More Clarity In Life | I Am More | Pastor Zach Weihrauch

John 8:12

John 8:12

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."

Well, welcome to the weekend here at Christ Community Chapel.

My name is Zach.

I'm one of the pastors here,

and I'm so glad that we get to be part of your weekend.

You know, 2026 is for us as a church, a year of more life.

We are asking, believing, even expecting more life,

more life in our relationship with God, more life and our relationships

with each other, and our marriages, and our parenting, and our career.

We're asking, believing, and expecting.

Not not because we deserve it or we're owed it, but because Jesus

tells us in the Gospel of John chapter ten, verse ten that it's his mission.

He says, I have come so that they may have life and life more abundantly.

And so we're saying to Jesus,

hey, if that's what you want for us, that is what we want.

And we're chasing after that.

Of course, this spring, what that looks like is we're learning

through the seven I am statements in the Gospel of John

that the pathway to more is not trying harder or doing better.

The pathway to more is a relationship with Jesus, as he reveals

more each week to us of who he is and how our relationship with him

leads to the more life he promised.

We're going to continue that this week,

so if you have a Bible, you can open it to John chapter eight, verse 12.

Of course, if you don't know, probably you can check out the screen behind me.

Anytime we reference the passage, or if you want to use one of our Bibles

in the pew in front of you, or in the back over in East Hall.

It is inconveniently located on page 851, bottom right hand corner,

and you have to turn it to page 852 to end it.

However you're getting to John eight or watching the screens,

let me hold out to you an outline I'm going to use to guide our time together.

Three points. Very simple.

I want to show you, an observation, an invitation,

and illumination. Observation, invitation,

illumination.

All right. Let's start with observation.

Obviously, Jesus is making an explicit claim

in this passage about himself.

He is saying something, declaring something to be true of himself.

And we'll look at that in a minute.

But the key to understanding this verse is not just seeing

what he is saying, but to hear what he isn't saying.

What I mean by that is there's a a subtext, a point he's making

that's kind of buried in this verse that I actually think is where we should start.

Let me read it to you. I'll show you what I mean. Here's what it says.

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.

Jesus says, I am the light of the world.

Whoever follows me won't walk in darkness.

They will have the light of life.

But of course, the implicit point he's making is whoever doesn't

follow me will walk in darkness.

Jesus is saying, without me you have darkness.

Apart from a relationship with me, you will get darkness.

He's calling.

He's observing that our world is a world of darkness.

Now what does it mean to be a world of darkness?

How is he using that metaphor?

Well, if you read the context of the passage,

if you kind of zoom out, especially the end of chapter seven,

or even what

follows this, what you're going to find is that Jesus as the Son of God, God in

the flesh, is teaching with absolute clarity and authority.

He is revealing who God is and what God is up to,

but he's consistently met with confusion.

People are arguing about who he is and misunderstanding what he's saying.

And so when Jesus talks about darkness here, what he's really saying is that

our world is a world of darkness.

Meaning our world is a world of confusion.

Our lives, our lives of confusion.

Without him, we will get confusion.

Now, let me drive this point home to you by using two different metaphors.

Let's start with this one.

You know I am 42 years old.

If somebody said to me, Zach, describe

what the earth has been like for your 42 years.

There are a lot of ways I could do that, but.

But one way is I could tell the story of all the diet fads that I have seen.

And there have been many, like when I was a kid

in the early 90s, both my parents were really into fat free.

I don't know if you are around for this, but the idea was somehow

you could eat whatever you wanted.

But we found a way to take the taste out and the fat out.

So you have free cookies, fat free cake, fat free brownies.

I mean, they weren't good, but they didn't have fat in them.

And for a while I was thinking, that's how you're going to get healthy.

Until someone came along and was like, no, actually, you need fat.

Like fat provides some benefit.

So, fat was back and all of a sudden we were into low carb

or no carb diets, couldn't eat carbs, you could eat anything else.

You just couldn't eat carbs.

We were eating meat for days.

And then someone came along and was like, well, actually, you know,

processed carbs are bad, but actually there are some healthy carbs.

You can't cut out carbs.

Then we went from that to gluten free, which meant we all had to learn

what gluten was.

I'm 42. I still couldn't tell you,

but for a period of my life I knew gluten was bad.

You didn't eat it, you didn't look at it.

You weren't in the same room as it.

You couldn't touch it. Gluten was baking.

Anything you want just couldn't include gluten

until someone came along and was like, well, no.

Actually, some people have a sensitivity. They can't eat it.

The rest of you are idiots.

And we stopped doing

that and then we got into intermittent fasting.

I don't know if you were down with this.

It was like

you would stop eating at a certain time and you would go 12 hours or 15.

You know, if you could push it, you not eat breakfast.

And and that was going to get you in shape.

And then we realized that wasn't any fun.

And we switch now to high protein

everything protein I'm squirrely and there's all kinds of protein.

You go to Starbucks now, you get a coffee.

They'll put somehow they will put protein on it.

Okay.

And I don't know if you know this, but we're post protein now.

Protein is not cool anymore.

Now it's fiber okay.

You want to get as much fiber as you can.

That's a long way of me saying we have no idea what we're doing,

so we have no idea what we're doing.

When someone comes out with a diet and we buy, we buy the book

and we watch the YouTube video and the Ted talk, and we go all in

until someone else comes along goes, that was dumb, but you should buy my book.

And we go, okay.

And we buy that when we don't know what we're doing.

And the thing is, when I when I talk about confusion

as it relates to our diets, we chuckle right?

But if I say we're just as confused about marriage,

that's not funny.

Or we're just as confused about parenting.

Or money

or friendships.

I mean, because another way of talking about my 42 years

on earth, or all the times I thought I knew what I was doing

only to find out I did it.

And that's not funny.

You know,

I turn on the news

and see what's going on in Iran, and I don't know what to think of it.

You don't know what to think of it. We're confused.

And that's not funny.

And it's not just that we experience confusion.

We experience darkness.

It leads to a certain kind of living.

Let me give you a second metaphor.

So I'm flying out to Atlanta this week.

I love to coach leaders, be in rooms with leaders.

I'm going to go do some of that.

And what that means for me is I will stay in a hotel room

and when I sleep in a hotel room, I need it

to be absolute pitch black, dark, no light.

And what that means is

I will take all the extra towels and blankets that I can find.

Then I will cover up anything that has any light in it

so that when I'm laying in bed, I can't even see my hand in front of my face.

And that will be perfect.

And then I'll fall asleep and everything will be great

until 3:00 in the morning when I wake up and I need to go to the bathroom.

And then I have to make a choice stay in bed

and be uncomfortable or risk death.

Because I know somewhere out there is a table.

I just don't remember where, right?

And so I can lay in bed and be uncomfortable.

I can go for the bathroom and run into furniture, right.

And and have some bumps and bruises, or I can split the difference

and kind of put my hands out in front of me and walk really slow and,

and kind of look like an idiot if the light would ever come on.

But to make my way to the bathroom,

I think that's a great metaphor for the way we're living.

We know we don't know what we're doing right.

We know we don't know what we're doing.

And so some of us, the way that manifests is with crippling anxiety.

Anxiety is the body's way of telling you.

You don't know what you're doing.

It's the physical manifestation of the stress of going,

I don't know how to do marriage. I don't know how to raise kids.

I don't know how to get ahead in my career.

I don't know how to make enough money.

I don't have any answers for life's biggest questions.

And your body is saying, I know, I know, I know, and you're freaking out.

And that's how some of us live.

We this is the most

anxious generation, statistically, of any generation ever before.

Well, why wouldn't it be?

We know more about the world than we've ever known,

and we know we still don't know anything.

Others of us are a little more adventurous,

so we run headlong after what we think we want.

And our story is a story of running into things

of bumps and bruises,

of marriages that didn't work.

Broken family relationships.

Broken friendships.

Financial difficulty.

Right?

We can point to every bruise and tell the story of how

we thought we knew what we were doing, only to find. Out we didn't.

At best.

At best, we split the difference and we move through life

slowly and carefully, just trying not to mess anything up.

And a good day for us is a day where we don't mess anything up.

But we're not really living.

Jesus says that the root cause of that

is that we are confused.

That the root cause of our anxiety, the root cause of the bumps

and bruises of the fads we chase, the root cause of the cautious, careful,

not really living lives that we lead as we don't know what we're doing.

Do you feel that?

Do you feel anxious?

Do you feel confused?

Do you feel wounded?

Well, if you do, you're going to love.

My second point.

Because Jesus isn't just making.

An observation,

he's making an invitation.

Look at what he says. John 812 he says this.

And again Jesus spoke to them, saying.

I am the light of the world.

Now I want you to notice that Jesus does not say,

there is a light in the world, and I know how to find it.

He does not say, there is there must be light out there somewhere.

And if you and I link arms, we can find it together.

He doesn't say there's a light inside of you and he knows how to bring it out.

No, he doesn't say any of that.

We would resonate with any of that. Right? He doesn't say that.

What he actually says is something even more audacious.

He says, I am the light of the world.

And when he says that, he's saying two really important things,

the first thing he's saying, he's inviting us to watch him

because Jesus is saying that the darkness

that you and I live in, the confusion that we carry, he doesn't carry it.

He doesn't live in it.

He's not in the darkness.

He says.

He's saying that for him, the hotel room light is on.

He knows what he's doing.

He's inviting us to watch his life.

Look, I told you two weeks ago

that if you're new to the Bible, if you don't,

you don't have a ton of background with the Bible.

You should start with the Gospel of John.

I bet there were some of you who are like, I'm going to do that.

And then you didn't do it. Don't feel bad about it.

Tomorrow's Monday. Great day to start.

Give it a shot tomorrow.

And if you were to read the Gospel of John, what you would find

is that Jesus, his life, reads as though it has absolute clarity.

I mean, he just moves through life.

He's not doing this. He's moving full speed.

He speaks truth to power.

He uplifts the weak.

He speaks with confidence over who God is and what God wants and what God is doing.

He lives a life of absolute clarity,

and he even goes to death with absolute clarity.

He tells us over and over again, I've come to die.

I'm going to go to the cross.

You're going to kill me.

I have to die in order for you to be forgiven.

Even on the cross.

As he's dying, he says, father, into your hands I commit my spirit.

In other words, I trust you. I know what we're doing.

We have a plan.

And then three days later, just like he said, he raises from the dead.

He goes on to ascend into heaven and tells us, see, I told you.

I told you this is what I was going to do.

I have come so that you can have life.

Jesus lives and dies

and resurrects and ascended into heaven with absolute complete clarity.

Never a moment of confusion.

But here's the other thing.

He's inviting us to.

He's inviting us to come to him to get it.

It's interesting.

In John 812 he says, I am the light of the world.

That's not an encouraging thing to say necessarily.

Like if you say to me, hey, Zach, you're living a life of complete confusion

and darkness.

And I go, I know.

And then Jesus goes, I am the light of the world.

Like, that's true, but it's it's not it's not encouraging

because all he's really doing is saying how superior he is to me.

But do you see?

That's not where he stops.

You have to see this.

If John 812 stops with Jesus saying, I'm the light of the world,

this is not an encouraging passage. True, but not encouraging.

But look what he says.

John 812 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. Jesus saying, I have light. I want to share,

I have life and I want to share.

Do you see that?

Here's what Jesus is saying when he says, I'm

the light of the world and you have to feel this. It's an audacious claim.

What he's saying is that from the moment he.

Arrived till now.

Till.

All eternity, because Jesus is the light of the world,

darkness, confusion is no longer inevitable.

It's a choice.

Do you understand?

That's what he's saying.

He's saying that because he's the light of the world and he's here.

Darkness, confusion, anxiety,

bumps and bruises, cautiously moving through life.

That's a. Choice.

You can have darkness if you want it.

But Jesus is saying, but you can come to me.

If you want light.

Which of course begs the question.

Which do you want?

And if you

find yourself saying, well, you know, I want light.

Well, that's my third point, actually.

Not just an observation, not just an invitation,

but here's how you get illumination.

Jesus says, whoever follows me.

Will not walk in darkness, but.

Will have the light of life.

What does he mean when he says, whoever follows me?

Well, I think he has in mind three things.

I'm just taking these from his teaching everywhere else.

Three things, and they're linear.

You start with one, move to two, move to three.

Here's the first thing he's talking about.

He's talking about salvation.

Do you know what salvation is?

It's a very churchy word. You didn't grow up in the church.

Maybe you kind of think, you know, not really.

Here's all it is.

Salvation is simply the end result of saying.

I don't want to be in darkness anymore.

I have no idea what I'm doing.

My body is telling me that my, my, my story is telling me that

I have no idea what I'm doing.

I don't want to live this way anymore.

And seeing in. Jesus

a way out

in his life,

in his death and in his resurrection.

To be a Christian is to say.

I have chosen darkness.

I have walked in darkness.

It's been miserable. I don't want it anymore.

And in Jesus I have found a way out.

I got to tell you, in two weeks we're baptizing.

You know, since we launched the reimagined vision,

we are dangerously close to a thousand baptisms.

I'm gonna tell you, when that day happens, we're going to celebrate.

That's awesome.

But right now, my mind is not on a thousand.

It's on one. It's on you.

Because I talk to people, think, well, how do I know if I'm ready to be baptized?

And and there's so much I don't know.

Listen, when you get baptized, you're saying there's a lot I don't know.

Here's one thing I do know.

I don't want darkness anymore.

And Jesus has given me a way out.

And if that's all you

know, you're ready to be baptized.

Because baptism is not about achieving and earning.

It's about acknowledging that we would have lived and died in darkness

if the light had not come.

But he's come and his name is Jesus.

Two weeks, two weeks. We'll baptize you.

We're going to baptize. We'll have clothes ready.

You can come take a class. You're a planner plan.

You're not a planner.

We got you. Come.

Anyways, here's the second thing.

Salvation is where it starts.

So the second thing, the leadership of Jesus.

Jesus, when he says, whoever follows me will not walk in darkness.

What he means is that the very first thing,

the fundamental thing that he gave to he came to bring us

clarity on is who God is and how God feels about us, right?

That we could know we'd be forgiven, that we could know

we be accepted, that we can know we'd be included.

But Jesus is saying, it's

not just clarity on who God is and how God feels about us.

Jesus has come to bring the light to darkness

in every area of our lives.

Because it isn't just that.

On a macro level, we don't know what we're doing.

Pick the area, marriage, parenting, career, money, friendship.

We have no idea what we're doing.

And Jesus is saying.

But I do.

Well, let me give you an example.

I can give you a million different examples,

but for whatever reason, this one's on my heart.

This week, eight out of I, eight out of ten couples

who apply to be married here at the church are living together.

Now I want you to hear me.

We don't do guilt and shame here, okay?

It's actually the opposite of what we believe we don't do, so I don't

I don't say that to guilt you or shame you if that's your story, keep coming.

I'm glad you're here.

I just say that to see what that tells me as a pastor,

is that you have bought into the cultural

fad of how to think about marriage.

Of how to think about sex, and how to think about relationships.

Let me ask you a question.

The generation that came before you do, they seem like

they know what they're talking about when it comes to marriage.

So who told you that?

You said, well, it's a good way to save money.

It's a good way to try each other out, to learn each other.

Did you know statistically, that couples that lived together before marriage

are vastly more likely to divorce than couples who don't?

I bet you didn't know that.

But nobody ever told you that.

That's because the people selling the low.

Carb diet never tell you you need carbs.

Do you understand what I'm saying to you?

So I don't want you to feel guilty.

I don't want you to feel shame, but I do want you.

Jesus is saying you can learn.

The table is there. By running into it,

or you can let him tell you where the table is.

Do you understand that.

The Bible has so much to say about how you think about debt?

We're all somewhere in the book of Proverbs, by the way.

We're going to talk about debt. We're going to talk about friendships.

We're going to talk about all kinds of stuff,

because Jesus doesn't want you to keep running into the furniture.

Do you want that? Yet?

We're so prone to doing things our way and finding ourselves in a mess.

Because when you walk around in the darkness, that's what happens.

And then we get angry at God and we blame God.

And how could you let this happen? How could you do this?

But is it really his fault?

God doesn't want.

Confusion for you.

He wants clarity,

and he knows how every area of your life is meant to work.

He does not want you to go through life

just hoping you don't make a mess of things.

He wants you to run.

And he knows how to get you there.

Here's the third thing. You're ready.

So we come to Jesus for salvation.

We learn who God is, how he feels about us.

We bring every area of our life to him in leadership.

We listen to him about every area of our lives.

We get more light. We get rid of darkness.

Here's the third thing we.

Participate in bringing others into the light.

This is so. Important.

Because the mission of Jesus is to.

Dispel darkness and to bring in light.

That's the mission of Jesus.

So what that means, brother or sister in Christ, is that your life

isn't just about doing things the right way.

It's about being on mission, finding meaning and purpose, which we crave

and we have no idea how to find in the work of Jesus,

even here at the church, to reach other people.

Because we if we don't want

to run into the furniture, if we realize we can live life and run,

not crawl towards meaning and purpose, why wouldn't we want that for everybody?

So you

came in this morning and my guess is somebody helped you park.

Somebody greeted you at the door.

Somebody made you coffee.

Somebody with your kids right now telling them about God's love.

People came up here and sang and led you.

People helped you find a seat.

People made you move so that someone else could find a seat.

Do you know why they do that?

Do you know why they do that?

Because they have discovered the joy of stepping out of confusion

into the light, and they want that for you.

Which is why I'm going to tell you you will never unlock true meaning

and purpose in your relationship with God until you join.

Him in his mission

to bring other people divine.

That is a

shameless plug for you to get involved here,

if for no other reason than you and

I have no idea how to find meaning and purpose apart from Jesus.

Friends barely moving through life, crippled

by anxiety bumps and bruises from running into stuff.

Hoping just not to make a mess of things has become.

The American definition of. Normal.

But it is not normal.

You were made for more

and only Jesus,

the light of the world can get you there.

Let me pray for you, father God.

Because it's a two part prayer.

Pretty simple.

One is build in us a dissatisfaction

with darkness and confusion.

You know, the old adage goes, fish don't know they're wet.

We don't even. Realize how confused we are.

So show us.

And before that feeling overwhelms. Us,

show us the hope that is available in Jesus

that we might pursue him for your glory,

for our joy, and for the good of those around us.

In Jesus name we pray. Amen.