Believe in the Light & Walk in the Light — John 12:27-50 (08.09.2026)

This morning, we're going to have the privilege of hearing from Dylan Evans,

who is one of the discipleship pastors at Lakewood Baptist Church,

which is our sending church.

And so we're very excited to hear from him. The reading of God's word today,

comes from John chapter 12. If you want to go ahead and grab your Bibles and

John 12 · chapter mention

open up there, we'll also have that in your bulletin.

And it's also going to be on the screen. John chapter 12, beginning in verse 27.

John 12 · chapter mention

Jesus said, Now is my soul troubled, and what shall I say?

Father, save me from this hour, but for this purpose I have come to this hour.

Father, glorify your name.

Then a voice came from heaven, I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again.

The crowd that stood there and heard it said that it had thundered.

Others said, An angel has spoken to him.

Jesus answered, This voice has come for your sake, not mine.

Now is the judgment of this world. Now will the ruler of this world be cast out.

And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.

He said this to show by what kind of death he was going to die.

So the crowd answered him, We have 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 the light.

When Jesus had said these things, he departed and hid himself from them.

Though he had done so many signs before them, they still did not believe in

him, so that the words 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 that they would not

be put out of the synagogue.

For they loved 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 in me, but in him who sent me.

And whoever sees me, sees him who sent me.

I have 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.

Did I flip the right switch on my mic? Okay, good. Yes. Hey guys, let's pray.

Father, we are spoiled to have your word, especially the gospel of John.

Thank you for this wonderful book.

Thank you for its depth, its mystery, its practicality.

We are just so thankful, Father, that we have good and true and beautiful words,

from you to us, even here today,

so that we may know you, so we may know what you have done for us,

so that we might know how to walk in the light of Jesus.

Would you be with us here today? Some of us, God, need to be challenged and convicted in our faith.

Some of us need to be comforted. Some of us need to be given courage or help.

Some of us don't even know what we need. We just feel deep inside of us that

we need to draw near to you and come and sing your praises and hear from your word, Lord.

So whatever each individual person in here needs this morning,

We pray that by the preaching of your word through your spirit,

that you would allow it to land on our hearts as each of us needs it to.

And we pray all this to the glory of God the Father through his son,

Jesus Christ, in his name we pray. Amen.

So as Ben said, yes, my name is Dylan. I'm one of the pastors of the Sending

Church, Lakewood, way, I was reminded, way up in Gainesville.

I'm going to take us like an hour or so to get here, which is fine.

That's fine. That's great.

Yeah, I'm one of the discipleship pastors there, have known and loved Christchurch

people since before Christchurch was even a thing.

And so we're just, I'm just, this is awesome. This is really,

really cool for me to be here.

I haven't been here on a Sunday morning. I haven't even been to this building.

This is great. It's really exciting. From Lakewood, we love you guys.

We are thrilled and proud of you all. We pray for you all regularly.

We talk about you all regularly in our staff meetings, and our pastor's meetings.

And just so you know, no matter what, we have your back.

We're here for you. We love you. We believe in you. We're grateful for you guys. We really are.

And if you're new, if you're new here this morning, welcome.

This is Christ Church. I'm new as well. We can do this together.

We will talk with Ben after the service, I guess, and figure out what in the

world is going on here. But if you're new here this morning,

thank you for being here with us. This is a beautiful community,

and I'm grateful to be here with you.

If you've lived long enough, you've probably experienced the fact that life

transitions, like big life transitions, can be difficult, or they can be really great.

Moving off to college, right, Sam, right? Or getting married,

losing a close loved one, becoming an empty nester.

Big life transitions can just really throw us for a loop.

But what transitions really show us is really what we're all about, what we really believe.

Like when the normalcy of routine and when the comfortable rhythm of life is

removed and we're thrown into a new season against or according to our will,

what we really learn about ourselves is what is most important to us, what we really believe.

And a major transition like that is kind of where we are in the book of John.

Okay. Chapter 12 is a transition point between chapters 1 through 11,

which theologians call the book of signs, right? It's where Jesus does a lot

of miraculous signs leading up to, in chapter 11, the raising of Lazarus from the dead.

Good luck finding a more dramatic sign than that.

And then from chapters 13 to 17, Jesus has the last supper with his disciples.

We call this the upper room discourse from John 13 to 17. This is where you

get, sorry to spoil it for you if you haven't read there thus far,

but it's been like 2,000 years, so that's on you.

In the upper room discourse, this is where you get famous scenes like the washing

of the disciples' feet, the promise of the Holy Spirit, Judas betraying Jesus, right?

But in chapter 12, we're in a transition point.

As you guys heard last week, this transition was kind of opened in verse 20

by Jesus talking about his hour.

The hour has come and the hour is now here. And this hour was not the hour of

Jesus's fame, of Jesus's like kind of becoming a global celebrity.

It was actually the hour of his death.

Behold, the hour has come for me to be glorified, Jesus said.

And the hour that he's talking about is the hour of his death.

This was the hour that he and his father were fully aware of since even before creation.

I mean, Jesus said way back in John 10, if you remember that,

no one takes my life from me, but I lay it down of my own accord.

I have authority to lay it down and I have authority to take it up again.

Jesus boldly in chapter 12, he turns his face towards his impending death and

heads right in his direction.

And we also read, you know, this is where you and I begin to squirm a little

bit, we also read that the death of Jesus and his boldness and heading face

first into death is a little bit of a template for you and I, right?

I mean, Jesus says in verse 25 and 26 of chapter 12, whoever loves his life

will lose it. And whoever hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life.

If anyone serves me, he must follow me. And where's Jesus headed to his death?

Followers of Jesus must not view their own lives as their own to do with as they please.

I mean, Paul is so bold as to tell us in 1 Corinthians 6, you are not your own.

You are bought with a price. Honor God with your body.

The famous words of Jesus in Matthew 16, if anyone would come after me,

let him deny himself, take up his cross and follow me.

So when Jesus thinks of his death, he calls you and I day by day in big ways

and in little ways to follow him in that way of death.

There's some serious heavy words. If that feels like, oh, that's a lot.

Okay, that's what it's meant to do.

And so this is kind of setting the context for where we come today in John chapter 12.

John 12 · chapter mention

And you see the tone changes a little bit. I mean, you have Jesus saying.

You have to hate your life in this world to follow me.

And then in verse 27, Jesus says this. Look at verse 27, if you have your Bibles open.

Now is my soul troubled. And what shall I say? Father, save me from this hour.

Jesus has just given this very serious, somber, high calling.

But here the tone changes some because Jesus knows that this is a difficult

calling for you and I, right?

I mean, the Jesus who says, take up your cross and follow me,

die to yourself, is the Jesus that as he looks his own death in the face,

says, my soul is troubled.

AKA, I don't really want to do this. This is going to be hard.

It's going to be very difficult.

And so when he calls us daily to join him in that death, he does not do so as

a demanding, angry tyrant shouting down commandments

from heaven, but as one who in every way, as we will see, in every way has stepped

into our place and knows our place better than we do ourselves.

Now is my soul troubled. What shall I say? Father, save me from this hour.

And sharing his own fear of what he's feeling in this moment,

look at what Jesus is doing here.

Okay, and this is, I kind of want to hone in on this for this first part.

Jesus takes on our death on our behalf and our fear of death.

He does both of those things. If you're taking notes, it's kind of your first main point.

Jesus not only takes on our death on our behalf, That's kind of basic Christianity,

but he also embraces and takes on the fear of death that you and I have.

Maybe you've experienced this.

A lot of times something leading up to like a really scary situation,

think of like a difficult medical procedure or a really, really hard conversation

that you have to have soon.

So much of the time, the fear and the anxiety leading up to that really difficult

thing that you have to do can be just as bad, if not worse than how difficult the actual thing is.

Jack starts kindergarten tomorrow. Jack's my five-year-old. He starts kindergarten tomorrow.

Are we ready for tomorrow? Okay. He starts kindergarten tomorrow, so I hear.

And he's really excited about it. But he's so anxious about it as well because

in order to go to kindergarten, you have to get your shots updated,

which we have until, you know, for a few weeks to do that.

And so Jack is so excited to start kindergarten, but he is riddled with anxiety

and fear because he knows he has to go to the doctor to get his shots updated.

And here's what will happen. He'll get the shots. He might freak out for a second.

And then he'll be like, oh, that wasn't that bad.

That's okay. But man, these weeks and months, I don't know why we told him he

had to do this, but we did this to ourselves.

These weeks and months leading up to kindergarten starting, and because kindergarten

in his mind equals shots, right?

Not, you know, the difficult ones of the doctor, those kinds of shots.

You can laugh. It's okay.

Jack is terrified of getting shots.

His fear leading up to this doctor's appointment will be worse,

much worse than the thing that he's actually afraid of.

Okay. Okay. There's a cool illustration on, on a much larger scale,

on a cosmic scale, this is what Jesus is stepping into for you and I.

Okay. Not only does he face our judgment on our behalf, but he takes onto himself

the terror that the impending, that the impending judgment of God causes him in his humanity.

And him facing this human, real, visceral fear is necessary.

Think about it. It's necessary. If Jesus needs to stand in our place in every

way as the book of Hebrews beats into our heads over and over again,

then Jesus not only needs to come down and say, okay, let's get this cross thing

over with so these people can go to heaven.

He steps into also our fear, into our temptation. He's been tempted in every

way as we are, yet without sin.

He didn't, I mean, this is a silly sentence to even utter. He didn't just die

on the cross as if dying on the cross was like only, you know, he just did that.

He also steps into our fear for us.

Calvin said that Christ put on not only human flesh, but also human feeling.

The death of Jesus was not an emotionless formality. He took on all of it,

the actual death itself and all of the junk leading up to it,

the fear, the emotions, the anxiety.

And in this, look at this. This is cool. I didn't come up with this,

so don't be impressed with me.

Jesus kind of gives us like the application here. He gives us like a template

for how you and I can navigate our fear in life and the difficulty that living

the Christian life the way that Jesus tells us to live it places on our life.

Look at what Jesus does. He does four things. It's okay if you don't get all of them.

The first thing Jesus does is he names and expresses his fear to God.

Jesus names and expresses his fear to God. My soul is troubled.

I'm freaking out. What am I...

What should I save? Lord, save me from this hour. He pours out his heart to his father.

But then he reminds himself of the purpose and the promise of God on his life.

But for this purpose, he says at the end of 27, I have come to this hour.

And then he turns away from the fear and he heads back in the direction of the will of God.

No, the fear will not decide how he handles this situation.

For this purpose, I have come to this hour. Father, glorify your name.

And then finally, we see because Jesus expresses his fear, reminds himself of

the purpose of God in his life, heads away from the fear into the direction of the will of God,

then God graciously speaks and reminds him and others present of God's plan in the midst of his fear.

A voice came from heaven, I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again.

Jesus takes on our death, but

not only takes on our death, he takes on our fear of death and judgment.

And even the fear that you and I have in trying to figure out how in the world

to walk out this Christian life in the radical way that Jesus calls us to.

Now, secondly, we need to ask the question, okay, this is Jesus' death,

Jesus is dying, this is what's happening, we're going to the cross.

Now, what does Jesus think this death is for? If you were to ask Jesus,

what is this gonna do? What is it going to accomplish? Why do you have to die?

What would Jesus say? And Jesus in this passage answers this in two ways.

I've got a little bit of alliteration here. The death of Jesus defeats and the death of Jesus draws.

These are the things that Jesus wants to focus on in this passage of what his death accomplishes.

Look what the death of Jesus defeats here in verse 31.

Now is the judgment of this world. Now will the ruler of this world be cast out.

I mean, it's just the way God navigates situations is just, it often ought to

make us be like, how does, okay, how does that work? It's baffling.

The ruler of this world will be cast out.

Death will be turned on its head by the son of God himself submitting to death.

God doesn't strong arm his way into defeating his enemy.

He embraces death. He turns death on its head by going into the face of death,

putting it on, going through it, and then triumphing through it on the other

end, through the resurrection.

The way that Jesus defeats death is his death.

And in him embracing death, he casts out, he judges the ruler of the world, Satan.

Because not even death could hold this Jesus. Remember this great verse in Acts 2, 24?

God raised him up, loosing the pains of death because it was not possible for him to be held by it.

I mean, okay, and here's your application here. Put your jaw on the floor and be amazed.

Who is this man that not even death can claim?

He's done on our behalf what no other human being could or ever do,

he goes through death and then defeats death through death and casts out the

ruler of the world for you and I, because death,

even death itself couldn't hold him.

But then he also draws, he draws in verse 32, and I, when I am lifted up from

the earth, will draw all people to myself.

He said this, verse 33, to show by what kind of death he was going to die.

In his death, all people all over the world, not only Jews, but Greeks as well, will be drawn to him.

The way that Jesus draws the world to come and worship and follow him,

it's not fireworks and fancy shows and magic tricks.

It's by being lifted up on the cross.

This is how Jesus draws those to come to him. Maybe you remember this interesting

little line in verse 20, which had been preached on last week.

Now, among those who went up to worship at the feast were some Greeks.

And these Greeks wanted to come see Jesus. There's interesting.

There's some Greeks going to a big Jewish feast in Jerusalem,

and they want to come see Jesus. We're not told why.

And what's funny is that Jesus doesn't really even answer their desire to see

them until now. Now, yes, Greeks, yes, Jews, yes, everyone, you may come to me.

You can come see me when I'm lifted up from the earth. I will draw all men into

myself. The death of Jesus defeats

death itself, defeats the ruler of the world and draws all men to him.

And this, as shocking as it is to us, was maybe more shocking to the people,

that were standing around Jesus as he was saying this, because they began to question him.

But this is not the Messiah that we were expecting.

You said you're going to die, the Jews around him say, but the Old Testament

says that the Messiah will live forever.

If only they could have just waited a few more days, that question would have been answered.

And so he gets questioned.

And I love when Jesus does this.

He gets asked a direct question and he doesn't even answer it.

He doesn't directly respond to the question they're asking him.

Here's what he says. Believe in the light while you have the chance.

I mean, if you've read the first 12 chapters of the gospel of John,

this is not his first tussle with Jewish authorities.

Over and over and over again, they are attempting to stop his influence,

to stop his ministry, to arrest him, to kill him.

And he's getting in debates. I mean, John chapter five and chapter six,

they're super long. I don't know why they didn't break those up into other,

but that's a different thing.

They're super long and they're just debates with the Jews, with the Jewish leaders of Jesus' time.

And I'm sure Jesus is really exhausted by this at this point.

And so he gets in, hey, hey, Jesus, you've thought of this?

The Old Testament says that the Messiah is not gonna die. Ooh.

And Jesus is like, believe in the light while you have a chance.

Because he already told them back in John eight, I am the light of the world.

If any man would come to me, he would not walk in darkness.

Then Jesus leaves the scene. And when he had said these things,

he departed and hid himself from them.

Okay, so at this point, John kind of pauses Jesus's speech, as it were.

And John, the author of the gospel, begins to kind of give some of his own commentary.

He kind of begins unpacking some things for us. Jesus has a lot more to say.

Which will come later. But John wants to answer the question,

the really perplexing question, why is it that the people whom the Jewish Messiah has come to save,

the Jews, the people of Israel, why are they rejecting him? Why don't they believe in him?

Right? And we've seen this many times earlier. All through his ministry,

Jesus' Jewish opponents are trying to stump him and to stop his influence.

And they do this, we hear in verse 37, in the face of many signs that Jesus

has done. Look at verse 37.

Though he had done so many signs before them, they still did not believe in him.

What signs are we talking about? Well, let's just think through the gospel of

John, turning water to wine at the wedding at Cana.

He heals people. He feeds the 5,000. He walks on water.

He heals a blind man. He raises Lazarus from the dead, all in public,

all out in the open for people to see.

So much so that now this is isn't this funny jesus raises lazarus from the dead in john chapter 11,

John 11 · chapter mention

and then you know what the pharisees try to do they try to find a way to kill

lazarus wait for it right i mean he raises the dude from the dead and then they

try to kill him again which man poor lazarus you know give him a break okay so.

They don't believe him they still see all this and they don't believe him and

and so you're just like how how does this make sense john goes on to answer

this. Verse 38 and following.

Though he had done many signs before them, they still did not believe in him,

so that 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 delivered?

Therefore they could not believe, John says. For again, Isaiah said,

He has blinded their eyes and hardened their hearts, lest they see with their

eyes and understand with their heart, and turn, and I would heal them.

You see, the rejection of Jesus does not catch him or his father off guard in any way.

This indeed mysteriously, but clearly, isn't that great? A clear mystery.

Jesus clearly and mysteriously says, this was all according to plan.

This is how the Lord has ordained this to take place. This is exactly what God

said would happen hundreds of years ago through the prophet Isaiah.

And it's a great comfort at the very least for you and I to know,

like when the bottom seems to be falling out, i.e.

The son of God being unjustly killed, that God is still in control of the whole thing.

I mean, friends, if that's true of the son of God dying, surely it's true of

anything that you and I walk through of like, if God is in sovereign control of the death of his son.

Acts four, to do whatever your hand and your plan had predestined to take place

is what the apostle said in Acts chapter four about the death of Jesus.

And so if we can know that God was that sovereignly in control,

orchestrating even the death of Jesus, then you and I still living under the

loving authority of that father can say,

okay, at least this is not all chaos.

At least the Lord is in control of what's going on here.

At least, at least the God is not saying like, oh, shoot, I don't know what to do here.

He's in control of it. If he's in control of that, he's in control of your stuff

as well. Now, this mention of though he had done many signs and they didn't

believe him in verse 37, this is really instructive for us, okay?

Because this kind of really surprises us.

Maybe you've said, I've said, I'll admit it, you know, I would really believe

in the Lord if this thing would happen, if this miracle would happen.

Sure, if an angel comes and wakes me up in the middle of the night,

all right, no more doubts in my mind.

And what you see as you read through the Bible and as you live a little bit

of life, that's not really how things work.

How is it that these people who have witnessed these miracles of Jesus still don't believe in him?

The Egyptians in the book of Exodus think of all the ridiculous stuff they saw with the 10 plagues.

I mean, you've got locusts falling out of the sky and water turned to blood.

I mean, the water, the blood, I'm tapping out at that point, right?

And they still don't believe. The people of Israel all throughout,

every step of the way, miraculous miracles from God, like water from a rock

and random bread falling from the sky and like pillars of cloud. I mean, all this stuff.

And they still, the next day, turn around and doubt and don't believe and question.

And even the Jews in Jesus' day, seeing him raising someone from the dead, and they don't believe.

This is because miracles and miraculous signs are not what create our faith.

Believe it or not, the gospel does. Now, think about this.

What the Christian bases their faith on is not the miraculous signs and wonders,

but on the word of God's promise to us in Jesus Christ. Now,

listen, do you remember what Jesus said just a few verses earlier would draw all men unto himself?

Signs, wonders, flashy signs? No.

When he's lifted up, his death is what will draw all men.

Let you and I not think that we know how to draw men better to God than Jesus does.

Like he said, what will draw humanity to me for salvation is my death.

And the word of the promise of the gospel that comes from that.

It is the gospel of Jesus Christ and him crucified that captures and keeps our

hearts by showing God's love.

You probably know the famous verse in Romans 5, 8. For God shows his love for

us in this, that while we are still sinners, Christ died for us.

Paul in 1 Corinthians 1. Jews demand signs. Greeks seek wisdom.

But we preach Christ crucified.

This is the core of our faith. This is the message that both converts and changes

and keeps our heart close to the Lord.

So, friend, when you and I are wondering about God and about his attention to

us and about, is he listening? Are these prayers hitting the ceiling?

Is anything here happening? Is God even real?

Don't ask yourself the questions about, are my prayers being answered?

Are the miracles that I'm asking for happening?

No, rather ask yourself, did God's son come from heaven to die for our sins

and to bring us to the Father?

This is where our certainty is. I mean, at a real visceral level,

like you're going through it.

And the question you ask yourself is, did God send his son into the world to

die for my sins and to bring me to the Father?

If so, then that is to be believed, miracle or not.

That is the one sign. Okay, we want a sign. God says, fine. Here's your sign you have to believe in.

I will lift up the son of God on the cross and he will die for your sins.

This is the one sign that we lean on.

Our faith does not come from the crazy miraculous signs that the Lord may or

may not do as we ask him to, but they come from the gospel, the word of God's promise to us in Jesus.

And so finally, we must ask the question,

What makes this Jesus so worthy of all of our trust? What makes this Jesus so

worthy of him telling me to hate my life in this world when compared to eternal

glory? Why is this Jesus trustworthy?

And Jesus kind of gives us an answer to that in verse 44. Jesus cried out and

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

Whoever sees me sees him who sent me.

I have come into the world as light so that whoever believes in me may not remain

in darkness. The reason why you and I can and should put our confidence in Jesus

alone is because he is one with the Father.

This is why theology matters. Theology is not just for fun. It's not because people get bored.

It's because these things are true. There's real practical, real life consequences.

One of those being, is Jesus trustworthy? Can I trust him?

And one of the reasons we know that is because his claim and all of scripture's

claim is he is one with the Father.

Jesus Christ, this idea of light, right? He said, I'm the light of the world.

All right, that's cute. What does this mean?

Jesus Christ is the light of the glory of God radiating into the world.

When God shines the light of his glory onto humanity, that light, that shining is Jesus.

You look to Christ and him crucified to be the beginning and the end of your

faith because he is God in the flesh. He's not just some dude up there hanging on the cross.

He is God in the flesh.

What is God like? He's like Jesus.

What does God say? What Jesus says. How does God show himself to me? Through Jesus.

When you hear him, you hear the father. And guess what we hear when we hear this son speaking?

Look at verse 47. If anyone hears my words and does not keep them, I do not judge them.

For I did not come to judge the world, but to save the world.

This means, Jesus says this, when he says this, he means that his purpose in

coming to the world is to save people.

Beyond all comprehension, beyond all hope, God coming down into the world to

dwell with sinful humanity is a mission of salvation, not a mission of condemnation.

Jesus is like, my purpose in coming into the world is not condemnation. It's to save humanity.

Now, this clearly does not mean that there will be no judgment.

This does not mean Jesus is not having a wholesale rejection of his judgment.

Jesus' own words, he says, the message of salvation through him,

the light of the world, is what will judge all men on the last day.

There will be a judgment on the last day from those who turn away from life.

You turn away from life, you get no life. This is John 3, 18.

Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned

already because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God, Jesus.

Jesus' purpose in coming into the world was not a slaughter fest of the wrath of God on humanity.

His purpose in coming into the world was to save.

Now, if we reject that, if we turn away from that light, then we remain in darkness.

If we turn away from life, John 1, 4, in him was life and the life was the light of men.

If we turn away from life, we get death. If we turn away from light,

we get darkness. So there is still judgment for those who reject Jesus.

But the good news, and this is the main point of all this, this is the main

point of what Jesus is saying.

There is a way out of such condemnation and judgment. for you and I.

I have come into the world as light so that whoever believes in me will not remain in darkness.

Back up in verse 36, believe the light that you may become sons of light.

Or all the way back in chapter three, for God so loved the world that he gave

his only begotten son so that whoever believes in him will not perish, but have eternal life.

Nine times in the space of 10 verses from verse 36 to 46, John mentions the

faith or the like thereof of people in responding to Jesus.

This is the key. This is the key.

This is the practical response that God calls you and I, believer and unbeliever alike, today to him.

He calls us to respond in faith to him today and every day hereafter.

You do not get right with God, nor do you get back on the right track with God,

through getting your stuff together or doing good stuff and earning things.

You get right with God and you get back on the right track with God by believing,

by trusting, by embracing the light of the world, Jesus.

That's how this works.

I mean, he didn't say, I've come into the world as light so that whoever can

really show me that they're serious about me may not remain in darkness.

No, I come into the world as light so that whoever believes,

trusts, embraces me will not remain in darkness.

And this belief, as you know, you're thoughtful people, you know this.

This belief works itself out in ways.

Like real saving faith looks like something. It's not just, yeah,

I believe the stuff about the cross. Okay.

Okay, real saving faith works its way out. What does it look like?

Here's what it doesn't look like, verse 42 and 43. Nevertheless,

many even of the authorities believed in him, but for fear of the Pharisees,

they did not confess it so that they would not be put out of the synagogue.

For they loved the glory that comes from man more than the glory that comes from God.

Gentle question as you're laying on your pillow at night, right?

Do you see yourself at all in these men?

Any reticence, any hesitancy of fully confessing and embracing and trusting

in Jesus because of the love of the glory of men rather than the glory that comes from God?

Because real saving faith, real faith, what it looks like is a desire to receive

and live in the light of the glory that God gives, not the glory that man gives.

Because oftentimes those two are not aligned. You know this.

Living faithfully to Christ is not at all times what's gonna get you the most

social clout. It will not get you the glory of man.

And Jesus here uses these men as a poor example of what faith looks like.

They believed in Jesus, but they were afraid because they cared more about the

glory of man than the glory of God.

What it does look like, it looks like trusting God's provision for your salvation

through the death of Jesus, even in the face of doubt and fear.

It looks like walking in the light as Jesus did.

This means walking in the truth, walking in honesty, walking in vulnerability,

And it looks like, strangely enough, hating your life in this world when compared

to the love that we have for the kingdom of God.

This is the call of Jesus for believer and non-believer alike.

Today and every day hereafter, I come into the world as light that whoever believes

in me may not remain in darkness. So believe in this light and walk in the light.

That's the call of Jesus to you today. Believe in the light and show that belief

by walking in the light. Let me pray for us.

Lord, what that's going to look like for each of us today.

May be different. What does it mean to walk in the light?

God, would that question be a pebble in our shoe the rest of the week of what

it means to walk in the light?

And would you lead us by your word and by your spirit and by the church that

you've given us to know, Lord, practically concrete ways how we might walk in this light?

God, you have not only taken on death on our behalf, but you've taken on the

fear of death. You've taken on judgment so that we might not remain in darkness,

so that we might come into the glory of the Father.

We thank you, Lord, that your mission into the world, your entry into the world,

to dwell with rebellious humanity was a mission of salvation,

not a mission of condemnation.

So help us to be drawn to you in our hearts.

Help us, Lord, to confess you with our mouths and with our lives.

And may we be in more awe of you and may we fall more and more in love with

you the further we walk in the light.

Would you be with us? Would you do this by the power of your spirit?

We ask in Christ's name. Amen.