expanse of the skies and you see the stars and you look and you see all of the land, you can remember how God provided for the nation of Israel for 40 years, after 400 years of slavery and captivity in Egypt, how God delivered them supernaturally and miraculously providing for the nation of Israel, time and time and time again.

And how, as being semi-nomadic, they would set up these temporary dwellings and what they would see as the stars, creation, and worship the Creator.

That is a part of this festival.

There are many parts to the celebration, but we talked about three primary last week.

Do you remember?

The first is we talked about how the nation of Israel deliberately prayed to the west as the sun began to rise from the east.

Do you remember why they do that?

It's actually an act of defiance.

Not an act of defiance toward God, but from idolatry.

Throughout the nation of Israel's history, too many times they have given themselves over to idols, to pagan worship, to worshiping little gods, little g gods, deities.

One of them is a goddess of the sun, where at one point in time the nation of Israel would turn to the east, and as the sun was rising, they would give their affection, they would give their adoration, they would give their respect, they would give their loyalty to the sun goddess.

An act of idolatry.

And as the nation of Israel was wrecked because of their idolatry, and God restored his people, because that's what God does.

We see it from Genesis to Revelation, the meta-narrative, in other words, the whole overarching theme of the Bible is restoration.

From the fall of humanity until Jesus comes back, it's all about restoration.

God restores the nation of Israel, but He gives them this decree to turn from idols.

In his law, he says, You shall have no graven images and you shall have no other gods before me.

And so, as an act of defiance toward idolatry, toward the things that we worship that take us away from God, the nation of Israel would turn toward the West, turning from their idolatry.

And I challenged us to think about what are the idols in our lives that we need to turn away from in favor of God?

What in our life takes attention, efforts, energies, and affections that belong to God alone away from Him that we need to deny, denounce, and turn away from?

The second of the three, do you remember, is water libation?

That's a water ceremony.

It's where the priest, along with the processional and people would leave the temple in Jerusalem.

They would go through the water gate down into the pool of Siloam.

And there with a golden jugger jar, they would pull out water from the pool of Siloam.

And together collectively, all of these people, they would sing and they would celebrate psalms of ascent, making music and praying and preparing to worship.

They would make their way back up, back up into the temple.

And there in the temple they would circle the altar seven times, and the priest would pour out the water over the altar as an offering.

Living water.

You see, the pool of Siloom was actually an aqueduct that brought what was otherwise stagnant water in the whole of Jerusalem, brought in living water from a spring.

And there, that living water, Jesus declares.

As this last drop of water is poured out of the jug on the very tail end of this ceremony, and the people are desperate for living water.

Jesus says, I am living water.

It's a parallel to John 4 when the woman at the well, Jesus says, If you knew who gives this kind of water, living water, she said, Tell me, I want that living water.

Jesus says, I am him, and he.

There's a third ceremony that's a part of this celebration.

It's called the light ceremony or the lighting ceremony.

In the evening, in the court of women, at the very beginning of the temple, when you first come in, four menorhs, 75 feet tall, pillars, were erected.

And at the top of each one of these four pillars were four golden bowls.

Massive.

Priests' apprentices would put ladders up and go up and fill the bowls with oil every night to light them, and they would use retired priestly garments.

The robes of the priests that had worn out, they would take and tear.

And they would use those garments as the wick.

They would light these bowls.

Historians have recounted that the light coming from inside the court of women in the temple was so expansive that it lit up the entire whole of Jerusalem.

That it was so hot the heat could be felt below.

Jesus, as he's teaching, verse 20 tells us he's teaching in the treasury.

I have an image I want to show you of this rendering.

If you look at this image here, you'll see just above the middle of this picture, what is the number four there is that's actually where the court of women is.

On the outside's the court of Gentiles.

It is intended that those who were not God's chosen people could come and worship, but there was a caste system, not just socially, but even religiously, and these Gentiles were forbidden from going into the temple, going up and into the temple.

In fact, there were signs all over the outskirts of the temple that said Gentiles would die upon entrance.

Women would go into the court of women there, and others in the court of women in there.

If you look, there's four specific corners, and each one has a specific gathering place for a reason.

But in that image, off to the right hand side or the east side of the court of women is the treasury.

And in the treasury, in the temple treasury, are 13 collection boxes.

They're actually shaped like trumpets.

They're these beautiful, ornate collection boxes where people would come and they would bring their gifts and they would bring their offerings.

They were collected there for God.

Jesus is He's standing there.

It's several feet up off from the court of women, maybe as high as 10 or 15 feet up this staircase.

I want you to read on your own this week, John chapter 8, 1 through 11.

John 8 · chapter mention

On the heels of Jesus, declaring, I am living water.

There's a moment that evolves where Pharisees catch a woman in the act of adultery.

She is sexually giving herself away to someone who is not her husband.

And they drag this woman in all of her humiliation, in all of her flaws, and all of her brokenness and all of her sin.

They drag her through the city streets, they drag her through the entrance to where Jesus is located, right there.

We can't know how many people would have been there or seen this specific instance, but we know that there were hundreds of thousands, if not more, people that were in Jerusalem at that time, and this woman is paraded through the streets and brought before Jesus, and there presented, presented to Jesus is this question.

This woman is caught in the act of adultery.

What would you have us do with her?

Oh, this woman is broken, wrecked.

I just imagine in my own inner recesses of my mind how I would feel if I was caught in the act of egregious sin and then I was put my sin on display for everyone to see me and to judge me.

And not only that, but according to their traditions, rules, regulations, and laws, this woman could have been capitally punished.

She could have been stoned to death for her actions.

Jesus kneels down and he begins to write on the ground.

Wanting to know what would you have us do to this woman?

He stands up and he says, If any of you, if any of you is living a life that has not involved sin, go ahead and take the stone and throw it at her.

You go first.

One by one, the oldest to the youngest, they begin to descend to the back of the crowd and leave.

Until left is Jesus and this woman.

I imagine this woman is so wretched she doesn't even realize that they've all left, and Jesus maybe brings her up and he looks at her in the face and says, Woman, has anyone condemned you?

No.

She says.

It's on the back end of it.

Hundreds of thousands, if not more than a million people, have gathered together.

There's all these celebrations going on, including the water libation and the early morning prayers, along with sacrifices and all sorts of other things.

The lighting of the lamps and the menorah.

We're gonna look at this verse by verse now and unpack this in chapter 8, verse 12.

Again, Jesus spoke to them.

This is because in this series we've been studying seven messages that Jesus gave and seven miracles that Jesus did, with the understanding that each miracle substantiated the message, and the message before this that Jesus gave in this same area was that he was living water.

So now he's picking up and he's speaking to the audience again.

Again, Jesus spoke to them saying, I am, I am the light of the world.

Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.

Church, two things that I cannot let us not talk about right now.

Number one, what Jesus says here is unbelievable.

The reason that they are doing this lighting celebration with these menorahs, these four 75-foot pillars with four golden lampposts on each one filled with oil and priestly garments, is to signify how God led the nation by fire in night and a cloud by day.

That this was God's direction and God's directive, that He would be with the people and He would lead the people.

I want to give to you this parallel passage that's gonna come up on the screen, and you can write it down and study it on your own this week.

In Exodus chapter 13, verses 21 and 22.

Exodus 13:21

This is where this celebration comes from.

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 might travel by day and by night.

The pillar of cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night did not depart from before the people.

This is the reason for this celebration, to remember that God led the nation of Israel by fire, by lighting these menorahs and illuminating the whole of Jerusalem, as people look on, they can remember with gratitude and appreciation God's leadership in their life.

The second part of what Jesus does here when he says, I am the light of the world, is he is literally saying, the reason that you're here to worship, the one that you're here to worship, ego aimi, I am yeah, I'm that guy.

I'm built like that.

I am the light of the world.

He declares to everybody the reason you're in church right now, all this pomp, all this circumstance, all this singing, all this celebrating, all the things we're doing, it's because of me.

My relationship with you.

I am the light of the world.

Jesus theologically, doctrinally wrecks them in this moment.

And then he takes it a step further.

He says, if you follow me, anybody, any one of you, it doesn't matter if you're the most richly theologically educated person in the room, or you are here and you've never even heard about the Bible before.

Anybody who desires a right relationship with Jesus and chooses to follow him never has to walk in darkness, but can experience the light of life.

There is a there is a motif here, friends, that we can't miss.

Throughout life in the Old Testament and in the new, light and darkness.

Light represents life.

Darkness represents death.

Light represents good, dark represents evil.

And Jesus is saying, if you want to know what it's like to get away from death and darkness and brokenness and sin and frailty, and you want to know what it's like to live in the light and have life, it's in me.

It's found in me.

It's found in me.

He says, if anybody follows me, then the light will be in them.

This is wild what's about to happen.

What Jesus does is just radical.

So we talked about this last week, and I just want to revisit.

I want you to understand that a majority of everybody there recognized that Jesus was at least a rabbi, a teacher.

Majority of the people would have agreed that he had messages that people were listening to and people were following.

But very few had identified Jesus as the Messiah or were willing to acknowledge him as such.

So Jesus uses this active knowledge of rabbis, and he said, If anybody follows me, let me talk to you about the relationship between a rabbi and a disciple.

These Jewish boys, before the age of 13, these Jewish boys were expected to go to a rabbinic school, to go to a Jewish school, where they would memorize the Pentateuch, the first five books of the Old Testament: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy.

In addition, they were expected to memorize the laws and the prophets and the wisdom literature.

If a rabbi walked into a setting, a school, as it were, and identified that there was a student that stood out as exemplary.

They possessed great knowledge or an acumen to learn, a strong desire to be devout in their faith.

That rabbi would choose that student to be his disciple, and in many cases, more than one disciple.

It's like walking into a draft and selected first round, first pick, Doug.

Get out of here.

And all the people celebrate, ah, you got chosen to be a disciple of the rabbi.

But let me talk to you about the relationship a little bit more about the disciples and the rabbi.

You see, disciples didn't just learn from the rabbis, they were actually intending to mimic the behaviors of the rabbi.

Okay?

So if I were to have my friend Randy come up on stage with me, I've used this illustration in the past, but I think it bodes well and is worth repeating.

If I told Randy, hey, we're gonna do a mime act, Randy.

Everything you do, I'm going to do.

I'm gonna try to guess and I'm gonna follow you to the best of my ability.

So Randy pretended he was trapped in a box.

My job would be to emulate or follow or copy exactly like Randy did.

That is what disciples did for the rabbis.

In fact, the most devout disciples were actually known to sleep underneath the bed of their rabbi.

Do you know why?

Because they didn't want to miss anything, including what the rabbi might do in the middle of the night.

If the rabbi got up to pray, if the rabbi got up to go to the bathroom, whatever, they're underneath the bed, so they don't miss it.

They want to follow every dot, every tittle, every tradition, every word, everything that the rabbi does, the disciple wants to do.

And what Jesus is saying to these religious elite, there are five religious groups that are kind of primary sects during Jesus' generation.

The Pharisees, the Sadducees, the Zealots, the Essenes, and the Herodians.

There's a collection of two groups called the Sanhedrin, two-thirds made up of the Sadducees, one third of the Pharisees, with one plus being the high priest.

And in this, these are the most learned, the most educated, the most well-read, the most devoted, the most devout followers of God.

They knew the law front and back.

And in fact, these Pharisees were responsible for interpreting the law and adhering to the law and making sure that everyone else around them did the same thing.

They would look at the lifestyles, the words, the attitudes, and actions of others and determine if they were following the law.

Jesus is talking to this incredibly intelligent group of people.

And here's what he says: You know God.

You know all about God.

You've studied, you've memorized, but you're not following him.

You're not following him.

Anybody who wants to experience the fullness of life will follow Jesus.

I said it last week and I'll double down on it today.

There are far too many people in church that know about God.

You know all 66 books of the Bible.

You might even know the Apocrypha.

You might know that there's 39 books in the Old Testament, 27 in the New.

You might know the authors, the audience, the fact that the Bible was written over 1500 years by more than 40 authors on three continents, and that it's the most historically accurate book on the planet.

I mean, you may know, you may know everything.

But are you following Jesus?

Are you following Jesus?

John chapter 8 and verse 13.

John 8 · chapter mention

The Pharisees said to him, You're bearing witness about yourself.

Your testimony isn't true.

They're talking about their own law, Deuteronomy 19, 15.

Check this out.

So the Pharisees, and a single witness shall not suffice against a person for any crime or for any wrong in connection with any offense that he has committed.

Only on the evidence of two witnesses or of three witnesses shall a charge be established.

In order for anything to be brought, an accusation, much like the one where this woman who was caught in adultery was brought before the people and to Jesus, there had to be two or more people witnessing the act to bring their testimony before the courts to present their case as evidence, and then that word was accepted as true.

They're saying, you don't have, you're just saying this about yourself.

How do we know that what you're saying is true?

Verse 14, Jesus answered, Even if I do bear witness about myself, my testimony is true.

Just because you say it's not doesn't make you right.

For I know where I came from and where I'm going, but you do not know where I come from or where I'm going.

Does anybody else hear cotton eye joe in this?

Sorry.

Jesus is saying, You think in the natural, I am of the supernatural.

You have your theology in a finite box, systematically organized to your comforts and likings.

But I am supernatural.

I am outside of time, I am outside of matter, I am outside of existence.

You don't understand.

You you you want a human witness, but I am supernatural.

Oh, and by the way, God, God is the other witness.

There's me and God.

He challenges them in their own intellectual understanding.

Now, verse 15.

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.

I want to talk to you about judgment for a moment.

I actually want your permission to wreck your theology.

I've seen a lot of people with tattoos over the years that say, Only God can judge me.

I hear a lot of people quote Matthew, where Jesus instructs the people to worry about the plank or the pull in their eye before they mess with the sawdust or a little sliver in their brother's eye, and that we can't judge, we shouldn't judge each other.

Have you heard that?

Have you maybe, and don't you not have to respond to it, but maybe you've believed that.

Maybe as you're sitting here right now, you believe that.

That we're not called to judge one another.

In fact, didn't Jesus just say?

Didn't Jesus say, I don't judge anybody.

No, no, no, no, no.

That's not at all what he said.

Keep it in context, friends.

Jesus says preemptively before he makes his matter-of fact, he says, you judge according to what standard?

The flesh.

You judge based on what you can see, hear, smell, touch, and taste.

You judge people by outward appearances.

But God judges what's in the heart.

You judge based on how they smell, you judge based on where you think they came from, you judge based on their family, you judge based on their socioeconomic backgrounds, you judge based on their behaviors of the past, you judge by all of these things.

You judge according to human standards.

Jesus is saying, I don't do that.

Now, before any of us is quick to assume that we wouldn't be that way, I think we probably all, if we're honest, make judgments about other people.

If we had a if we opened our doors up right now and we had a just a horde of prostitutes and drug addicts and ex-convicts coming in here and homeless people that that haven't showered in weeks, and they started sitting throughout this room, we would make judgments.

Maybe not all of us, but if we're being honest, we would look at them and we would begin to imagine on them why they were the way that they were.

Not take time to get to know their story or their history, where they came from, how they got where they were at, what the needs were, or any of it.

The other day I was out front, I was leaving the office, it was one of the last two people me and Pastor Mike Mayheck, our care pastor.

And I noticed a couple that was sitting outside of our building.

We have some power outlets on the outside of our building, and they were kind of tucked in behind one of our pillars.

And I walked up to them and I engaged these two individuals, and immediately the first thing that this individual said is, Are we okay to be here?

Do you want are you gonna trespass us?

Which broke my heart immediately because that means that they have had what happened before.

They've been trespassed, and people haven't wanted them.

And I looked at this man, I said, Sir, that's not why I'm here.

He said, Uh, we're just trying to charge our phones.

I said, I said, sir, the reason I'm here is to find out if you're hungry.

Can I go get you some food?

Do you do you need some clothes?

Can I get you anything?

I didn't have to introduce myself as the pastor of the church or do some pious act or expect it.

I'm only telling you because most people would look at that.

And and because the fact is that he even asked the question he did because he's so used to being judged.

And this is what Jesus is talking about.

But what Jesus isn't saying, he's saying, I don't judge by your standards, but Jesus doesn't say, don't judge others.

We assume that judgments mean condemnation.

So let's look at this word in the original language.

It's Greek.

The word is krino.

And I'm gonna put it up on the sides, I'm gonna read it so that we're all on the same page.

Krino literally is to judge, is to separate, is to distinguish and discern.

And then it's to arrive at a decision based on what has been examined.

It is not merely forming an opinion, it's making a judgment, determining what is right or wrong, true or false, acceptable or unacceptable.

There are 115 occurrences of crino in the New Testament, from the Gospels to the book of Revelation, and there are four primary reasons that we would judge.

One, we would judge like a judge in a jury in a court where we render a verdict.

Two, where we would judge or evaluate morality, human morals.

Number three, is we would discern rightly truth from lies.

And finally, God's final judgment, Krino.

We wrongly associate judgment with condemnation.

We shouldn't do that.

Would you believe me if I said that actually the responsibility of every Christian is to judge one another?

We're not responsible to judge non-Christians.

We cannot hold somebody to a standard that isn't theirs.

Do you see that?

We cannot expect someone who doesn't follow Jesus to live a life like they are following Jesus.

Therefore, we're not called to judge their worldly standards against the gospel.

We're just not.

But if you call yourself a Christ follower, it is every bit our responsibility to hold one another mutually accountable for our behaviors.

You don't believe me?

Great.

Turn in your Bible to Matthew chapter 7.

Matthew 7 · chapter mention

We're not gonna take my word for it.

We're gonna look at what Jesus says.

Turn in your left, Matthew, we're in John, just go three books to your left, Matthew 7.

You guys are gonna know this, many of you by heart, probably Matthew 7 1.

Judge not that you not be judged.

Okay?

But now go all the way down to 15.

In Matthew 7 15, it says, Beware of false prophets who come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly are ravenous wolves.

You will recognize them, you will judge them.

Them, it's the same inference there.

You will recognize them by their fruits.

Are grapes gathered amongst thorn bushes or figs from thistles?

So every healthy tree bears good fruit, but the diseased trees bear bad fruit.

A healthy tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a diseased tree bear good fruit.

Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.

Thus, you will recognize them by their fruit.

And how will you know their fruit?

Because you are judging their attitudes, actions, and behaviors.

And what are you judging it against?

Not the standards of this world, but God's word.

Which is why we study the Bible the way that we do here at Crossroads Church.

We want the word of God to do the work of God so that we can abide in the will of God in every way.

So, friends, we are called to mutually judge one another.

We make judgments all the time.

We judge whether or not it's safe to walk into the middle of a street or across a street.

We look at a meal and we make a judgment about how we think it's gonna taste or not taste.

We make judgments all the time, like is Shadour Sanders gonna be the starting quarterback or is it gonna be Deshaun Watson?

Yeah, many of you after yesterday's game, your judgment is that Deshaun Watson is washed up and Shadour is your starting quarterback.

Hey, let me, I've got news for you.

It won't matter.

Go birds.

We make judgments all the time.

But God has given us the not just the ability, but the expectation to judge, but not to judge by human standards and not to judge those who aren't in Christ.

We are called to judge those who call themselves Christ followers, mutually holding one another accountable.

And do you know the person that we are called to judge the most?

If you are a Christian, you call yourself a Christ follower, the person you are called to judge the most to weigh yourself against true north is the person staring back at you in the mirror.

Do the words that come out of my mouth match up with the words of my savior?

Does the way I'm thinking align with the way my savior thinks?

When Jesus says, follow me, we know if we're following Jesus because we're judging our own attitudes, actions, and behaviors.

Oh church.

Don't be misled.

We are never told not to judge.

We are told not to judge by human standards.

Now, we are told not to condemn.

That is not our responsibility.

Romans 8, 1 says, for those who are in Christ Jesus, there is therefore now no condemnation.

Make one thing really clear today.

There will come a day in the Bima seat of judgment where every single last one of us will be standing before the throne room of judgment and we will be held accountable.

We'll be judged.

That our lives line up with the word of God and the work of God in every way.

But here's the hope of glory.

If we have Jesus, we will not be condemned on the day of judgment.

We will not be condemned on the day of judgment.

So judge wisely, my friends, not according to the standards of this world, but it's according to God's word.

And let the word of God do the work of God in you so that you, like the disciples, can abide in the will of God in every single way.

He says, even if I do judge, verse 16, my judgment is true, for it's not I alone who judge, but I and the father who sent me.

In verse 17, in your law, going back to Deuteronomy 19, 15, in your law, it's written that the testimony of two people is true.

Okay?

I'm 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?

This is condescending.

They know Jesus of Nazareth, they know Jesus' background in his story, at least what they've heard through the rumor mill.

Where is your father?

Jesus says, You know neither me nor my father.

If you knew me, you know my father also.

Caden, come here.

This is completely off topic, unplanned.

Uh you actually work here, so you don't have a choice.

Get up here.

Stand in face, everybody.

Is there any guesswork?

Is there any guesswork involved?

Keep it up, Doug.

I'll beat the brakes off you right now.

Wild man.

He there's just there's really, if you if you look at Caden, if you listen to Caden long enough, if you're around Caden long enough, he has tendencies that I have.

He says things that I say or that I've said.

And I want to get something straight right now.

Caden is more of a man of God at 22 years old than I have been in my entire life.

And I've done everything I can to follow long after Jesus, not so that Caden looks like me, but so Caden looks like my father in heaven.

I understand that responsibility.

I carry that weight.

In the same way that there's no guesswork involved in whose kid he is.

If you were standing next to Jesus, would they see the resemblance?

Do you follow Jesus so closely that they would see the resemblance?

Have you listened so intently to Jesus that you sound like Jesus?

Have you watched so closely Jesus' mannerisms that you move like Jesus?

Is there resemblance?

Thank you, sir.

Jesus is talking to the smartest people in the room.

He says, You guys are the most educated that Jerusalem has.

You don't believe me, go look at John chapter 2 and John chapter 3 when Jesus has an encounter with Nicodemus and then later with Gamaliel, and he says, You guys are teachers of the law.

John 2 · chapter mention John 3 · chapter mention

Yet you don't even know what I'm talking about.

Like this is the how can you understand the things of heaven if you don't understand the most basic biology?

Jesus says again to the smartest men in the room, you know all about God.

You you you you've memorized all the songs, you've seen all the flannographs, you've prayed all the prayers, you've gone through all the ceremonies, you've attended all the church services, you've done all the things.

But you don't even know God.

You don't even know him.

Because if you knew the Father, you would know me, and if you know me, you know the Father.

They were so blinded, these religious leaders, by their own traditions, by their own expectations, by their own law.

It wasn't just the 613 laws that God gave them.

They had the Mishnah, these other traditions, these extra biblical mandates that they put into place that they cared more about.

And God, God, in this moment, Jesus says, Jesus says, listen, if you knew God the Father, you'd know me, and if you know me, you'd know the Father.

But you don't even, you know, all the rules, the regulations, the rituals, the ceremonies, you go through the motions, and yet you still don't know God.

It is not enough to know about God.

If you want to know the hope of heaven, you need to know Jesus.

And the world will know if you know Jesus by whether or not you resemble him.

Are you his follower?

I think there's too many Christians that are stuck in New York City.

Oh, there's a way out.

There's a street on every corner that you can take to leave.

But you just get stuck.

And all you see are the obstacles around you.

And you become so myopic, so nearsighted that you can't see beyond yourself.

You can't see beyond your selfishness in that moment.

And you know what the enemy does, like Times Square?

He makes it entertaining and fun.

You get blinded by all the allure of the world.

You get blinded by all the fun.

Do you know that if sin wasn't inherently fun, none of us would do it?

Not being serious.

If vegetables taste good, I would be the most fit guy in the room.

You know, I don't eat vegetables mostly because they taste terrible.

Radishes?

Onions?

Are you serious?

Guacam?

Who eats that stuff?

Hard-boiled eggs?

God help you.

Now Chipotle! Look, it shouldn't be surprising that sin is fun.

That's why we do it.

It's self-indulgence.

We get stuck in it, man.

We we just it feels so alive when you're in the moment, don't you?

But you know what?

I've also been in New York City at 2 a.m., and you know what happens?

Everything dies down?

What obstacles are keeping you from seeing the fullness of Jesus in your life right now?

What relational obstacle is keeping you from experiencing the fullness of Jesus?

What financial obstacle is keeping you from the fullness of Jesus?

What intellectual obstacle is keeping you from the fullness of Jesus?

What religious obstacle?

I had a woman come up to me in between service, she walked right up to me.

She is all of four foot ten.

She grabbed my shirt, she pulled me in, she said, Pastor, I'm a Catholic.

I said, Okay.

She said, but I can understand what you say.

I like it here.

I said, Praise God.

Can I have can I have my shirt back?

The point of that is we get so caught up in our religion.

We don't feel like we experience the Father unless we do it a rope way.

Do you know Jesus?

Matthew 25.

The bigger question is, does Jesus know you?

Many will come to me on the last day and say, Where were you in jail?

Where were you sick?

Where were you hungry?

Where were you thirsty?

And Jesus will say, What you did for everybody around you, you did for the least of these, my brothers, you did to me.

I don't know you.

So the question is not what you know about God, but do you know God?

And does He know you?

What obstacles are in the way?

May the Holy Spirit reveal those to you right now so that you can confess those and repent and turn your life over to Him.