I AM: Light of the World

Hey man, those are encouraging videos. Fun to celebrate twenty years altogether.

A good morning. Welcome to our ten am crowd. Thanks all of you

heard joining us online too. I hope that you'll receive this as a warm

invitation to be on a venture campus when you can. My name's Christian LINDBECA

part of me wants to say, like, well, well, well,

it's been a hot minute since since I've been with some of you seven years.

I am now returned as the executive pastor charged with the health of our

staff across all of our many and growing campuses. It's my pleasure to be

back with you this morning. This community is near and dear to my heart.

I'm excited to be with you to join in your mission. And I

believe sincerely about what God is doing. Jesus is afoot in the world and

he has part anticipating through this Kingdom outpost to make his name famous, and

this is good news for all of us. This week, we're going to

be in the second part of this I AM series. I really want to

encourage you to if you didn't catch the beginning of this IM series, to

go back to it. For seven weeks. We are unpacking these seven extraordinary

things that Jesus had to say about himself in the Book of John. Now

you may remember if you were here last week that Brandon mentioned at the end

of his sermon that even saying I am was extraordinary. I want you to

pick up that. It's not that just Jesus says I am and then paints

kind of a nice image that you can associate. I'm like this, I'm

like bread, and you get bread, right, But just to even say

I am is him borrowing or taking unto himself the designation of divinity. He

the god that they knew was Yahweh, the one who calls himself the I

am. It literally means I am, I'm busy being I am right now

and I will be. It's translated in Greek as ago emi, which is

not something you need to write down, but it's just important to note.

This is what Jesus says. Every time he says I am. He's not

just saying, oh, I am this, He's saying Yahweh. He say

I am, and then he drops this loaded image into the moment. So

I want you to just go and read the context of each of these passages.

Each time Jesus uses one of these phrases again. Even in the context

of where we're at today, people rise up, they desire to kill them

or throw them out. This is a potent for their mind. Heretical thing

for Jesus to say. So, I just want to like preload this idea

that each one of these I AM statements is on its own extraordinary, even

just in the lead in. So, I got a question for you.

Who among you likes a movie or a story, if you're a book reader,

a movie or a story where the storyteller is dropping little clues throughout the

story so that when you get to the end of the movie you get to

discover the big payoff. Do you like that? Like, I don't know

if like you're like a David Mammott fan or so, you know or something.

When you get to the end of the movie, you're like, Ah,

that's why the latter was leaning on the wall. You know, That's

that's why. Oh, and you you get to make this big discovery if

you've been paying attention. Now, let me underscore that. If you're a

chatterer in the movie, if you're watching it at home and you get up

and use the bathroom, eighteen times and then you miss the setup. Then

when it comes you're like, kaiser, SoSE who's that? You know,

like you need to pay attention. But if you pay attention, you're watching

what's happening. When you arrive at the payoff, you get to discover it.

You get the feeling where you understand all throughout and you get a drag

with you all the moments of the story, all the complex emotions that happened

when one of the clues were dropped. You get to connect the dots and

the images together so that when you arrive there, you participate. It's an

empirical truth. Teachers in the house will back me up. It's an empirical

truth that if you let somebody participate in the discovery, it is far stronger

than just spelling it out for them. You have to trust the listener to

participate in the discovery. I mean, frankly, I hate a movie that's

so tedious that somebody has to monologue at the end and explain it to you,

right, You know, like a movie where finally at the end,

the bad guy stands up and he talks for like five minutes and explains,

like why everything happened? In the movie and they just spell it out for

you that way, you can't possibly miss it. It's boring. Hey,

nobody does that b You know what I don't like about it. It doesn't

trust you. It doesn't trust us to be paying attention and discover the story

for ourselves. A good storyteller trust the listener to be able to connect all

of those dots and have the discovery for themselves. And a good storyteller if

they do it right. I mean, do you like that? Did I

get an agreement on that? Yeah? I mean a good storyteller, like

you don't. At the moment you discover it, it's a big deal.

Have you ever left a movie and then you're in the car you're like,

oh, that's why he said that? Or you're going to bed and you're

thinking out loud that the reason the red car. Right, the next day

you wake up and you get together with a group of friends and did you

guys see that movie? I can't tell you. But when you see this,

like, notice this, this is good storytelling. It's a key scriptural

idea. Yeah, there is good storytelling here. And often people are like,

hey, I read the scripture, Why isn't it just spelling it out

for me. Why is Jesus teaching in parables? Sometimes that's confusing because scripture

is inviting you to participate in the discovery. It's dropping the clues that if

you were paying attention, when you get it, you're like, oh oh,

like you get to like you get to make all these in fact for

a lifetime. You get to go back and unpack all of those discoveries.

Good storytelling. And I got great news for you. Jesus is an excellent

storyteller, like he is. He and the Father in the Spirit, they're

master storytellers and they love the aha and they just love to like paint all

these grab all these clues and images and history and then give us the moment

of discovery. Now, I will say that when we read this scripture,

and especially Jesus talking to the people around him, we don't even get to

draw on the same level of aha that they do because it's their history.

Like we are reading about the history, we're coming to understand it. But

I want you to understand, for Jesus' audience, this is lived history,

like this is their history, their background. They're feeling their emotions, and

we get to get a little taste of that. And in each one of

these I am statements, I just want us to notice, Jesus, the

master storyteller, isn't just delivering an image. He says those words every time,

at exactly the right time, in exactly the right context. The place

he is, the way that he says it, the people that he is

among, the time of year that it is, all of them are culminating

lessons so that when Jesus says it's like boom, like I am pulling together

these long threads that have run throughout scripture, run throughout history to deliver this.

You may remember, if you were here for the Revival Sunday last Sunday

night, Manny said to you, if you understand the context, then the

content makes way more sense. And in each one of these im statements,

it's the context that makes his content so explosive. So you guys, ready

to dig into the next one. Great, Okay, I'm gonna invite you.

You don't need to read this yet, but I'm gonnavite you to stick

your finger and John chapter eight, verse twelve, And i'd invite you,

as you get used to venture or watching online, have a Bible with you.

If it's on your phone, or if it's a physical Bible, like

get used to moving around making notes and interacting with this text. But just

stick your finger in John chapter eight, verse twelve, because we're gonna be

coming back to John eight twelve. First. I want to set some juicy

context, and friends, I wish we had hours you don't, I do,

because the context set up for this moment is extraordinarily good. In fact,

I hope to just give you like a tiny taste of what his original

audience would have experienced when we finally read the words in John eight to twelve

together. I want you just to have a hint of how jaw dropping it

is. This is not a nice idea from Jesus. This is literally he

reaches back through thousands of years of their history, pulls it all together in

one extraordinary moment in this morning, I hope to just highlight a couple of

clues. I admit I've left a lot on the cutting room floor, and

so I would invite you go to our next steps this week if you want

to dig in some more, and there I've left some context of this theme.

Some scriptures to study are the places where you can packet some more.

But this morning, I just want to give you a couple of clues.

When Jesus delivers these words, we're going to read it a little bit.

He's pulling a thread that runs through the long context of Israeli Jewish thoughts,

emotions, and history. And it begins really right at the very beginning.

So I'm going to pick it up in Genesis chapter one, verse three.

The context here, and we don't have a lot of time to get into

the language, is that nothing exists. And this nothingness, this null,

this voidness, this waitingness, is called the darkness. It is Dart's dark.

It's chaotic, it's void. And then we get this beginning of the

story of the theme from God. Let me pick it up in verse three.

It says, and God said, let there be light, And there

was light. God saw that the light was good, and he separated the

light from the darkness. Now this becomes a key recurring theme throughout scripture.

There is a dividing line, and light triumphs over darkness. Now I want

you to notice, the sun hasn't even been created yet. This is just

into the void of nothing. Light itself came to exist. Light is energy.

Light as potential. Light is the dividing line. In the beginning,

in the midst of darkness, there was light. And what the theme that

begins to develop and their understanding of who God is is this light triumphs over

darkness. Where light exists, nothing is the same. Again, light exists

in the darkness. Now again we're leaving much out, so I'm gonna jump

ahead, but I want you to underline light triumphs over darkness. Now I'm

gonna leap far ahead into the history of Israel. Even if you didn't grow

up in church or don't know the story of the Israelites, you've probably heard

the story of them being freed from Pharaoh and Egypt, right, I mean,

because it's a Disney movie about it, So you've probably heard that.

Part of their core identity, like who they are, part of their understanding

of who they are and what the world is all about, is they are

a people delivered by God from Egypt. Now you remember, many of you

know the story. They come out and Moses splits the Red Sea and they

passed through the Red Sea. That's a single incident. It says for forty

years they were with God and the desert and as they were with him in

the desert. He had a presence that was with them, and this presence

was for them, and the day full of light and a cloud covering,

and at night full of fire and a protection. So they know what that

looked like. What did God send with them through the desert? Say it?

You can say it, mumbling pillar. Do you guys know this story?

Like, there's this pillar of cloud and fire that follows them in the

desert. And they learn by following this pillar of cloud and fire to go

where it goes, to stay where it stays. They begin to identify God.

God is their light and their provision. God is their guide. Again,

where this pillar of fire and smoke goes, they go. God for

them lives an unapproachable, unapproachable and frankly, mildly, honestly terrifying light.

Right here's this massive column of light, and this true light is all they

know of God at this time. God lives an unapproachable light. And you'll

see that image come up over and over. God lives an unapproachable light,

and God is the guide. We go where the Lord is leading. So

they have in their mind light triumphs over darkness. That theme runs up.

God is the Light and our true guide. Seven hundred years after that image,

we read in the Prophet Isaiah. Of all the prophets, Isaiah writes

the most about the coming king they call the Messiah. There will be a

Messiah, God's rescue hero. And Isaiah writes the most about what this person

will look like. And all throughout Isaiah we see this developing image of who

this person is when we read the vision. When Isaiah sees a vision of

God's coming delivery for the nation that had lost its way, he sees a

Messiah that will be the embodied light of God to bring his people home.

The image of light that they already know will become the embodied light of God.

If he speaks directly to the embodiment of the light. Let me pick

it up in isa Isaiah chapter sixty, verse nineteen, speaking to the Messiah

who's going to come. This is God speaking. The Messiah says, the

sun will no more be your light by day the sun, this is an

extraordinary thing, nor will the brightness of the moon shine on you. For

the Lord, the coming Messiah will be your ever lasting light, and your

God will be your glory. In chapter forty two, again speaking directly to

this coming embodiment of light, this messianic king God, the Lord speaking directly

to the Messiah again, and this scripture says, I the Lord have called

you in righteousness. I will take hold of your hand. I will keep

you and make you to be a covenant for the people and the light for

the gentiles. So in the book of Isaiah we are getting this image who

what is this image of God as light? We see that when the Messiah

comes, the Messiah will embody. This will be physically present embody this promise

of the light. Who is God. So again we've left a lot out,

but I want you to take that light over darkness. God is the

light and the goide. The Messiah will be the embodied light of God that

brings all of his people home. Now this is the scriptural thread that is

weaving through. I want to give you one more piece of context. When

we leap ahead to John chapter eight, where I asked you to put a

finger in there. That's seven hundred years past the passage that we just read

in Isaiah. It's fourteen hundred years after Moses and the column of fire and

smoke that was the representation of God. It's millennia of time since the creation

of the world, when God established that his work was that the light overcomes

the darkness. We find ourselves in John chapter eight. John chapter eight has

these bookends. So John chapter seven and John chapter eight, Verse twenty set

a bookend for us, and those bookends tell us where Jesus is and when

Jesus is when he's doing this teaching. So we know that Jesus is in

Jerusalem. He's near the end of the feast of Tabernacles, and he's in

the temple courtyard. It's called the Court of the Women. So Tabernacles is

one of the big three feasts that everybody has to come to. So the

whole nation of Israel gathers for these big three feasts as celebrations of their identity

and who God is. And so they're gathered for Tabernacles. And what we

know about Tabernacles is Tabernacles, of all the feasts, is the party.

So there's this big gathering and a celebration of God's provision and what they do

at night. The Court of the Women is the most public part of the

temple where all the faithful Israelites can gather and during Tabernacles especially near the end

of it. They have these festivals of light, and so in the tabernacle

itself they would erect seventy five foot candle obras, so this like a huge

candleabra. Each one of those candles held nine liters of oil. So they

would just fill up the temple courtyard with light, and then people would build

their own little tents in their own courtyards all throughout the city, and so

everywhere in the city can have a picture of what the artists rendition of what

the temple would have looked like. Can you see the giant candleabras there,

the giant pillars of fire, So the whole courtyard is full of light,

and then all throughout the city you have the replication of this light in courtyards

throughout the home. In fact, it was said this is a great big

party, is that it was all about light everywhere. So there was contest

for who could jug the most torches, who could build the largest bonfire,

right like anything that would celebrate light, because the people were celebrating who God

was and his provision in their life. God is the light. So here

you've got this massive festival of light. You have an expectation that is built

into the people that a messiah will be the embodiment of light. So I

just want to set up for you that, at long last, this is

the context that Jesus is walking into, one where he's touching a long collected

thread of scripture. I just want you to imagine, like everything's full of

light. Everybody's dancing and celebrating that God is light and the provider of light

and will be the one who is the light that guides us home. It

is into that very moment that Jesus walks into that courtyard he's been teaching,

He's already made a scene that day. He steps into that courtyard, he

gathers people's attention, and he grabs that long thread of history. Let me

pick up John chapter eight, verse twelve, just a few words. I

want you to just have a taste of what it would have meant to people

when Jesus spoke again to the people in the courtyard full of Light. He

said to them, ago a me, I am I am the Yahweh.

I am I am the light of the world. Now I want you to

know like this was this was like the ultimate mic drop moment for Jesus.

I want you to appreciate again how it reaches back and grabs all of these

I want you to notice, just shortly after this, people attempt to kill

him because of the things that he is saying. Jesus is grabbing hold of

this long History's a master storyteller. He grabs hold of the long history of

the people, and he pulls it together so that when he says I am

the Light of the world, they get to pull every complex emotion. They

get to pull years of wandering in the darkness. They get to pull their

captivity in God's trustworthiness. They get to pull God is the light that conquers

over darkness. They get to pull their own disappointment throughout their own history and

lean into the trustworthiness of God. They get to hold the image that when

the Messiah comes, he will be the embodied light of God himself. Jesus

steps in the moment says, I am that light of the world. I

am afoot like it has begun. All that you have hoped for, the

thousands of years of hope are coming into this very moment. I am before

creation, I am the intent of creation. I am the truth. I

am your strong shelter and provision. I am the God of your delivery.

I am the Messiah in the flesh, who will gather all his people from

every tribe, tongue, and nation. It begins here now today, and

I want you to know. For them, this is this huge payoff.

But we the gathered people, now, this is our story too. Yes,

that we are the ones who follow the light that is broken into the

darkness. We are the one who participates in the triumph of light over darkness.

We are the ones that follow the true light, who is God himself,

that leads us through the darkness. There are so many implications again,

so much left out, so many implications about what this means for us as

followers of Jesus or those who do not know what the invitation of Jesus looks

like. Let me just say a couple one. I think it is worth

noting to say, the light has entered the darkness and there's no going back.

The light has entered the darkness and there's no turning back. There is

a dividing line that has been established, a dividing line that runs through culture,

a dividing line that runs through our nation, and a dividing line that

runs through the middle of our own heart. Light has entered into the darkness,

and their decisions to be made about where you walk, who you know,

what your life looks like. And there's this invitation walk in the light.

You are invited into the light. Light has entered into the darkness and

will triumph. I don't know if you've noticed this about yourself or others,

but there are some people who tend to notice the dark and some people who

tend to notice the light have Do you have ever felt that in your own

heart? Yeah? And so look, people say to me all time,

I can't believe in God. There's just too much darkness in the world.

The world is just too dark and how could God have power and there be

darkness? And I think to myself, the darkness makes sense to me because

it is the natural result of rejecting the light like this is he says,

even in like a totally materialistic world, darkness makes sense to me. You

know, it doesn't make sense to me, but I think is miracle worthy

worthy of noticing. Why is there so much light in a world that is

bro Why is there so much light? Why is there beauty and love and

courage and generosity? Why is there humility. Why is there care for one

another? Why is there synchronicity in creation? We can see the light,

and there's this invitation in the division of the world to walk in the ways

of light. You see, the light desires to be our guide. The

light desires whoever you are, to be our guide. Scripture says a Psalm

one nineteen one oh five says about scripture, then it says, your word

is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path. Now,

John and Jesus, in the very book we're reading, are trying to make

it very clear. Jesus is the fulfillment and the totality of the word of

God. Like the scriptures are good for us, but Jesus is the full

revelation. Jesus is the completed word of God. In other words, you

could change this to now read Jesus, you are a lamp unto my feet.

Jesus, you are the light unto my path. And so we're invited

by the light bringer who has brought light into the world to walk in his

way. We get it when we read Jesus not just as a theology,

but as one that we love and see. We can ask ourselves to walk

in his way. Where does he go? Where does the word go where?

What does the word love? What does the word do? Who does

the word interact with? What kind of vulnerable people does the word reach out

to? This word is the light unto our feet. We get to go

in the way and participate in the one who is the light to the world.

Many other things that I could say, I want to land on this

one for a moment. This reality about who Jesus is doesn't just give us

the freedom to say the light is a foot in the world, which is

great, This is good news. Jesus is a foot in the world.

But it is an invitation that Jesus extends over and over to invite the light

into our own darkness, like to notice what is inside of us. I'm

fifty four years old. I've been a professional Christian for twenty seven years.

There's still garbage here, and the light is pleading. I am here.

I want to guide triumphs over darkness. Let me into the dark. This

is the greatest invitation because I think even as Christians, and then this will

go for Christians or non Christians. There's a real question like what do we

do with the black dark? Knot of resentment? What do you do with

hatred if you've really been hurt? What if you have been unfairly treated and

you really have like the dark knot of resentment in you? What if you're

furiously mad with people that you love? Oh, come on, Like,

if you're alive and have loved somebody, you have been furiously and unrelentingly mad

at them. If you've been married, or been a parent, or been

alive, or talk to somebody else that you care about, somewhere along the

line, you've been like enraged with them. I have all have been married

for nearly thirty years. I learned early in my marriage if I was mad,

I could be quiet essentially forever. What do you do with that?

That blackness that exists in us when you when you resent your boss, when

you hate yourself, when that like the ball of shame that is produced inside

of us, when darkness lives in there, what do you do with that?

Beyond like therapy around the effects of it. What do you do with

the dark knot that lives in there? This is this is literally the way

he's trying to say, I am not just the light of the world.

I am light for you the light has entered into the world, and the

light desires to enter into me and and do you over and over like this

week. I just like you're gonna go through regular and somewhere along the line,

you're going to be able to hold black resentment, like a dark resentment

against somebody, and you will be able to feel like maybe you've really been

wronged and you want to hold that and it is just eating you up,

and it's destroying your relationships and it's wrecking your vacation. Whoever's planned a vacation

just to have it wrecked by resentment, that's me. Maybe I'm just confessing

this did not go the way I wanted. I hate everybody this. This

is this wild invitation from the light bringer. Light triumphs over darkness. God

is the true light and the guide Light has entered into the world, and

the invitation has let me into that place, let me and now it is

a courageous path. It is easier to just hold the darkness. It's so

comforting. Sometimes we just love holding the darkness. This invitation is, I

mean, this invitation is let me into that spot. Be brave enough to

let me dissolve that in you so that you lift your head and lower your

shoulders, and you take a breath, and you go soft hearted to the

one you care about, and you say I'm sorry, I love you.

You recover the relationship, You restore things with your coworker or your roommate.

You make things. This is the hope that Jesus is bringing into the midst

of the world. He says again in John twelve forty six. I have

come into the world as a light, and I want you to hear this,

so that no one who believes in me should stay in the darkness.

Can't you just see, like a loving God, I've come. No longer

am I the fearsome column of fire and smoke. I am the embodied Messiah

who puts out a hand and says, let me lead you into the light.

Ephesians five eight through fourteen says four you were in darkness, but now

you are the light in the Lord. I invite you. This is like

a wide open, spacious invitation. Live as children of light, for the

fruit of the light consists in goodness and righteousness and truth. Find out what

pleases the Lord. Have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness,

but expose them, bring them into the light. Look, it's shameful to

even mention what the disobedient do in secret, what darkness draws them into.

But everything exposed by the light becomes visible, and everything that is illuminated becomes

a light. And that is why it said, wake up, sleeper,

rise from the dead. Let Christ shine on you. This is this great

invitation to take theology and history and land it right in your own life.

And friends, I had to say to you, like, whatever else you

do this week, I hope you'll go read next steps. I hope you

will have good conversations in your small groups and around your dinner table. If

Jesus is the light of the world, what does this mean? But my

dearest invitation to you is this, slow down, take a deep breath,

rest your shoulders a little bit, and say to the Lord, I invite

you in to the dark parts of my heart. And if you do not

know him at all, he has not come as the corrector. He is

the victorious warrior who will spend down and scoop up the wounded. Scripture says

of him like a flickering flame. He will not blow out a bent read,

he will not break. He is gentle. He is good, He

is courageous. His work and the darkest parts of your heart will be a

blessing to you. Whatever hurt, whatever hardship, whatever pain is in there,

whatever shame, whatever regret, hear this good news. Jesus is the

light of the world. Jesus is the Messiah who represents God no longer in

fearsome light, but present with you. And I hope this week could just

go. Lord, what part of my heart do you want into? I

want to lead you in a prayer today, and part of that prayer is

just going to be to settle down. I want to give you a time

right now. You might say, Lord, I bring you that dark,

twisted up part of my heart right now. Would you come soften it?

Would you bring light into that dark space? This is the great invitation.

Would you join me in a prayer? Lord God, thank you. They

slow down, Jesus, thank you that this is true about you. This

isn't a good idea that we're making up. You have broken through. You

are the breakthrough King who has brought light into the entire creation. You are

the light that is victorious over darkness. You are the one who comes into

our life. Our life gets captured up in yours, that darkness will no

longer rain in us, but light will. Lord. I pray for all

of us gathered in here, for those that do not know you at all,

that this invitation to be drawn into your light would be sweet. They'd

find themselves saying, Lord, I bring you all the dark parts of me.

I just bring them openly and honestly, I lay them out. I

hold nothing back from you. I bring it all in confession. Come be

the light in my darkness. For all those who walk with you that have

harbored some part of darkness. Now, Lord, would you give them a

sweet invitation, Come be the light now, like walking into a courtyard where

there was dark and light blooms into celebration. Be the light in the dark

corner of their heart, where we thank you, we love you, Thanks

for being our rescue hero, Thanks for being the light that entered into the

darkness. We celebrate with all creation and say you are the light of the

world. Amen.