## Introduction Today, we get the privilege of telling the story of John 9. The story is one of my absolute favorites. It has conflict, politics, miracles, threats, sarcasm, deceit and irony as thick as molasses. Today is one of those days when the most important job I have is to not get in the way of the story. So that’s the goal. Let’s begin by re-reading from last week: That’s basically where we stopped last week. We were given this insight into God’s sovereign purposes for suffering. We discovered that nothing ever happens to us, but rather it happens for us. Why was this man born blind? Was it his sin or his parents’ sin? Neither. Rather, he is a miracle waiting to happen. Every artist needs a canvas. The blind man was God’s canvas for his wondrous works. Now what’s the work? And knowing the story we immediately think, “Well, he’s going to heal him.” Yes. But that’s secondary. The blindness Jesus is concerned about isn’t physical. Yes, he’s here to bring light to the eyes but mainly he cares about bringing light to the soul. Jesus is going to heal his blindness. This healing is a SYMBOLICALLY LOADED miracle. Jesus says, I am the light of the world and there is work to do while I am still here on earth. In other words, Jesus is acknowledging what is true for all of us. The only gospel ministry we will ever do is in this life only. After this life is over, ministry is over. You only have the day to work - all the opportunities we have to work for God are right now. So Jesus sees this man not as occasion for a theological discussion but as a person needing human kindness and compassion. So Jesus says, I need to get to work. As the text unfolds, we are going to discover that this blind man is a metaphor for all of us. Why? Because in a sense, we are all born blind. We all lack the sense organ to perceive spiritual reality and are unable to cure it. Have you ever spoken with a person who was born blind and tried to understand their world? All you have to do to understand their world is close your eyes. But how can they understand your world? Very quickly you realize that without the sense of sight, entire domains of reality are inaccessible to them no matter how many words and analogies you use. If the blind person asks you, “What is red like? Is red like the sound of a rooster? Does red feel like sandpaper?” Red isn’t like anything. Red is like red. Blue is like blue. Unless you can see, you will never know what it is. Sight isn’t an enhancement of your other senses. It opens up a whole dimension of reality that is inaccessible to your other senses.In that exact same way, we are all born spiritually blind. Spiritually speaking, there’s not one of us in the room who is born with spiritual eyes. And until that is fixed, spiritual realities are inaccessible to us. Here’s an example of what I mean. It’s a common testimony for people to say, “I grew up in a church that didn’t teach the gospel.” And for many this is probably true, but I’m always a little slow to just accept their experience at face value. I’m certain that’s how it felt. But that’s like a formerly blind man complaining, “I grew up in a house where my parents literally never turned on the light. Why did they never turn the lights on for me? Light is so amazing.” And this man is born doubly blind. He is physically blind but he is also spiritually blind. When the text says that Jesus passed by and looked at the man born blind, which blindness do you think he was concerned about? The blindness we care about helps us see the blindness that Jesus cares about. So right out of the gate, we are given indicators that this entire chapter is going to be rich in symbolism. It becomes for us a powerful metaphor for salvation. Jesus is physically and spiritually the light of the world. Now lots of commentary goes into the method of healing here. What’s up with the spit? This isn’t the only time. In Mark 7:33, Jesus healed a deaf man by spitting on his finger and sticking it in his ear. In Mark 8:23 he spits straight into a blind man’s eyes. What’s up with that? Now here’s the answer: who knows? Some people cite that Rabbis thought there were healing properties in the saliva of a firstborn male child. The pagan cultures definitely associated spittle with magical properties and for that reason other Rabbis condemned it. Was Jesus being intentionally controversial? Calvin sees this as making the miracle more dramatic; kind of like Elijah pouring extra water on the altar. The most obvious thing about this miracle is rarely pointed out. Why the mud pack? The reason the text itself suggests is so that Jesus can conceal his identity from the man he is about to heal. If he healed him on the spot and suddenly he sees, well then now the man knows the face of Jesus. But Jesus has reasons for wanting to be unknown. The story really brings this out in the next section: Now, apparently this healing wasn’t a public spectacle with a lot of fan-fare. But very quickly the word gets out and there’s all this commotion. Like anything, everyone’s got their own opinion to explain it. For some, identifying him was obvious. He was a fixture at the temple. He probably had a nickname, “Billy the Blind Beggar.” He had his station. Nobody can fake blindness for 40 years. And some were totally confident. I know that’s him. There were others who thought it was him but weren’t totally sure. He’s recognizable but not. And that makes sense for two reasons. First, one of the main things you notice about a person is their eyes. So if his eyes were fundamentally changed, there would be a bit of uncertainty associated with that. I’m not used to looking into his eyes and seeing him look back and see me. But secondly, you just can’t believe it. There must be another explanation. This is where the skeptics come parachuting in to save the day. A good skeptic just loves to poke holes in good news. They love to be the fact checkers. They hate the feeling of being duped so they just hold back before they buy in. And it is so humorous. Everyone is talking back and forth right over top of his head. One group yells out, “He really was healed. I knew him. He lived right next door to me. I’m telling you, this is legit.” The skeptic retorts, “Whatever. I’m so sure. You can’t heal blindness. The guy had patches of skin for eyeballs. Maybe he has a twin.” I know it was him. I saw Jesus do it. No you didn’t. Yes I did. No, it was someone who just looked like him. And he stands up in the middle of the shouting match and says, guys, “I’m the man.” “Look at me. Come test my sight. Ask me a question only I could know. I am the man.” Now four times in the text he’s going to be asked the same question. How? It’s an understandable question. This kind of thing just does not happen. A claim that large better come with an explanation. Healed from blindness, huh? How in the world, pray tell, did that happen? There was just absolute astonishment. Complete and utter astonishment. Take this miracle at face value. Consider what is going on at the atomic level to make a blind man see. This is a supernatural act of creation. You begin with something deformed, unmade, undeveloped, withered, or broken, and you replace it with something new. Which means there are atoms spinning into existence out of nothing. Those atoms are obediently assembling into moleculesdefying all the laws of physics. Those molecules are folding into proteins which assemble to make nerves and rods and cones and retinas. And the point is quite simple. There’s no natural explanation for it. There’s no medical or psychological explanation for it. This wasn’t an imagined illness where the warm presence of Jesus made him feel better. There’s no medicine. It’s not repeatable, nor is there a formula to which you could refer to explain the miracle. It’s a miracle performed by a word of the maker of all things. Just as God took earth and formed it into Adam, God takes dust and makes new eyes. And of course nobody has ever seen or heard of a miracle like this. So it’s totally and completely normal to be a bit skeptical. What do you mean you used to be blind? If you were once blind, HOW is it you now see? HOW? And all through the text the man who was formerly blind answers the how with the who. How are you healed? He says, that’s the wrong question. You’ll never understand the how till you understand the who. You need the who to understand the how. If you force me to answer “how I see” without letting me explain “who made me see” then “you will never see.” So they say, “Fine, then where is this Jesus?” And he helpfully responds, “How should I know? Remember the whole part about me being blind? I don’t even know what he looks like. How could I possibly identify him?” This is all part of the setup. Much like many of us, this man was a recipient of the work of God but had not seen God. He knew he must be some sort of divine prophet or messenger of God because of what he was able to do for him. But he had never seen him. Faith was operating without sight. ## Counterfeited? So there’s all this questioning…how, how ,how? And the onlookers say, if you can’t give us an answer we understand then the only possibility is that this is a case of mistaken identity. It must be a trick. He’s got a double. He’s got a twin. They just can’t figure it out. It’s just too amazing and there’s too much of a commotion to not investigate it. So they haul the guy into the courts of the authorities. Now as we read the gospels it’s almost as if Jesus is purposely choosing the Sabbath as his favorite day to perform miracles. There are 7 miracles in the gospels that we are explicitly told were performed on the sabbath. And every time it just infuriates the religious establishment and this is no exception. The frowning eyebrows create crevices so deep you could pinch the head of a Q-tip off.These guys are obviously not happy. Let me ask you, “What kind of person does not rejoice when a blind man is healed?” Answer: a jerk. They love their rules more than the rule giver. So they haul him in and the religious leaders say, “We know this is not possible. This is an outrageous claim. What do you say happened?” And the personal testimony of this man just kind of sits there. And I love that. It just stands on its own. What do you do with that? He finishes his story and there is this long pregnant pause. Mmmm. That’s not what we were hoping for. But what can you say? The thing about a testimony is you can’t deny it. If I say to my neighbor, “Man, I really love Jesus Christ. He has totally and completely changed my life.” He can’t then say, “No he hasn’t.” “Yes, He has. It’s my story.” And so he’s saying, guys this happened to me. I’m telling you. He’s simply establishing the facts. Now the testimony must have been powerful and convincing because there is instantly a division between them. Some are convinced by it and others are not. Now listen to the reasoning, it is sound both directions. Sinners can’t perform miracles. He sinned. Therefore he couldn’t have performed the miracle. It must be counterfeit. Others try to reason in the opposite direction. No, I agree, miracles can’t be performed by sinners. The miracle is obvious. He must not be a sinner. The logic is good either way. Either you refute the claim that he’s a sinner or you refute the claim that there has been a miracle. One thing is certain and they all agree: Both can’t be true. It’s like saying dead people don’t drink water. That guy’s dead so no matter what it looks like, he can’t be drinking water. Dead people don’t drink water. That guy’s drinking water. He must not be dead. So, since they can’t agree, they turn to him. What do you say about him? Now what they mean by asking him this question is this, “Do you think he’s a sinner or not?” But all this guy cares about is testifying to what happened to him. He says, “He’s a prophet.” In other words, the miracle is real which means he must be from God. I know that. That answer is not acceptable. We very quickly come to realize this is not a neutral investigation. This is not an attempt to discover the truth. It’s an attempt to erase the truth. The Pharisees are looking around, “Anybody have a flashy pen where we can all put on our sunglasses and erase people’s memory?” There’s an outcome that must be achieved. We must find an alternate explanation for what we are witnessing. We must show that the miracle is fake. Because if the miracle is not fake there is only one conclusion: this man Jesus is not asinner. He really did heal this man. Which means He really is of God. He really is the light of the world. And everything he claimed is true. This non-neutral posture is exactly how many people today approach Jesus Christ. Not to conduct an honest investigation of his claims. No, they can’t let it be true because they love darkness because their deeds are evil. That’s exactly what’s going on here. So they are determined to prove that this is a case of mistaken identity. So first, they call in JUST the parents privately. The problem the Jews are bumping up against (and it’s only getting worse) is that the evidence is getting stronger and stronger. There’s just no getting around it. The miracle is of a quality that it is absolutely irrefutable. It’s non-counterfeitable. Here’s what’s meant by that. It’s difficult to counterfeit a dollar bill. But it’s doable. People do it. People get away with it. They trick people with the counterfeit. Miracles can be of that sort of quality. I could claim to have a really bad back. I lean over and hobble and then my cousin who claims to be Messiah could come over and say, “Be healed of your bad back.” And I could stand up and yell and dance and scream. And depending on how good of an actor I was, it could be pretty convincing. But it lacks the one necessary component of being truly non-counterfeitable. What is it? You can’t confirm that the ailment really existed. The actual infirmity was invisible to the onlookers. But not so here. There’s no way this miracle can be faked. This man had been blind his entire life. The fact that he was blind was irrefutable. Thousands and thousands could testify. The fact that he could see was irrefutable. All you have to do is run a simple eye test. So the only remaining option is mistaken identity. It must be a trick. The parents are in on it. Somehow the seeing twin got swapped in. It’s a hail mary but it’s their only option. So they begin to apply pressure. They begin to intimidate and bully and introduce threats. We are told that nobody was allowed to confess Jesus as Messiah. If they did, they would be put out of the synagogue, literally un-synagoged. Aposynogogais. In Jewish culture, everything revolved around the synagogue, so to be put out would be to lose your career, your social standing, your opportunity to interact with your friends. It’s a big deal.And his parents seem to be terror stricken by this and step back. He’s been bar mitzvahed. He’s of age. Ask him. He can legally answer for himself as an adult. So they call him in again. Give glory to God. You know what they are almost certainly referencing here? The sin of Achan. Remember Achan in the OT. Joshua and the nation of Israel march in and conquer Jericho with the Lord’s help. But they were told in this first city to not touch any of the spoil. It was all put under the ban. But one man did not obey. Achan stole that wedge of silver and hid it in his tent. And because of that sin, God caused Israel to be defeated in their next battle. And when the sin was discovered what did Moses say to Achan? “Give glory to God and give praise to him and tell me what you have done.” In other words, you have lied. Your lie has caused great trouble in Israel. God’s name has been defamed because of your self-serving schemes. So give glory to God and let the people of Israel know that it was not because God was weak that we were defeated. It was because you sinned. So the Pharisees are pulling out this card. We know you are lying. We know this man is a sinner. Give glory to God and don’t continue this stunt. Let’s be done with this. Give glory to God and agree that this man is a sinner and that you are lying. His answer is awesome. If I had to guess, I’d say he was a Jack-Jew. I think he was totally disillusioned with this all because his entire life he’s been told that the reason he’s been born blind is because of some sin he knows nothing about. The people with gold rings sit up front and he’s always in the back. He’s been unfairly judged. He’s been poorly treated. And I think in his heart he’s like, “I want nothing to do with that.” Maybe like some of you, you’ve had a bad church experience and you say to yourself, “I want nothing to do with that church, that place.” But then he met Jesus and it changed his life. He said, listen man, I could care less about your spiritual mumbo-jumbo. You guys go bury yourself in all your rules for all I care. You’re ridiculous. Is this guy a sinner? Why is that even a question? Why are you not listening to the obvious thing here? I don’t know all that stuff. Here’s what I do know: I can see. That, I know for sure. I don’t know all your rules and laws and mandates. But I know this, FOR SURE. Once I was blind. NOW, I see. Listen, this is our testimony. If you are a follower of Jesus Christ, this is your testimony. Listen, I don’t know a lot of things, but this I know. I was blind. Now I see. This is the verse John Newton used to write amazing grace. Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me. I once was lost but now I’m found was blind but now I see.Now for this blind beggar, his eyes opened up in two ways. Of course, he sees physically. But he also begins to see spiritually. I had no reason to live, no purpose, no value, no worth and then I met Jesus Christ. And I don’t even know a thing about this guy, but whoever he is, I’m going to follow him the rest of my life. That’s spiritual sight. So this is the fourth time he’s been asked the “how” question. I don’t know how much time you’ve spent talking to people who live on the streets, but as a rule they have nothing to hide. They are typically willing to call a spade a spade. They will answer any question you ask. They are typically jaded, cynical, and have no issue standing up to the pomp of authority. And so this just totally rings true to life. This formerly blind man can see right through them. He knows fear, jealousy and insecurity is driving this whole thing. He just roasts them. His words are just dripping with sarcasm. He’s like, “Wait. I can’t quite understand why this is confusing to you. See my eyes? They work. They used to not work. And now they work. How? Jesus. You keep asking, how. Oh. Oh, now I get it. I see, you aren’t confused, you are just really interested. The reason you are asking SO MANY “how” questions about Jesus is you want to find out HOW to become his follower, like me. You’re jealous of me. I get it. There is just steam out the ears. Just sweating with rage. As badly as they want to, they can’t deny the miracle. So they just affirm what they know: 1. We know we are disciples of Moses. 3. We know that God has spoken to Moses. 4. We don’t know where this guy comes from. Now listen to his response. The blind man opens up the theology 101 book they wrote. Bro, you told me from birth that I was blind because of sin. You told me it was either my sin or the sin of my parents that caused this blindness. That’s what you told me. You wrote the book. Here’s a guy who cures blindness. Here’s a guy that undoes the effects of sin, and you are telling me, he’s a sinner? AMAZING. You are telling me that you don’t know the origin of a guy who restores sight and heals blindness? Astounding. You guys are as dense as a post. No, a brick. No, a black hole. Seriously, what is wrong with you? Curing blindness is a miracle reserved for Messiah. Isn’t that what you told me? Isaiah 35 right? Jesus just pulled off the miracle of causing the blind to see from Is. 35 and you still don’t know where this guy is from? Huh. Curious.. It almost feels to me like you are the ones who are blind. They church disciplined him that Sunday and made an example of him. They posted formal declarations of disfellowship. They kicked him out. Now this is my favorite part of the story. Jesus got wind of this conversation. He finds the man and approaches him, but remember, the man who was formerly blind doesn’t know what he looks like. He couldn’t pick Jesus out of a crowd. His faith was ready. God moved. God worked. God healed. He had experienced the power of God and all he needed was the God of that power to reveal himself. How was this man healed? Answer: Jesus. The man born blind didn’t see Jesus. Jesus sees the man born blind. The man born blind didn’t take the initiative with Jesus - how could he? Jesus takes the initiative with the man born blind. The man born blind doesn’t reach out and touch Jesus. Jesus reaches out and touches his infirmity. The Bible says very clearly, that it’s God who seeks us, not us who seek him. Romans 3 says, “There is none who seek God. All have turned away.” Well, that initiating power does finally reveal himself and the blind man falls on the ground and worships. He’s just bowing. And the fundamental movement of his heart at this point is total surrender. Jesus I know nothing about you, but whatever you say, I will do. I know you are good. I know you are powerful. Whatever you say. This is the story of every one of you in the room who knows Jesus Christ. He has been working. He has been initiating. He has been softening and restoring and awakening and healing. And all of the sudden you discover the God whose power you have experienced and you fall on your face and worship. Jesus doesn’t say, “Get off the ground. Stop worshiping me.” Instead he says, “That’s exactly right.” The same sun that melts the wax hardens the clay. Unless God opens your eyes, you will see no light. You will have no interest in him. Whatever vision you do have will be blinded by the light.If light is too bright for you it pains you. You begin to despise it. It gives you a headache. You want it to go away.Now the text closes with this incredible zinger. It’s the explanatory sentence that locks it all together. Apparently, some Pharisees overheard Jesus talking to this man. And they have caught on to the implications. They aren’t stupid. They understand now that he’s trying to make a spiritual point:Now I imagine this to be just utter sarcasm. I imagine this to almost be a showdown of wills. I imagine them to be just daring him. Do you have the guts to say that the spiritual leaders of Israel are blind? I dare you. And the response is both kind and truthful.It is the confident assurance that you are right, the pride of being certain, that you can see that in the end is what lead to ultimate blindness. Notice that it doesn’t say, “If you were blind, then you would see.” But since you say, “We see,” you are blind. Jesus pounds it home. The most blind person in the world is the person who believes they have no guilt. If you say, “I’m a pretty good person,” you are as blind as a bat and your guilt remains.ConclusionJoni Erickson Tada, who was wheelchair bound most of her adult life, said very simply, very profoundly, “Maybe the truly handicapped people are the ones that don’t need God as much.” The man who was born in total darkness lives forever in the light. Why? The men born with the light will live forever in total darkness. Why?It all has to do with how you answer this simple question, “Do you see?” The blind man who has been healed answers “Yes, I see.” The Pharisees answer, “Yes, I see.” One does not have the light. One has the light. What’s the difference? The difference is this. The Pharisee says, “I was born seeing! Of course I see.” But the man born blind says, “Once I was blind, but now I see.”If you want to become a child of God then you need to admit your need. You need to admit the darkness of your sin, your complete inability, and you need to come to the end of yourself and cast yourself at the foot of the cross and say, “Lord I believe.”Slideshow for this message is available

IntroductionThe longer we live, the more we realize how unfixable certain problems are and how broken this world really is. Infertility can’t be fixed by empathy, compassion, and kind words. All the counseling in the world can’t erase the effects of your parents divorce, a terminal illness, or an unplanned pregnancy. The miracle of medicine can’t fix your child born with down syndrome, spina bifida, cystic fibrosis, muscular dystrophe, or a host of other problems.All of this falls under the category of suffering. And when we suffer deeply, we all ask the same question. Why? Why do I suffer? Whose fault is this? Or is there even fault to assign? Is this just random, senseless, suffering? Why am I suffering? In our text, God answers this question in a way that is disturbing, unexpected but ultimately extremely helpful.SetupNo sentence is wasted in John’s gospel. Last week we finished chapter 8 where we have this repeated reference to Jesus as the light of the world. Chapter 9 expands this theme. What happens when the divine light cuts through the darkness and shines? Here’s what we discover. Some who have never seen, turn toward the light and are made to see. Others, who think they see, turn away, blinded by the light. What we see is two opposite responses to the light. The passage begins with inquiring about the problem of blindness.The disciples are walking along and observing a man born blind. Try to empathize. This man has never seen his parents’ faces. He’s never seen a flower. Never seen a sunset or sunrise.That detail helps us imagine the scenario. For as long as they could remember, going to the temple, was synonymous with passing the man born blind. Beggars always beg in high traffic areas. In Boise here, where the connector dumps into downtown Boise, almost without fail there’s a guy asking for help right where the traffic backs up. The temple was one of these high traffic pinch point.And so they see this guy that they’ve seen ten thousand times and they just ask a question which to my ears anyway seems very insensitive. The guy is blind not deaf.Now in our 21st century mind, we know there’s a biological answer to this question. Why is he born blind? Science can take a crack at this. Childhood blindness can be caused by a variety of things, genetic mutations, having the measels at an early age, premature birth, infections, injuries, or vitamin A malnutritions.If we took this guy to a clinic today, whatever the cause, we could certainly diagnose the biological cause of blindness. But the disciples are interested not in biology but in theology. There is a theological assumption built into the question. Questions are not neutral, are they? Questions contain biases, presuppositions, assumptions. What is the assumption built into the premise of this question? Here it is: sin causes suffering.Now is that a true premise? Yes. Sin does cause suffering. We know that when sin entered into the world, suffering entered with it. The sin of Adam caused the suffering of Adam. The pre-fallen world did not contain suffering. Heaven will not contain suffering. Suffering is only found in a world filled with sin. So it is correct to say that sin causes suffering. That is a correct premise built into their question.But there is an incorrect premise in their question as well. They think they can link specific ailments to specific sins. They are subconsciously operating out of the framework of Christian Karma. Good people get good treatment. Bad people get bad treatment.So this man must be suffering because of sin. This was the conclusion of Job’s friends. “Job, bad things are happening to you, therefore you must be bad.” Now it’s surprising how irrational we can be. In case you haven’t noticed, there are a lot of heinously wicked people who are quite healthy. They ignore this and instead reason, “If suffering is a result of sin, then whose sin was it? Was it the parents who sinned or was it this man who sinned?” Who sinned?If it was the parents who sinned, well, then they are being punished by having to suffer all the disappointments associated with disability. And those who have children with special needs understand this. Parents of disabled children have to deal with incredible loss. It’s very likely that my child will never leave the home. It’s very likely that my child will never get married which means we will never have grandchildren. The normal work required to raise a child is quadrupled when you have a special needs child. And you have to deal with helping the child deal with all these feelings and emotions associated with not being like every other child.All the normal hopes and dreams of parents have to be adjusted. This is not the way it was supposed to be? Why? Why? Why? And so the disciples reason, “Maybe God is punishing these parents because of sin in their life.” That’s one possibility.But then again, it could be the child. It’s not like life is easy for a disabled child. And those who are disabled can identify with this. They have to watch all their friends do things they can’t. They have to create an identity in which disability is a part of who they are without it defining them. That’s pretty hard to do. They have to live and be happy for other people’s ability and freedom while being content with their limitations.So maybe it’s God punishing this child for something he did, even in the womb? Who knows? What the disciples are doing is what every human has been doing since the beginning of time. Why is there such a thing as suffering? Why is the world broken? It’s the problem of evil. Do you realize there are only five answers.The Five RoutesWhen suffering enters our life there are five possible ways to explain it and each of these explanations have an associated emotional response. And we will race through five explanations of suffering.We are all familiar with this category. When an alcoholic looses his family, looses his liver, maybe looses his leg in an accident, he suffers. Who caused the suffering? He did. Now he beats himself up. I was such an idiot. What did I do that for? I was told a thousand times. How does he feel? Guilty.When a husband sins with his eyes and he experiences the consequence of that in his relationship with his wife. Now there is suffering. He sees her tears. He feels the regret. Who causes that suffering? And what is the emotional response? Guilt? Are my educational deficiencies because I didn’t try hard enough? How can I get back those years? I can’t. Guilt. Is my child’s rebellion because of my bad parenting, my neglect, my anger, my selfishness? How can I get those years back? I can’t. Guilt.What is the cause of my suffering? How do I explain it? If you believe your suffering is self-caused you will experience guilt and you’ll never be able to rid yourself of it. That’s one route and associated response. But there’s a second possible explanation for suffering.Who sinned? Was it that this man sinned or was it his parents who sinned? You see it wasn’t this man’s fault, it was his parents fault. He’s a victim of another person’s sin.One of my friends in high school was sitting watching TV in his family room and a drunk driver came crashing through his window and pinned his leg to the wall and cut off his leg. Now he suffered for the rest of his life because of someone else’s sin. That’s the definition of victim. You did absolutely nothing and you are the one who has to pay for another’s sins. When you are a victim of other people’s sin, how do you feel? Anger.It certainly can be the case that other people are the cause agents in our suffering. Maybe your parents sinned against you and neglected you in some way or took advantage of you or ignored your needs. And you suffer because of that. And you are angry. Maybe your spouse has ignored you. Maybe your children have totally overlooked all the ways in which you’ve sacrificed for them and taken on an entitled attitude. Maybe your boss routinely takes advantage of you. It makes you angry.This can take place on a national/cultural level as well. You want to know why the world is full of hate right now? Because there is a fundamental underlying belief that other people, other races, other political parties are the reason for the suffering I am experiencing. I am a victim of other people’s sin.What is the cause of my suffering? How do I explain it? If you believe your suffering is caused by others you will experience anger and you will never be able to rid yourself of hate. That’s a second route, but there’s a third option.Perhaps there is a spiritual cause to the physical things. Now the Scriptures inform us that at times, this is in fact the case. For example, we are told in the gospels during the last supper that at one point during the feast Jesus turns to Peter and Jesus informs him, “Satan demanded to sift you like wheat.” Now I want you to think how you would feel if Jesus turned to you and said these words. Put your name in the blank.That what? That you will be protected from his schemes? That his attempts will be thwarted? That his fiery darts would be extinguished? Nope.That’s pretty much the worst news ever. I have prayed that your faith many not fail. You will fail. You will suffer. You will turn away. He will dominate. You will be crushed, suffer, weep, and mourn. But your faith won’t ultimately fail.Satan has asked to sift you like wheat and I granted him permission. Lord, why would you do that? What is the cause of that suffering? Satan.Or consider Job. Job comes to God and says, “The only reason Job loves you is because he doesn’t suffer. You’ve put a hedge around him. Does Job love you for nothing?” And God says, “Stretch out your hand and cause him to suffer.”How would I feel if I overheard God say, “Satan, stretch out your hand and cause Jason to suffer?” Fear. To know that Satan himself is working to destroy my joy and cause me to suffer. Yikes.How would you like to be a modern day Job? Your house burns to the ground and your children are inside. Your business is incinerated in a lawsuit and you file bankruptcy. You get some sort of invasive lung cancer. You can’t stop coughing. And your spouse turns to you and says, “Curse God and die you loser.”To know that this was the hand of devil. Where will he stop? What is next? Why is he tormenting me? Fear.This is why tribal cultures, cultures that are highly superstitious are constantly filled with fear. Because the playing ground isn’t even. Satan lurks around with perfect vision ready to spring a trap on unsuspecting victims.What is the cause of my suffering? How do I explain it? If you believe your suffering is caused by the powers of darkness you will experience fear and you will never be able to rid yourself of that fear. That’s a third route. But there’s a fourth.So maybe you say to yourself, “The kind of suffering I’m experiencing is certainly real, significant and even severe, but it wasn’t anyone’s fault. I mean random events happen with tragic results. Every year people die of avalanches, tsunamis, hurricanes, tornadoes. Who’s to blame? Genetic mutations are just a thing. Who’s to blame? Cancer happens. Freak accidents happen. Who’s to blame?”I read an article in the the Guardian by a Jewish Rabbi named Jonathan Romain that begins like this, “Let’s be very clear: there is no divine purpose in suffering whatsoever.” He then goes on to say that it’s warped theology to equate suffering and purpose.On the one hand this sounds like a great solution to the problem of evil. This is called openness theology where we don’t write into our doctrinal statements that God is in control of all things. There are some things he is not in control of. So there’s a bit of an openness to the outcome since he’s not in absolute control of all things. How does that make you feel? On the one hand that feels like we’ve liberated God from the accusation that he’s somehow responsible for evil. But there’s a nasty, nasty side effect where the cure is worse than the disease: if Jesus isn’t in control of outcomes, how can I really trust the promises of God? If God is not in control of all things, how can he promise anything?Now of course, if you were an atheist, it would not be possible to assign a purpose to tragedy. If God does not exist, there can be no meaning or purpose - by definition. Purpose is always a function of design and a designer. If there is not a designer, there can be no purpose. So tragedy is just nonsense. Terrible deforming accidents are no different than success and flourishing.If you take away a cause for suffering, you know what emotion surfaces? Futility. Vanity, vanity, all is vanity. What’s the point if there is no such thing as a point? If my son dies in a car accident or gets married, what’s the point? There is not point. Futility. Vanity. Pointlessness. If you believe your suffering isn’t caused by anyone you will experience despair, you will never be able to rid yourself of Despair.So there you can come up with explanations of suffering but all of them lead to really bad places. If I’m the cause of my suffering I will be perpetually guilty. If others are the cause of my suffering I will be perpetually angry. If Satan is the cause of my suffering I will be perpetually fearful. If nobody is the cause of my suffering I will be perpetually despairing.How would you like to live the rest of your life? Guilty, angry, fearful, or despairing.The Better WayThere’s a better way. The disciples in this passage see a man born blind. They immediately identify the suffering, the injustice, the hardship, the misery, the broken order, the affliction, the gloom, the sadness, the sadness, the grief, the anguish, the hopelessness, the sorrow.Jesus why is this so? What’s the theological answer to suffering? Why do we suffer? Jesus, was it this man who sinned or his parents who sinned that this man was born blind? How do I explain it?Now we are getting into deep territory here. We are entering into profound mystery here and I won’t pretend to be able to solve theological equations reserved for deity.But we should state plainly what Jesus states plainly. Why was this man born blind. What is the clear answer? What is the purpose of this man’s blindness?The purpose of this man’s blindness, according to the text, is that the WORKS of GOD might be displayed in him. Wow.What do we mean here? How can this be? We know that God is perfect. In God there is no darkness. God is not the author of sin or suffering. True. So our language has to be so careful.For a moment, let’s just stay in the exact territory of the text. What this text is clearly saying is that there is a cause beyond the cause. There is a divine purpose that transcends, controls, and rules the causes we can detect. Yes, we can identify secondary causes, but there is a primary cause.If we knew this blind man, we would very likely be able to point to causes for his blindness. Let’s just imagine for a moment based on what we can ascertain. This man was clearly poor since he was begging and he likely came from a very poor family, since his family wasn’t taking care of him. Maybe this man’s blindness came from a vitamin A deficiency. But, why didn’t this man get his vitamins? Maybe he was a minority or grew up in social class that had no opportunity for education. Now we have a social cause. Because he was in a bad social class, he was unable to get work. And without work there is no money. And without money there is no food. Now we have an economic cause. And when you are at the bottom of the heap are treated unjustly, when people look at you in your condition and conclude that God is punishing you with blindness because of sin, your self-image is destroyed and you become angry and a not very likeable person. You want to know what the most common cause of congenital blindness was in the first century? Venereal diseases. When the mother had gonorrhea she would pass this on to the child and they would be born blind. Whose fault is that?Who knows what this man’s story is? But his story, whatever it is, is like our stories.And it’s like our stories in this way: our suffering has identifiable causes. All of these categories are real. I cause suffering for myself daily. Other people in this world cause suffering for me daily. And while not as clear, Satan himself causes suffering. There are ‘natural’ disasters that cause tremendous suffering. Yes, but.But what? But there is a cause above the cause. When we look at physical disability, we can go, oh, that’s a chromosome problem. That’s a genetic mutation problem. Yes, but there’s a cause above the cause. Remember Moses? Moses can’t speak very well. He probably had a speech impediment. Maybe he had cleft pallet. And what did God say to Moses when he pointed to his deformed mouth?Do you hear that? How can you argue that God is not sovereign over these details?FCBC, let me assure you, there is a cause above the cause. Your suffering is so that the works of God might be displayed in you. Believe this. Believe it.This is a cause for hope. A lot of people choke on what Jesus says here. They just can’t take it. They gag on this doctrine. How could a good God allow a man to suffer in blindness his entire life? I want nothing to do with that. But listen, if your suffering becomes the stage upon which the brilliant work of God in you is played out, is that not worth it? Do you suppose that this man, after he was healed was bitter at Jesus? Do you think he was angry, “Why didn’t you heal me sooner?” This man’s years of suffering give him eternal categories of joy permanently inaccessible to the average person. Great suffering means great opportunity for the works of God to be displayed in you.What Work of God?Now what works? That’s the question. What work of God will he display in your suffering? We don’t know. We have to be okay with that.We end today not knowing what Jesus’ purposes are for this man. Perhaps this man will remain blind for the rest of his life and glorify God in that suffering. This was Joni Erickson Tada’s story. Glorify God in my disability. The works of God were displayed in her.This was also Paul’s story. Paul had a thorn in the flesh. We don’t know what the thorn was but it represented suffering. Have you ever had a deep thorn that you just couldn’t get out? And every day it remained lodged into your flesh, the more it irritated you. It just festers and it’s so hard to do a single thing without it reminding you that it’s there. He suffered.As he suffered he begged the Lord three times for him to remove it. And three times God said to Paul, “My grace is sufficient for you. My power is made perfect in weakness.” How can that be that this is a good thing? What possible purpose might God have in my suffering that he doesn’t take away?Well the first thing to say is that you don’t know the end of the story. He may still choose to take it away. This man might have prayed every day of his life for the last 30 years for God to heal him. That’s a lot of unanswered prayer. I’m guessing his prayers for healing fell pretty flat. But then in an unexpected moment of hopelessness and disappointment, God healed him.And second, the Works of God can’t be great unless the suffering is great. Hard things are moments when more of him is revealed. What makes this miracle so amazing? It’s that this man has been blind his entire life. It makes the miracle absolutely irrefutable. What if the purpose of your life’s suffering is to make God’s glory irrefutable? Are you okay with that? You better be if your goal in life is to find purpose, joy, and meaning. There cannot be a more joyful, more purposeful or meaningful existence than making God’s glory irrefutable.John 9 is all about light. We are not left in the dark about the meaning of darkness. It’s not meaninglessness. He doesn’t leave us alone to try and find meaning in suffering. Suffering exists in God’s children so that the works of God might be performed in us and through us.CommunionNow as we transition into communion I want to take a moment and reflect that we are not to take communion in an unworthy manner.And speaking of cause and effects, Paul says some of you are sick and some of you have even died BECAUSE of this. Now, if we keep reading in this text we are going to all of the sudden get horribly confused.In this text Paul seems to undo everything we’ve tried to teach today. He is linking physical sickness and even death with taking communion in an unworthy manner. Is he reintroucing Christian Karma. Who sinned that this man is sick? Did he take communion in an an unworthy manner?Here’s the key, key difference. It all has to do with purpose. The disciples believed that the suffering of blindness was God’s way of punishing the sinner. God said, no the suffering is God’s way of glorifying the savior.The suffering associated with taking communion in an unworthy manner is not punishment but discipline. A father disciplines. A slave master punishes. A father says, “That’s dangerous what you are doing. Keep away. Don’t touch that outlet. Don’t run into the street.”Here’s what we are being asked to believe. Do you believe that God is greater than your suffering? You see a Christian has an answer that is emotionally satisfying: A Christian says, “If there is suffering in my life and I caused it, I can take comfort in the fact that even my own sin there is a cause above the cause. That God is working even my own sin out for good. The suffering I am experiencing is not because God is punishing me (even if I caused it) because all my punishment fell into Jesus. All of it. God would never take two payments for one debt. God is not going to punish Jesus for my sin and then punish me. If there is suffering in my life because of others or because of Satan, I can take it because there is a cause above the cause. God is working it out toward his own good. If there is suffering in my life because others caused it, he will redeem that and glorify himself because of it and reward me in it.”And if the suffering doesn’t have a personal cause, it’s just a seemingly random tragedy or mutation or accident, there is a cause above the cause. Believe this!You want to know how to make a mockery of the table this morning and take communion in an unworthy manner? By saying, “Yes Jesus, I know that you suffered severely. I know that you were able to take the greatest suffering in the world, the death of the Son of God and redeem it for the most glorious purposes in the world.” Yes, I know that’s true, but I don’t believe that you are able to take my suffering and redeem it. That’s making a mockery of what we are about to celebrate. Don’t take communion in an unworthy manner my friends.Joni Erickson Tada said,

IntroductionSo we are going through the book of John line by line, paragraph by paragraph. Why do we do that? Because we believe these words of God reveal Jesus to us.John reveals the nature of Jesus. And under this heading of the nature of Jesus, there are many interesting things BUT one main thing.The main thing we learn in the book of John is that Jesus is God, and today we see perhaps the most clear declaration of that anywhere in the Bible.Now before we even move an inch into this text, we need to stop and consider the implications of what we just said. If Jesus is God, you know what we owe him? A blank check. Whatever you want, it’s yours. Are you willing right now to do that? Whatever comes out of this message today, so long as it’s an accurate representation of what the Bible says, we all need to come with the attitude of, okay I will do it.I want to challenge you to do that right now. Do you trust God enough to commit to obey him, without knowing what he will ask of you, simply because he is God? Let’s begin this message right now by giving God a blank check.ReviewLet’s recap from last week. Last week we observed that in the genetic world, your biological parents give you your physical traits. Eye color, when your hair falls out, your height, etc. Last week we learned that the same is true in the spiritual world. We have spiritual parents that give us spiritual traits. Jesus said, based on your traits, "You’ve got one of two fathers. Either your father is the devil or your father is God.If your father is the devil you will hate Jesus. That’s the trait.If your father is God, you will love Jesus. That’s the trait.The Jews hated Jesus. They possessed the trait of Hate.The reason the religious leaders hated Jesus was because he exposed their evil deeds.How did he do this? You’ll remember from last week. He starts by telling them, “You are not free. You are all slaves of sin.”Now I want to point out something that we didn’t really mention previously. Who does Jesus say this to? Throughout chapter 7 and 8 Jesus is milling around as you would at a feast and interacting with various groups of people. It’s not a sustained interaction with one set of people. Right before our text, we are told that Jesus had just finished a message and the main point of the message was this:And then look at what is says in verse 30.There was a group of people who heard Jesus say, you will die in your sins unless you believe in me. And so they said, okay, we believe. Jesus turns to THIS GROUP of PEOPLE (these believers) and says, “You are slaves of sin.”Remarkable! What this should tell you is that there is a way to ‘believe in Jesus’ that is not truly belief. There is a way to agree around the edges and miss the center. There is a way to deceive yourself that because I am religious, I must be a child of God BUT in reality I am a child of the devil.It’s not hard to imagine that to a group of proudly religious folk, this is not flattering. Excuse me? Come again? We are the followers of Abraham! If you’re going to talk about slaves of sin, talk to the drug dealers, child traffickers, politicians, celebrities, corrupt CEO’s, people in Vegas. They’re slaves to money and sex, drugs and power. They’re into all that. Jesus, you have the wrong crowd. We’re good people. We’re moral people. We’re religious people. How in the world can you talk to us about being spiritual slaves?You want to know what his answer is. Jesus says, “The reason I know you are slaves of sin is because you don’t love me.” Now the fact that Jesus can say this to a religious people reveals a frightening truth. The devil loves playing church. The devil’s children are in the church. The devils children can be leading the church. It’s frightening.You see, the spiritual trait God’s looking for is not church attendance, it’s not bible reading. It’s not being moral and having family values. It’s not dressing a certain way. The trait that Jesus is looking for is love for him. That’s the ultimate trait.Now as the text advances, we see this tremendous clash. This collision of opposites. The Jews represent hate. Jesus represents great. We see great and hate collide. Oil and water. Black and white.Now for the purpose of today’s message we are going to paint the contrast as sharply as possible. Last week was sons of the devil - the traits of hate. This week is the son of God - the traits of being great.We’ve got six of them. You can mark it down. A historic moment where we’ve deviated from a three point outline. You can all make t-shirts, “I was present at service with a six point message.”So right after Jesus has accused them of not being able to hear God’s Word because they are children of the devil, they throw the accusation back in his face. You want to talk about devils. You are the one with a devil. You are the one who is insane.Now look at Jesus’ response.Jesus says, “I don’t have a demon.” And then he gives a piece of evidence. If someone accused you of having a demon, what evidence would you submit to deny it? He says, the evidence that I don’t have a demon is that I honor the father. In other words, the one who honors the father is great. In an honor/shame culture, nothing could be worse than not honoring your father.Now what he says next is totally unexpected. Here’s what you are to catch. Jesus is pointing to evidence.He says, “I am of God because I honor God…” and you would expect him to then say,“You are of the devil because you do not honor God.”But instead he says, “You are of the devil because you do not honor me.”Now you have to be able to open your ears to hear the strangeness of this.Here’s an example that might help you hear it: My dad’s birthday is coming up on July 24th. And I say to you, “Hey you really ought to honor my dad. I’m honoring him by giving him a gift. You know, he’s a great guy. You ought to honor him as well. Why don’t you stop by my house and give me that gift as a way to honor him.” That’s the logic Jesus is using.What you need to realize about John 7 and 8 is that Jesus is crescendoing in his clarity about who he is claiming to be.I am the living water.I am the light of the world.He’s taking these highly charged symbols and applying them to himself. But there’s ambiguity.Now he looks them square in the face and says. I am of God because I honor the father. You can evidence being of God if you honor me.Now that crescendo is going to grow. Why is Jesus great? First because he honors the father, second he doesn’t seek his own glory.Every good Jew knows that we are not supposed to be glory hogs. Glory BELONGS to God. Now we all feel the temptation to take it for ourselves but we all know we are NOT supposed to do it. So Jesus points to this as evidence of greatness.I don’t seek my own glory. Now there’s a really well known passage in Philippians 2 called the kenosis passage. Here’s why it’s called that. Kenosis is the Greek word for empty. Paul is speaking to the Philippians and says, “Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit.” That word conceit is actually a compound word in the Greek.It’s the word keno doxia. Keno(sis) means empty and doxia means glory. So he’s saying when you try to seek your own glory, when you are conceited, it’s empty glory. Why? Because it comes from you. That’s what Jesus is saying. I don’t seek empty glory…glory that comes from me proclaiming myself.So what’s the way that Jesus received glory? He says someone else is seeking it for me. In Philippians 2 we see in verses 6 and 7 it says that Christ did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped but emptied himself.There it is again. It’s the word kenosis. Empty.To be exalted, Christ had to condescend. To be elevated he had to be crushed. You want to know the greatest evidence of greatness? It’s emptying yourself of glory. What was Jesus like before he came to earth? How beautiful was he? Not one of us has a clue. Whatever we imagine it to be, it was billions of times better than that. And he emptied himself of all that glory and became a man.That’s the evidence of greatness. Jesus does not seek his own glory. Then he says, “But there is one who does.” Implied. God seeks it. And that’s exactly what we see happen at the end of Philippians. After Jesus was crucified, the ultimate emptying…Okay, that’s the principle. And we see it now in retrospect. But for the people in the story, this hasn’t happened yet. Jesus simply says, “I don’t seek my glory. There is one who seeks my glory (implied God).”The shocking part of Jesus’ words is not that he doesn’t seek his own glory (they all would have agreed with this) but that God is seeking it for him.Consider this analogy: During a wedding, who’s supposed to be the center? The bride. You’d be an absolute moron to stand up in the middle of a wedding march, run into the aisle and take a selfie. People would just gasp at how inappropriate that would be. Why? Because how dare you try to become the center of attention during a wedding. You’re not supposed to seek your own glory. Why? Because in that moment, the bride is to receive all the glory.Jesus says, “I seek the glory of the Father. I would never obstruct people’s view of the Father.” Jesus says, “The one who truly honors the father won’t steal the glory show.” That makes sense. But what does not make sense is what he says next. And you want to know what the father is going to do with the honor I give him? He’s going to honor me with it. Imagine the bride walking down the aisle and stopping midway and turning to her bridesmaid and saying, “The real person we should be honoring here is my bridesmaid.” And she uses that moment to spotlight her friend.That’s what Jesus is saying, “I’m honoring the father, but the Father is seeking to honor me. There is one who seeks my glory.” It’s no wonder they accuse him of madness. Now if that wasn’t enough (again we are crescendoing) look at what comes next.Now I’m not sure you can make a claim of greatness larger than this. I mean, this is so over the top. I mean this is so lofty you get high altitude nose bleeds just thinking about it.Okay, now we are getting serious. I picture some bending down to pick up stones at this point. I picture them fingering those stones with white knuckles.You will never see death? Never taste death? Now we are clearly into the territory of blasphemy. God is the author of life. Only God can raise the dead. This is outright ridiculous. And they just blurt out their retort.I had a friend once that was accustomed to exaggeration and it really bugged me. He was boasting about these tall cliffs he was jumping off. He said, “Man, I just launched off this 250’.” And I said, "Really, so it was taller than the golden gate bridge? ’’ I was decently certain my freshman roommate didn’t just break the world record for highest cliff jumping ever. I just called him out in front of all his friends.This is how the Jews are responding to Jesus. Jesus, stop it. You are being ridiculous now. Nobody can beat death. Not one great person we know that has ever walked the earth has conquered death. We can point to all their graves.We’ve been to the grave of Abraham. He died.His son Isaac. Right by his side.Jacob, Joseph. Piles of bones carried from Egypt.David? Bones.Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel…Pick a prophet. Bones.No matter how great, no matter how honored by God, no matter how holy, godly, favored. Bones.No man has power over death. Are you greater than Abraham and all the prophets and every human being that has ever lived? WHO IN THE WORLD DO YOU THINK YOU ARE?Jesus says, ah, now you are finally asking the right question.Look at his response.This issue on the table is glory. Jesus says, “I’m not seeking glory for myself.” We all know that God alone is due all the glory, all the honor, all the praise.It’s wrong for men to seek their own glory. That part is expected. The part that is totally unexpected and totally horrifying is the next part.My Father glorifies me.We can find all sorts of places in the Bible where it talks about God loving us. God listening to our prayers. God being compassionate toward us. But where can you think of, where it says that God glorifies us? Nowhere.Why? Because God doesn’t share his glory with others. He’s made that point rather clear in Isaiah 42.Now, keep in mind the context. Jesus just claimed to have power over death. And in response to that claim the Jews say… Wha-wha-what did you just say? Who in the world do you think you are?Jesus says, “Well let’s let the one whom you say is God answer. Who am I? God himself says I’m a co-glory sharer with Him.” He’s appealing to an authority they respect.It’s like a guy saying, “I think I’m a pretty good writer.” And his friends say, “No you’re not.”"Oh yeah? You say that C.S. Lewis is the greatest writer of all time. C.S. Lewis himself said that there was no writer greater than me.That’s the idea. You claim that YHWH is your God? You claim that YHWH calls the shots and is Lord of all things? Great. YHWH validates who I am. YHWH shares his glory with me. He glorifies me. I mean you can picture the bulging veins, the red necks, the steam just coming out the ears.Now he takes it a step further.Jesus says, the ultimate trait of being great is knowing God. And that’s what makes you so problematic. You don’t know him.In English we have one word for know. But in many other languages there is more than one so that a distinction can be made between knowing ABOUT someone and truly knowing them.I know about Elon Musk. I do not know him. Jesus says, “you know about God. You do not know God.” What’s the difference? What really makes a relationship such that it moves from knowing about God to knowing God.There’s a closeness of relationship where it’s no longer about facts and ideas or even opinions. It’s about feelings and emotion and longing and connection and love. There’s been times when it’s been my wife’s birthday or our anniversary and someone will say, “What did you get Lisa for her birthday or what did you do for your anniversary?” And I’ll say, “Well, I got her a vacuum and we went tent camping.” And people look at me like I’m the worst husband ever. Why didn’t you buy her flowers and take her downtown to a hotel. And I can say with confidence, “You don’t know my wife. You think that’s what my wife wants? You don’t know my wife.”The Jews say we don’t know a lot but we know two things:“We know that we love God.”“And we also know that we hate you.”Jesus says, “Well, then you don’t know God.”Now I mentioned the crescendo here: Here’s where it’s all heading.You want to know how I know him? You want to know why it’s impossible to say you love God and hate me? Because I am the God you claim to love.Now the way he reveals this is spine-tingling.Everything culminates here: We said all of chapter 7 and 8 is crescendoing. Here’s the climax. Here’s the cymbal crash. There’s been all this talk about spiritual parents and lineage. We are children of Abraham. Blah. Blah. And Jesus cuts through all of it and he says very directly, “Abraham rejoiced to see my day.” Now of course, the claim is so audacious, it is disorienting. It rocks the listener on his heels. What is he really claiming here?What is Jesus claiming when he says this? “Abraham rejoiced to see my day” What day is he referencing? Abraham just like every other warm blooded Jew was looking forward to a Day. Every prophet foretold of it. It’s what the prophets refer to as the Day of the Lord or sometimes just day.What is that day? It’s the day the Lord comes back. It’s a day of both judgment and blessing. And for Abraham, that promised blessing would come through an offspring of his son. So Abraham thinking about this future day of blessing was thinking about his great, great, great…grandchild Messiah.The Jews are just picking their jaws up off the ground. Is he really claiming what I think he is? The answer is yes. Jesus is literally saying, I’m the fulfillment of all of Abraham’s hopes for salvation. Jesus is saying, "I’m what Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and all the prophets looked forward to.“My coming is the ultimate coming.My day is the ultimate day.I bring the promised salvation.I am the promised fulfillment."And the Jews can’t believe it. Is he really saying this? So they ask a clarifying question? Oh really, so you knew Abraham? Did you? Oh, that’s very cute. And I think at this point they would expect him to back down. No of course I didn’t literally know Abraham. Of course I couldn’t have literally known him because I’m only 30 years old. I’m speaking metaphorically. That’s what they would have expected. But instead he says,Before Abraham was I am. Now notice the grammar here is totally incorrect. He doesn’t say - Before Abraham was, I was. That’s what you would expect.The tenses are all wrong. It’s like saying, before my parents got married, I am eating. What are you saying? It’s the most nonsensical answer unless it has another meaning… which of course it does.Now they understand this alternate meaning perfectly because they absolutely erupt in rage and pick up stones to crush in his head. Why? Because they know what he meant. He’s claiming to be God.We talked about this a few weeks ago. Do you remember this slide?When Jesus said earlier, unless you believe that I am he you will die in your sins, the word he is implied. It’s just EGO EIMI. I am.Back in verse 24 it was a little ambiguous. Is he saying, “I am the light of the world. I am Messiah” or was he saying he was the great I am of Isaiah 40-45? But now here, it’s obvious. He clarifies beyond a shadow of a doubt what he meant in verses 24 and 28. When Jesus says Before Abraham was, I AM, their minds immediately race back to Exodus 3, where Moses met God in the burning bush. Moses says, “Who are you? What is your name? Who should I say has sent me?” God says, “I AM THAT I AM.”That was the name of God. The consonants of that phrase I am that I am are consonants YHWH which is where we get the word Yahweh, the name of God all through the Bible. What does it mean?When you say, “I am” and then just stop… Your mind can’t stand that. Your mind just longs for an object. You are what? That’s the point.I just am. I am uncaused. I am the cause of all causes.I’m not just beyond time. I am time.I’m not just beyond space. I am space.Before the universe was, I am. I am self-existent.Unlike the gods of Egypt or Mesopotamia or Asia, I simply am.I have no need. I have no lack. I have no want.And as it relates to you I am EVERYTHING you need.I am the light of the world.I am the bread of life.I am the living waters.I don’t exist. I am existence. I am everything. Jesus, without question, in the most clear and concise and direct possible way is claiming to be YHWH God.To our American mind at first blush it just feels like strange grammar and we shrug our shoulders and move on. But I’m telling you, this is just chilling. It’s either a moment of utter blasphemy deserving the full force of the stones in their fingers or it’s a moment of utter worship. Take your pick.ApplicationNow that’s where the passage ends. I feel like this passage deserves a round of applause. It’s so incredible. But now it’s time for us. The cross hairs move from the Jews to us.If Jesus were here today, I think he would look at us and say, “You claim to believe. You are here at church. Do you?” And to some in this room, he would definitely say, “You claim to love me, but you don’t know me.”Let me explain how I think this could be possible that Jesus could say this very same thing to people coming to this church. You don’t know me.Christian Smith was a sociologist at Notre Dame who did this giant research project to try to pin down what was happening to the teenagers that were coming out of the church 20 years ago.He wrote a book called souls in transitions where he made the claim that a generation was thinking about Jesus in a new way, a way that was different than had been conceived for the past two thousand years. And he put a name to it. He called it moralistic therapeutic deism.moralistic - Christianity gives you values and prevents you from being evil.therapeutic - it helps me with my problemsdeism - God is out there but isn’t personalNo longer is the idea that Christ is my king I will surrender to him and he will be enough regardless of life’s circumstances. That idea is driven out and been replaced instead by a belief system that has Jesus’ name on it…it has the Christian brand but the intent and purpose of your life has to do with therapy…making you feel better.If you are coming here today because you want to fix your marriage or you want your kids to be happy or because you want to be a better manager of your money or you want God to heal your pain and that’s the only reason you are coming, then you don’t know God. You are a moralistic therapeutic deist.You want to know what the main problem was for these people in the passage who ‘believed’ in Jesus? They were using Jesus to get what they wanted. They didn’t love HIM.They loved the fish.They loved the bread.They loved the idea of him overthrowing Rome.They loved him roasting the self-righteous Jews.But they didn’t love him. How is it possible in today’s church to be a Christian who believes but really doesn’t believe? By thinking God is really just a means to an end rather than the end itself.What Jesus is demanding in this passage is total surrender. He’s demanding that he be LORD of all. That means Lord of your time. Your money. Your relationships. Everything. What do you love more than him? Give it up. God will not share his glory with another. He won’t tolerate idols.Maybe for you it’s money, house, cars, property, hobbies, sports, things…Maybe it’s your family, career, power, image,Remember that blank check? God wants that thing that you love too much. He wants it. We started this message by asking, “Without knowing, would you be willing to submit to whatever the implications of this message are?” Well here it is. God wants you to love him and nothing else.

IntroductionLet’s begin this morning with an egg.What can you tell me about this egg by looking at its shell? You can tell me its size: medium. You can tell me its color: white. But there are all kinds of invisible things just beneath that shell that are super significant and really, really matter.For example, it could be a freshly laid egg, ready to eat.It could be a six month old rotten egg filled with salmonella.It could be hard boiled. You can’t tell.Now I’m going to claim that this is actually a fertilized egg. And because it is fertilized, this egg will grow into a chicken. What this egg will become is determined but not yet known.The present exterior gives you no clue about the inside. But the inside is what determines the future exterior. And there are lots of possibilities of what this future exterior could look like.Even though none of us can tell by looking at the shell, this egg will turn into one and only one of these very specific chickens. 100 times out of 100 this egg will turn into that exact same, very specific chicken. Why? Because the parents of that chicken gave that chicken a DNA sequence that positively, undoubtedly, inevitably, inescapably, assuredly results in one and only one variety. The second that egg is fertilized, its destiny is determined.What is the only thing required for that future destiny to be known? Time. Time simply reveals what is inside.Now all of you came in this morning with a shell. I look at all of you right now and you know what I see, I see a bunch of beautiful shells. I can tell your size and your color and that’s about it. Our eyes can’t penetrate the exterior to know what is going on inside. But there is something inside. And just like the chicken, that something will come out in time. Your external behavior is determined by what is inside.Now in today’s passage, Jesus is going to make a point about the spiritual DNA that exists inside our hearts. Jesus makes this point: not only is it true that physical traits are handed down from parents to children, it’s spiritually true as well. We have spiritual genetics at work in our hearts. By virtue of the fact that we are children of Adam, we have sin woven into that spiritual double helix. There are certain guaranteed behaviors that will surface. There are absolute outcomes.And Jesus has one point he wants to make in this passage: you need new DNA.You might think that what you need is new behavior (a little less jealousy, hatred and lust. A little more patience).You might think you need new circumstances. If I was just out of this stressful situation…You might think the problem is the person you are married to or the kids you’ve been given.Jesus says none of that will change anything. You’re doing exactly what you are programmed to do. What you really need is far more radical than that. What you really need is new DNA from a new father. You want to change? Well, you need to be BORN AGAIN.Jesus is actually going to explain how that spiritual transformation happens. Now let’s connect it to last week.ReviewLast week Jesus said that freedom is a result of abiding in Jesus. Why? Because when we abide, we know the truth. What truth? The truth that Jesus loves us and when we know the truth that Jesus loves us, THAT truth will set us free from slavery and bondage of performance based righteousness.What we discovered last week was that God wants for you to relate with him not as a slave to a master but as a son to a father. But the Jews he is talking to refuse to go there. They insist, “We already have a father.” We don’t need to follow you. We are followers of Abraham. Our spiritual father is Abraham.And so Jesus says, you want to talk spiritual genetics? Let’s do that. I don’t think your father is who you think he is. A person can’t be a descendant simply by claiming it. You have to have proof. There has to be a likeness. You have to possess the TRAITS. If you do not possess the traits of the person you claim is your father, then he is not your father.Now it’s pretty humorous on one level what is going on here. Jesus says, I know you are claiming to be spiritual descendants of Abraham. But claiming it does not make it the case. Let’s just settle this and run a spiritual DNA test. Let’s look for the spiritual traits. After all:The behaviors and values of the father must be passed on to the sons.The conduct, actions, and lifestyle of the father must be passed on to the sons.The things that the father loves and desires must be present in the son.So who is your father? Now biologically speaking, the options are in the billions, but spiritually speaking, there are only two options. You are part of one of two families. You either are the son of the devil or the son of God. So Jesus says, let’s compare the traits of God vs the traits of the devil.God is kind, the devil is cruel.God is full of love and the devil is full of hate.God is open-hearted, slow to anger and abounding in loving kindness. The devil is closed-hearted, quick to anger and abounding in bitterness and retribution.Now let’s see here? Who do you resemble most? You want to kill me. You want to take a rock and crush in my head. Just sayin…Jesus says, I’m not buying it. There’s a bit of a smokin gun here. The evidence is pretty convincing. The proof is in the pudding. Which, by the way, I discovered this week where that phrase comes from. The phrase is very old. It actually started out, the proof is in the eating. Which makes a lot more sense. It means that you have to taste the food in order to know whether it is good or not.Centuries ago in England, pudding referred to something different than we understand it today. Pudding was a kind of sausage, filling the intestines of some animal with minced meat and other things - something you probably want to try out carefully since that kind of food could be rather treacherous.So to put Jesus’ words in terms of that phrase, you claim to be this delicious sausage. On the outside you look great. But the proof is in the pudding. What’s inside that sausage? Inside you are dead men’s bones. You are filled with giardia and salmonella. Your very nature kills, your very constitution kills people. Your problem is your essence.Jesus is making the very strong point that there are only two possible families. Your actions come from your insides and your insides come from the devil.Race and CultureNow, I want to interrupt this sermon for a very special mid-message application. This is a very, very significant point in our cultural moment as a nation.Our country is horribly confused and divided over racial issues right now. There is all sorts of hatred, shame, guilt, embarrassment and misunderstanding. Who is your father? What genes did you inherit? What race are you? Currently there is tremendous debate and discussion right now over how racism is experienced.Now there are two basic ways in which racial differences have expressed themselves in societies. One is through dominance. My race is better than your race. So because we are superior, there will be one of three outcomes:The dominant race will either oppress the less dominant races (slavery)The dominant race will marginalize the less dominant (class structure)The dominant race will destroy the less dominant (genocide)So racial differences are worked out through brute strength. So the solution in this model is dominance.The second way it’s worked out in societies is through multiculturalism. Multiculturalism says all cultures are equally valid and therefore no one culture has the right to extend dominance over any other culture. Now the most recent expression of this is critical race theory which suggests that the most important thing about a person is their race. And at the heart of all power struggles in the world, if you boil it down to it’s fundamental elements, you will find that race is really what it’s all about. So in this model, the solution is to destroy the power structures of whatever race is currently dominant.What Jesus is doing here is completely different. It’s actually quite radical because it ignores both of these approaches. Jesus isn’t going to approve CRT and say that all cultures are equally valid nor does he say some cultures are superior. Instead he says there is a fundamental standard deeper than all cultures, a supreme standard that actually judges all cultures.Why is this so helpful and significant? Because what it does is it puts race in its proper place. Yes, it’s real. Yes it matters. But what matters infinitely more is your spiritual race. Your relationship to Jesus Christ.It makes what seems supremely important, superficial by comparison. Do people make judgments about one another based on the shell? Yes, of course they do.But these differences on the outside make almost no difference when compared to the difference on the inside. All other differences are superficial by comparison - you could almost say insignificant by comparison. The ultimate difference between people, the greatest difference, the difference that truly divides is a theological one.How we relate to God is so significant, so fundamental to who we are as a human race, that the stuff on the inside will eventually grow and become too large for that shell and it will crack that shell and the shell will fall away and all that will remain is the life that was growing beneath.This is why I can go across the world and have deep, deep fellowship with my brothers and sisters in India or Mexico and even though we have totally different cultures, even though we look completely different, we have a connection that binds us together like family. The gospel makes the shell fall away.It’s also why I can find someone who looks like me, has grown up in the same town, has all the same hobbies, likes the same music but he’s not a follower of Jesus Christ; I feel like I’m connecting with a stranger. The shell is not what I’m ultimately interested in.It’s why Christians are allowed to marry interracially but not allowed to marry unbelievers. It’s not about the shell.Because this is the ultimate dividing line, the only dividing line that truly matters. Who is your father?Listen to this quote from A.W. Tozer,Our mental conception of God has more impact on the way we live, the way we relate to one another, the way we treat one another than any other thing about us. It is the great unifier and the great divider of all people. Who is Jesus Christ?If you believe Jesus is God, the 2nd person of the trinity, and you follow him as Lord, you abide in his love, you receive his forgiveness, then you are given new DNA and you become an heir of the kingdom of heaven and exhibit the traits of a child of God.If you don’t believe Jesus is God, and you deny that he is Lord, then you are left with your current DNA which means you’re a member of the kingdom of darkness and you will exhibit the traits of darkness.Again, according to the Bible, there are only two options. This is why Jesus’ message is so devise, so upsetting. You are either a follower of a real person named Jesus Christ or a follower of a real person named the devil. You are either a child of God or a child of the devil. Educated people just want to gag over this. Why are these the only two options? Child of the devil? Come on.Listen, if Jesus was a real person then so is Satan because Jesus speaks of Satan as a real person with a personality and an agenda. He refers to him as the god of this world. The devil is said to have followers.So what will it be? You see the very fact that offense is the reaction is evidence of it’s truthfulness. The very fact that people so violently, instinctively oppose it, is evidence that there is something that they insist must not be true.Many of us have the same reaction the Jews have. That’s my reaction. What do you mean I am a child of the devil. That’s absurd. I’m a good person. That’s absurd. How can you say that? The reaction is always the same. It’s hate.So we are going to see 3 traits of hate.When we don’t like someone, when we take offense at something said against us, without a moment’s thought, we attack the character. We launch a smear campaign. And the idea is that if we can attack the credibility of the person, then their words will lose power. The more respected a person is, the more serious it is when they point out flaws and folly in us. But if they are disrespected then their words have little impact.And this is exactly what happens. When Jesus suggests that they are children of the devil, they begin a smear campaign.Almost certainly this is a reference to the rather strange circumstances surrounding Jesus’ birth. In other words, the Jews say to Jesus, Oh, you want to talk about pedigree. You want to talk about genealogies and lineage.You’ve got some considerable nerve to talk about paternity: at least we are not born of fornication (wink, wink). At least we aren’t born of sexual immorality. Jesus, who are you to talk? You are an illegitimate child. There’s a word for that.You’ve got some considerable cheek to bring this up, my friend. I believe we’ve got the high ground here.Jesus isn’t phased by their attack. He redirects the conversation. He says, no, I’m not talking about a physical father. I’m talking about spiritual.You are slaves of sin. And because you are slaves of sin, that is evidence that your father is the devil.That was not how they viewed themselves. That was not their conception of reality.He says, the reason you must deny my words, is because my words are too painful for you. The truth is too difficult for you to swallow. You have too much pride. Your entire identity is built upon what I am challenging. And so you can’t let this be true. You must deny it.You cannot bear to hear my word. The implications are too severe.Remember last week we talked about the difference between the slave and the son. What happens when a slave drops the vase? Be sure your sin will find you out. He must hide, he must deny, he must shift the blame. Why? Because his status in the house is conditional upon performance.The Jews Jesus is addressing are slaves to their performance. They cannot handle the accusation that they are sinners. Everything they’ve built their lives upon tells them they are not sinners. They believe their righteousness, their acceptance in the house was a function of their performance. And so their only option is denial. They ‘cannot bear to hear Jesus’ word.’Contrast that with the security of being loved as a son. You drop the vase. But because you are a son it allows you to confess, to hear the truth without being threatened by it or destroyed by it. It provides the space and security to ACTUALLY listen, to ACTUALLY appreciate the feedback, to ACTUALLY grow and change because you are able to hear it.Think of the people in your life you respect. They have this trait.They have nothing to proveThey ask for nothing in returnThey never need to force their opinions on you.But most of all they are honest with their failures. When their mistakes are pointed out they both laugh at it but deeply receive it. They are genuinely thankful when their failures are revealed because it creates opportunity for growth.Contrast that with people who, when failure is revealed they feel the need to attack.What you’ll find is someone with lots of insecuritySomeone who is carrying a lot of anger or jealousyYou’ll find someone who feels the need to force their opinions on others for approval or validation.Jesus says, you are attacking me because you are angry, jealous and insecure. You can’t bear to hear my words. I want to help you and I am able to help you but you have to be born again. You need new DNA. You need a new father.The truth by itself is powerful. And so if you don’t like, it has to be covered up in some way. Attacking character is one way. Denying it is another. Here’s a third way.When we speak lies, we present information as if it were truth. And the reason we lie is to change people’s evaluation of us. The truth as presented makes us look really bad. The lie counters the judgment of the truth. If what we presented was true, then the attacker’s judgments would be incorrect and we’d be exonerated. But of course the huge problem is, it’s not true. It’s a lie.And Jesus points this out.Jesus says, the very nature of God is truth and the very nature of the devil is lies. God speaks truth because it comes out of the very character of who he is. The devil speaks lies because he is speaking out of his very character.Jesus is trying to get them to self evaluate. The person who lies convinces himself that what he is saying is true. He has to sell it to himself first so that he can be convincing when he sells it to others. If he doesn’t believe it, it will be obvious.And after selling it to yourself long enough this transformation happens.At first you,re confronted by your conscience that it’s a lie,You know it’s a lie. You seer that conscience for a while, you can get periods of rest from that thought.Then you remember it’s a lie,Then you have to force yourself to recall that it’s a lie andYou forget that it’s a lie,Then you believe that it’s the truth.You know the biggest lie that we tell ourselves. I’m a pretty good person. That’s the biggest lie we tell ourselves. All of us do this comparison game, “We look around and we say, at least I’m not like that. At least I’m not Hitler or Pol Pot.” People who falsely believe that the criteria for entrance into heaven is goodness, 99 times out of a hundred say to themselves, Phew, well I guess that means I’m in. I’m a pretty good person.Jesus says to the Jews and he says to all of us, “No you are not. You are a slave to sin. You are a child of the devil.”That truth is too terrible for many of us. We can’t handle the truth.ConclusionYou want to know what the Bible calls the sum total of these traits of hate: spiritual blindness. Someone who is a slave of sin, who recoils at the suggestion that there are problems within that need addressing, someone who denies the truth, who is willing to speak lies, a person in this state is unable to see reality. They are truly blind.This last week, I had an interaction with one of my sons (I’ve got four of them so his name will be mysteriously anonymous). There was a certain way that he was putting dishes into the sink that both Lisa and I had repeatedly asked him not to do. And he did it again and it kind of triggered me. So I sat down next to him on the step and started confronting him on it. And he claimed that he never remembered us telling him to do that. And so of course we go back and forth a few times. Yes, I did. No, you didn’t. Yes I did. No, you didn’t. Super productive conversation.And then he said, “Dad, I remember everything you tell me.” And then I said, “Of course it feels like you remember everything we tell you. But isn’t that the very nature of the problem? You won’t be aware of the things you’ve forgotten.” And we both kind of smiled at each other.It’s kind of a silly discussion to say, “Can’t you remember this thing you have completely forgotten?”That’s the type of problem Jesus is addressing. Can’t you see this thing your eyes won’t let you see?Jesus says, “you are under the power of sin. You are being controlled by sin. You are a slave of sin.” You’re so deeply in it’s clutches you can’t see it. But you aren’t aware of it. Spiritual blindness won’t let you see that.You are enslaved because you can’t confess. There’s been a lot of study on the psychology of enslavement in the last 20 years. People can be enslaved to all sorts of things. We can be enslaved to social media, to pornography, to alcohol, to another person’s opinion us, to our jobs.How is that thing enslaving? Where does its power come from? A massive part of that power over a person is their denial that they’re under it. A big part of being out of control is denying you’re out of control. So the first step to being back in control is to admit you’re not under control.In spiritual terms, the admission, the confession is I am not righteous. I am out of control in my sin.We feel in control when we believe that our performance is the reason we have value.We feel in control when we believe that the things we are doing contribute to our righteousness. That keeps us enslaved to sin.It’s hard for most of us to admit that everything we’ve built our life upon is filthy rags.If we cannot admit; we cannot see. So what’s the solution? We need spiritual sight. Spiritual sight = admission. When a person can’t admit, all they are left with is character assassination, denial and lies. When a person can admit, they confess. But how do we get it?I’m partially color blind but that’s all I’ve ever known. I don’t feel like I’m missing out at all. My world rocks. My wife tells me otherwise.In my case, my colorblindness is a genetic problem. To fix the problem, I’d need to be born again with new genetics.And that’s exactly Jesus’ point here. Your inability to hear truth is because your soul isn’t tuned to the proper spectrum. There’s a wavelength of the heart that is inaccessible.The problem is so radical, so pervasive, so fundamental, so intrinsic to the essence of who we are that we actually need to be born again. We need a new nature. And how do we get that?Do you remember back with Nicodemus? Do you remember the egg?Nicodemus asked Jesus, “How can I be born again? How do I get new DNA so I can be born of God?” The answer is belief. BELIEF IS WHAT GIVES YOU NEW DNA. For God so loved the world that he gave his only son, that whoever believes in him will not perish but have everlasting life.The only way you can actually admit you are a sinner is to realize that all your sin has already been paid for and that you are loved. That’s the gospel. That’s what God is asking you to believe.Let me quote Tozer again.If you believe that God is a slavemaster who will accept you only if you perform, you will never be able to admit that you’re a sinner. Do you see how this mental conception of who God is can set the whole entire course of your life? Is God a slavemaster?No. God wants to relate to you as a father does to a son. Do you believe that Jesus loves you? Do you believe that he knows all your sin? Do you believe that he sent his son to die for that sin?If you believe that truth IT SETS YOU FREE. Free to what? Free to admit failure. Free to admit weakness.If this is your mental conception of God, then it sets the whole entire course of your life in a different direction.Because you are a son, you can admit it. You won’t be cast away. Yes, my condition is very bad. Yes, I was a child of the devil and a slave of sin.But can you believe that in that ugly condition, Jesus did not cast me away?What is the TRUTH? The truth is that Jesus loved me and died in my place. Do you see the gospel?When you believe, that is when the new DNA is given.The new DNA is given when you receive a righteousness that is not your own. When that righteousness is IMPLANTED in your heart.That’s when spiritual sight is given.That implanted RIGHTEOUSNESS will change everything about you.

IntroductionLast week we celebrated Memorial Day. Thank you to the many who have served our country to provide us freedom. In less than a month we get to celebrate the 4th of July which is America’s Independence Day. This holiday is set aside to remember when we as a nation declared our independence from England and established self-rule. Now that’s a good thing, right? If anything is truly American it’s freedom.The answer isn’t as obvious as we might hope because the message of the Bible is the opposite. The birthday of America is INDEPENDENCE Day. That’s the day we achieved freedom by GAINING self-rule. The birthday of a Christian is your DEPENDENCE day. That’s the day we achieved freedom by RELINQUISHING self-rule.The message of the Bible is that a person achieves absolute freedom when they give up self-rule and become a servant of Jesus Christ.As we read this passage we see freedom isn’t as simple as we think. In fact there are many points where the freedom the Bible offers takes the exact opposite route of our intuition.So what is freedom? Here’s what we are going to discover. Here’s Jesus’ definition“The only way you’re going to find my freedom is if you abide in my Word.” Why do I have to do that? Because abiding in my word gives you the truth. And why do I need truth? Because the truth sets you free.That’s the claim; it’s one sentence. It’s going to take us 30 minutes to unpack that and a lifetime to discover it.ReviewFor two chapters now, Jesus is teaching and performing miracles at the feast of booths. And during this feast he’s inserted himself at some pretty key points to conscript symbols and imagery from the feast for his purposes. And in so doing, he makes some pretty audacious claims. If you’ve been here you’ll recall both of these examples:The Jews had this water pouring ceremony that remembered God’s provision of water. And he said, “I am the living water.” In 1 Cor 10, Paul says, “For they drank from the spiritual Rock that followed them, and the Rock was Christ.” Jesus said, I was that rock. That’s a large claim. The Jews had this torch-lighting ceremony that remembered God’s provision of Light. And Jesus cries out, “I am the light of the world.” Jesus says, “I was that light.”Now remember, the feast remembers God’s provision during their period of wilderness wandering but it also remembers them being set free from Egypt. For 400 years they had been in bondage, and the wilderness represented freedom from their oppressors. So it had elements of our 4th of July.In the text that was just read, Jesus plays off this liberation theme. Jesus looks at these religious leaders and says, “Hey guys I know we are here to remember our deliverance from Egypt. I know we are here to remember the freedom God gave us through Moses. But let me tell you something - and he looks them square in the eyes -”You’re not free." It’s quite confrontational.What is this ultimate freedom that Jesus is offering? Let’s break it down.Here’s what freedom is not. Freedom is not the removal of rules and restrictions. I think that’s our instinctive definition. That’s not what Jesus is offering. At all.Restraints and constraints are always part of the equation. If we feel imprisoned and want freedom, we need to ask the question, Freedom from what? And freedom to what? Because there will always be constraints. You say, I want COMPLETE and ABSOLUTE removal of all constraints in my life. Really, you want freedom from gravity? You want to just float for the rest of your life.We are all slaves to gravity which turns out to be a really helpful thing. Slavery to gravity makes running possible, driving cars, playing sports. We welcome that but it also means that if we fall, it hurts. Complete freedom from any force of any kind means that you would be in empty space all by yourself. That’s a terrifying thought. Oh well, I didn’t mean that.So what did you mean? What is it that we want freedom from? When we start thinking about this more critically, we start realizing that it’s not so simple.When you get married you suddenly are not as free. Your time is not your own, your money is not your own and there are times when even your toothbrush is not your own. And then you add kids in the mix and you have to share all those things with even more people.And there can be this feeling of being trapped. Oh, I just want the freedom I used to have. But let’s just say you never got married. Are you free? Now you lack freedom in a different way. Great, you got all your money and time back. But now you’re lacking relational purpose, no intimate love, no safety, security and joy of committed family relationships.We realize that we are always constrained by something and that constraint in one direction creates freedom in another. For every freedom there’s an equal and opposite constraint. I saw a social media post that said something to the effect: Marriage is hard; divorce is hard - choose your hard. Obesity is hard; being fit is hard - choose your hard. Being in debt is hard; being financially frugal is hard - choose your hard.Freedom in one direction creates constraint in another. I want freedom! Freedom from what? And freedom to what? Here’s why we are spending time on this point.We want to expose a myth. Here’s the myth at its core: True freedom is being your own master. Wrong. Here’s what Jesus is saying, true freedom is having the right master. We are all slaves to something. We all have masters. So the question is: do you have a good master?That brings us to our second point:Since it’s impossible to not be mastered by something, who’s your master and is he a good master or a bad master?Let’s see this in the text itself. The Jews hear this talk of freedom, “You will know the truth and the truth will set you free…” and here’s their response:In other words the Jews turn to Jesus after he offers them freedom and say, “Jesus, you are talking to the wrong group of people. In order to be freed from slavery, you have to be a slave. We aren’t slaves.”Now the way they argue that they are in fact free is a little strange to our ears: It definitely seems a little odd.Jesus says, “Guys, I have good news. The truth will set you free.” They respond, “Thanks but no thanks. We are children of Abraham; therefore, we are free.”What do they mean? There are three ways we could understand their reply and the reference to freedom.Political FreedomIf they are thinking in political terms, then their response is all the more perplexing. It would be absurd to say that Israel had never been politically enslaved. There was scarcely a superpower they had not served: Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, Greece, Persia and Rome.So for the Jews to respond, we’ve never been enslaved politically is a bit odd, but not impossible. Many of the Jewish rebel leaders would talk in these terms and preach messages of freedom.For example, Judas the Galilean would say things like this: sure Rome claims to be in charge here, but we do not recognize her claim. God gave Abraham this land and we are children of Abraham. God is the one who assigns property. We are free agents under God. For Judas the Galilean, capitulation to defeat was itself slavery. I am free until I admit defeat.We’ve never been enslaved, but we’ve never recognized foreign rule. So that’s a possible angle.Personal FreedomIt’s also possible they are thinking in personal terms. I have never personally been a slave and therefore I don’t rescue. If this is how they are hearing Jesus’ words, then they are reacting out of insult. They were being lumped into a class of people that in their mind wasn’t worthy of much respect.For example, let’s say you are particularly proud of your credit score, and someone knocks on your door and says, “Hey, if you follow my 5 step plan, I can restore your credit.” You’d say, I’ve never had bad credit. What are you talking about? I don’t need your program.That may be how they heard Jesus’ words. What do you mean slave? I’ve never been a slave.SpiritualIt is much more probable that the Jews understand Jesus to be talking about spiritual, inward freedom. The implications are if you follow me and my word you will be spiritually free (implied that you are in bondage due to the fact that you are following the wrong person).In that day, you didn’t choose your school, you chose your teacher (which, by the way, is an infinitely better system). And so Jesus is saying you’re enrolled in the wrong school. You are following the wrong teacher. Your school of thought leads to slavery. This is simply appalling. They can’t believe their ears.They say, how can I possibly be following the wrong person? I am a follower of Abraham. If that’s not enough, I’m the offspring of Abraham. We are sons of the kingdom. There’s no person more free on the face of the earth than a son of Abraham.However you like it, political, personal, spiritual, it’s obvious that when they hear the suggestion that they are slaves, their response has this ugly challenging tone to it. Who are you? “How can you say that we shall be set free?”Whatever ambiguity existed in Jesus’ words a moment ago instantly vaporizes when he speaks next.He says, “Listen, your problem is that your soul is in bondage. Let me make this perfectly clear. You are a slave of sin.”The Slave PrincipleJesus reveals a principle here and for lack of a better term, we will just call it: The Slave Principle. The Slave Principle EXPLAINS how a person goes from freedom to slavery.Here’s the slave principle: You become a slave of something when you practice that something.Jesus very simply says, “You are a slave of sin because you PRACTICE sin.” I love this concept so much because it reveals the source code of the human heart. It reveals what makes us tick at the most fundamental level. Jesus in a sentence here deconstructs the motive engine of all human behavior.Here’s why this is the case. Because when you PRACTICE something long enough it becomes your IDENTITY. And then when something becomes your identity it becomes your master. And when something becomes your master, you become its slave.So let’s work this out in real world things outside of religious language. Everyone who practices basketball eventually becomes a slave to it. Consider a guy like LaBrone James. He started out his life totally free. He could do whatever he wanted. Then he began practicing basketball to the point where it became his identity. Who is Lebrone James? He’s a basketball player. Do you know one other thing about him? And now because his identity is built on it, it becomes his master. And because it is his master, he is now its slave. He can never leave it. Why, because without it he is nothing, so he will continue to serve it. Whatever it asks of him, he will do. There’s nothing he won’t do. Or, let’s take it into the realm of business. Everyone who practices business becomes a slave to it. If you work on building your company eventually you get really good at it and you’re known for your company. It’s your identity. Without it you are nothing and so you become a slave to it. You listen to its every demand. You obey its slightest whim.Do you see now how this principle of the slave works? Your PRACTICE defines your Identity. Your identity becomes your master. The master makes you a slave.This by the way, is why we are always slaves. Because you are always practicing something.So, here’s the next logical question. If you want to stop being a slave to sin, what should you do?Reversing IntuitionHere’s the really significant question because it’s at this exact point that our intuitions are entirely backwards. And this instinctive incorrect answer is what drives every single religion in the world other than Christianity.What is your instinctive answer to this question: If everyone who practices sin is a slave of sin, how do you stop being a slave?Our instinctive answer is obvious: stop practicing sinning. That makes sense. If that’s the formula for slavery well then we just apply the formula in a new direction. Start practicing good works. We need to change masters.You want to know why this isn’t the right answer? Apply the logic. If you practice good works, what happens, you become a slave to good works. And that is life sucking in a totally different way. You know people like this don’t you. Their entire identity is wrapped up in their performance. “I have to be good because I’m known for being good. I’m nothing if I’m not good. I deliver pies to people when they hurt. I open doors for people. My FB or instagram profile is pristine. I look really good on the outside. In fact, I must be good because it’s my identity. It’s my master.” They are totally slaves.So what’s the answer? How do I stop being a slave of sin? Here’s his answer, become a son.Let’s see this in the text itself.Here’s his line of reasoning. As a slave your master is only concerned for you in so much as you serve him. If at any point, you stop being beneficial to him, you will be cut off from the house. And so how secure are you and how free are you if your freedom and security are conditioned upon your usefulness to the master? You are forever a slave. You can never be free from his displeasure. You can never be free of the worry that perhaps your usefulness will dwindle and you will be cast out from the house.A slave never knows when he is going to be cast out. A slave doesn’t really feel like he’s part of the family or factored into the decisions. There is tremendous power in a family but he’s not connected to that power, but a son knows he belongs.You are always a slave to that thought.The ultimate bondage is the terrible insecurity of knowing that your performance will jeopardize your master’s love. That is the worst form of slavery a person can endure.Now contrast that with a son. He knows that his identity is totally secure. Nothing can undo his status as a son. He knows his father loves him. He knows that an inheritance awaits him no matter what he does. His security and freedom in the home has nothing to do with his performance. The father’s interest in him is unrelated to his performance. He never even has the thought that perhaps, if I stop being useful to my father, he will cast me out. That thought never crosses his mind. Because as a son your position is absolutely secure. You are born useless and still loved. And if you are loved in that state, you will always be loved.Listen folks, this is the core of the Christian gospel. You are loved by Jesus Christ simply because you are his child. As a son or daughter of God, you are forever loved. Period. Full stop.ApplicationSo what then is freedom? Freedom is the ultimate security of knowing that your performance can never jeopardize your father’s love. That’s freedom. He will always love you. ALWAYS.Notice that the definition of freedom is not related to constraints. It’s related to love. True freedom is the experience of love.Consider the difference between a slave and a son. In both cases they have virtually ZERO self-rule. In both cases there are tons of restrictions, confines and constraints. From the vantage point of rules and laws and constraints, there is almost no difference between a slave and my son.My kids are almost slaves. They both mow my grass. They both sweat for me. They both do my dishes. I tell them when to wake up. I tell them when they go to bed. I tell them when to take showers, what to wear, how to comb their hair. There is almost no self-rule. They both must obey my commands or there are consequences.But there is a world of difference in my disposition toward them. This is how the text itself says it, “The slave does not remain in the house forever; the son remains forever.” FOREVER. The son is loved forever. That is true freedom.SummaryNow let me wrap this all up in as tidy of a package as I know how.There is a volitional aspect to this passage. Did you catch it? Jesus says, “I will give you TRUE freedom, if…” There’s a condition that involves you doing something. There’s an appeal to your will. Jesus here is addressing your decision-making faculties. He wants a reaction from you.Which kind of feels a little bit like performance, like conditional love. Yes, it kind of does until you remember what the command is. The command is ABIDE. If you abide in my word, then you will receive the truth and the truth will make you free.You must ABIDE in my word. What does that word abide me? It’s a word that describes where you choose to make your dwelling. It speaks of a house, that place you choose to dwell, the place you retreat to and call home, the place that brings you comfort because that is where you live, the thing that protects you, the roof that you shelter beneath to protect you from the harsh, unforgiving elements of the heavens.Where does God want you to make your home, where does God want you to find safety and shelter? In the finished work of Jesus Christ. So where is your home?You see this is simply a call for you to accept a new home. To accept Jesus Christ as your home, not religion, not your work, not money, not notoriety. Jesus wants to adopt you as a son or daughter into his HOME.Now here’s where it really gets amazing. You want to know why this simple act of ABIDING in Christ, becoming his son or daughter gives you freedom?BECAUSE it inverts the principle of the slave. Remember the principle of the slave.What happens when you become a son? What happens when you become a daughter? That principle is inverted.Let’s say it this way. Does your identity determine your practice or does your practice determine your identity?If your identity is determined by your practice then it’s all up to you to perform in such a way that you are worthy of love. But the problem is, we don’t have the materials or the tools to do it. We will never be able to perform at that level. Now for sure we try…We get out our broken hammers. You go try to find lumber and it’s all twisted and the wrong sizes. You don’t have a saw. You have no money to buy anything. Congratulations, you are free to be a slave of your good works. And so you construct this tiny little rat-hole of a shanty, this pathetic lean-to hut with flapping tyvec and pallets for walls. Who are you? Your activity has determined your identity. You are a child of the slums.Jesus says, stop trying to find your righteousness on your own. Abide in my words. Rest in my mansion. Come and receive an identity as my child. I am the living water. Drink from my fountain. I am the bread of life. Eat from my pantry and be satisfied. I am the light of the world. And now let your identity determine your activity. Who are you? You are a child of the king: unconditionally loved, an heir to all his wealth. Abide in Christ. Abide, rest, receive, shelter beneath, accept, dwell.And now out of that position of total security and love, go and live as my child who I will never leave or forsake. I will always love you. Freedom is the ultimate security of knowing that your performance can never jeopardize your father’s love.Jesus says, abide in me and you will know the truth (what is that truth at the most basic level? God loves you. God is love.) And that TRUTH will set you free. Free from what? Free from the shackles of performance. WOW! What a God we serve. What a God we serve.ACT LIKE A SONThis has a massive, massive impact on how we view our success and failure.Let me illustrate it this way….In the book of Numbers chapter 33 God is talking to the children of Israel and telling them to go in and destroy the inhabitants of the land. To not do this would be a sin. And he warns them to be sure to not sin in this way and he gives them this warning, “…be sure your sin will find you out.” Now that’s a fascinating verse. It doesn’t say, “Be sure the world will find you out.” It doesn’t say that. It may; it may not. That’s not the concern. It doesn’t say, “Be sure others will find you out.” It doesn’t say that. It says, “…your sin will find you out.” Your sins have a life of their own.What is he saying? He’s saying that sin has consequences that are unavoidable. You can’t drop a vase and not have it shatter. Sin will always have consequences. That’s real.Let’s COMPARE.What does a slave do with his sin? He must hide it. He must pretend like it doesn’t exist. He must make excuses for it. He must deny it if it’s brought up. Why? Because if it’s found out he will be rejected.So you can imagine the fear. You’re lying there in bed, and suddenly the terror of it all is replayed before you. You know that sin is going to get out and condemn you. You see how foolish it was. You see how cruel and mean you were. You see how the anger just leaked out in all these damaging ways.And your mind races. How can I justify it? You are in total prison. Because you know it will eventually be found out. So this just taunts you. It teases and picks, pokes, and laughs at you. What are you going to do about it? You can’t do anything because you are a slave and you will be cast out when it’s all discovered. Your only option is to hide, deny. Your conscience becomes your greatest enemy and it gives your sins life.That’s how a slave lives. And that’s how many of you live. In abject fear that your sin will be discovered. Is that how you live your life? Like a slave? Or do you live like a son?A Son knows that his sin displeases his father. And yes, it’s no fun confessing. But you know that freedom exists on the other side of that confession. You know that feeling of reconciliation and the warm arms of acceptance and love and compassion that exist when your father forgives you.You want to know the truth? Jesus says, abide in my words and you will know the truth. What’s the truth? Jesus already knows and he loves you. You are his son. You are his daughter. Just come to him and confess and he is ready to forgive.A son knows he will never be cast out. Never. He is secure. A son has the option of total forgiveness. What is the truth? The truth is you are loved as sons and daughters of Jesus Christ. And that truth will set you free from guilt, despair, and hiding, and you can have rest.The greatest freedom in the world is being loved. Know that truth and let it free you.

IntroductionMy house was built 30 years ago; the original roof was shot. Every windstorm that came along, more and more shingles went missing. That big windstorm this spring really did a number on it. So in my mind, I knew that for sure it needed to happen this spring. I’ve replaced several roofs in my life and so I was planning on doing the work myself. But, let me just tell you, that kind of work is not easy and I was dreading it; I have been psyching myself up all winter to put in a series of grueling 14 hour days and just knock it out. But I was dreading it - like DREADING it.Well, we live next to a park and a roofer who was at the park with his daughter could see the obviously dilapidated condition of the roof. And he said, I think we can get you a claim on that roof. And I said, “There’s no way. The roof is 30 years old. There’s nothing wrong with the roof. The reason it’s failing is because it’s 30 years old.” And he said, “No. I think we can get you a claim.”And so he got on the phone with me with the insurance company and he advocated for me and the adjuster came out and that same day I had a check in my hand for the full amount of my roof. And so this week the roofers came out and this team of guys stripped my roof and finished it in two days.And I was in my house listening to them work and if you’ve experienced this, it is so incredibly loud! My kids were covering their ears and asking when it will stop. My reaction was totally opposite. It was a symphony to my ears. Every nail that went into that decking was a nail I didn’t have to pound. Every drop of sweat that fell onto that roof was a drop of sweat that didn’t come from me. The sun that baked down on them wasn’t baking down on me.I probably said to my wife Lisa 30 times that day, “I am so thankful. I am so, so thankful that someone else is doing that work. Man, I am so thankful.” I just kept saying it all day long.Well, the goal of the message today is to walk away with a similar thankfulness for what Christ did on the cross for us. Because our sin deserves punishment. It deserves judgment. And without Christ, there’s this dread that just hangs out there. We deserve the nails of the cross. Justice demands that we put in the work to atone for our sin. It is our bodies that deserve to sweat and suffer and bleed.And then this undeserved, unexpected spiritual claim is awarded. And we are told that even though there’s no rational explanation for why it should be so, Jesus Christ took the nails for us. It was his sweat and his blood that fell from the cross, not ours.And today is communion Sunday, and I just want the reaction of the soul to be SONG. Just music. We need to understand how truly liberating it is to be absolutely forgiven and to not have to live under the penalty and condemnation of sin. It really does change everything.Now for the text to do it’s work we need to connect it to last week. Last week Benj did an amazing job of giving us the background of this giant torch lighting ceremony that took place as part of the festival of booths.You remember he showed us these four giant torches that were lit. And you might think, well that seems pretty spectacular; it would have been. But it was spectacular for a reason. You remember, the whole point of the feast was to remember their wilderness wanderings. And so these giant pillars were to remember the way that God manifested himself in the desert - a cloud by day and a giant pillar of fire by night. God himself became for them a giant torch to lead them in the pitch black desert darkness.We live in an age of electric lights, but imagine stumbling around in the darkness of Sinai without a sliver of light. You’d be stubbing your toe on rocks and bleeding as you fell into a cactus. You’d get all hurt. You need light. God LITERALLY became for them the light. This was what theologians call a theophany. This is where God takes on a physical manifestation. God manifested himself, embodied himself as LIGHT. That’s what they are remembering.So it was in this remembrance feast context that Jesus makes this giant claim, “I am the light of the world.” So there is clearly a JEWISH backdrop against which Jesus says these words.The Greek ContextBut there is a Greek and Roman context as well. It’s important to remember that the book of John was written from Ephesus and the audience would have been both Jews and Gentiles. And Jesus’ words, “I am the light of the world,” to an educated Roman mind would conjure to mind something very definite. Plato’s Republic was studied by virtually all educated men. And he has this famous analogy of the sun. Here’s how it goes:Plato observed something unique about the senses. He observed for the senses to work all you need is the sense itself and the object being sensed. So for example, in order to experience taste you need the sense of taste and something to taste, like a peach. You only need those two things.That’s true for all the senses except one. The sense of vision is different. A person can have eyes that are capable of seeing (you can possess perfect 20/20 vision), and you can have before you a beautiful boquet of flowers exploding with all sorts of colors but you will never see the color until you have what? Light. You need something specifically made for the purpose of illuminating….light. So vision is unique in that manner.Now Plato uses that observation as an analogy for how we are to arrive at the nature of reality. Here’s what Plato says. He taught that in order to understand the nature of reality we three things. We need to have a working mind; we need to have reality. But we also need this third thing to illuminate our minds and he calls it goodness.Let me give you a visual and read it again:So just as the sun makes objects visible to the eye through the power of sight by providing light so the good makes reality intelligible to the soul through the power of understanding by providing truth.So Plato recognized that this extra thing called “Goodness” that existed objectively outside of self was necessary to understand truth. “The Goodness” was the LIGHT. We need an objective goodness which transcends our being to shine on our minds and orient us.So think now about how the words of Jesus would have been received, in a Greek mind, when Jesus opens his mouth and says “I am the light of the cosmos,” what do they hear? “I am the key and without me, you understand nothing.”In John 8, Jesus isn’t talking to Greeks; he’s talking to Jews. But certainly these Jews know the Greek worldview. The reason I mention it is because whether Jesus intentionally relates it to this worldview or not, the concept is obviously present.Here’s how he begins today: If light is goodness and if light goes away what are you left with? Sin.Jesus as the light is going away. And what are you left with if the light goes away. You are left with darkness. Sin in the Bible is always pictured as darkness. Jesus says if I go away, you will be left in the inky black darkness of your sin. You are left with the painful, bitter, emptiness of you. If the light of the world leaves you then all you have is you. You will die in your sin.Now of course they don’t understand what he is saying.The Jews think he’s talking about suicide. Is he going to kill himself? The fact that they are entertaining this as an interpretation of his words tells you just how bizarre and strange this must have felt. So the Jews are hearing this talk about him going away. He’s claiming to be from above. And then he says, “Unless you believe in me, you will die in your sins.” I mean if you heard these things, you would think the person talking to you was unstable.Now look at response of the Jews after this. And I think you have to imagine the tone here.Now, we will explain in just a moment why they are so stunned and bewildered. There is a very good reason why this mystified tone is justified.Jesus is going to give two answers to their question. And the first answer Jesus gives to this question:Jesus claims to be the LIGHT who comes down from above. He says, “I am from above and you are from below.” Now in our minds that means Jesus is from heaven and they are from hell. But that’s not what he means. If you are in heaven what is below? I am come down from heaven and you below…. you are from earth. We know this is the interpretation because he says you are of this world (meaning below) and I am not from this world (meaning above).And he’s making this point to establish authority. As the one who comes down from above, I am in the position to judge sin. The one from above has the authority to say this is right and this is wrong. In fact this is exactly what he says next.What is he claiming? He’s claiming that since he has come down from heaven, he has authority to judge. When Jesus says he is the LIGHT of the world, there’s an aspect of judgment connected to that claim. LIGHT and judgment are connected concepts.Who are you? Jesus says, “I am the light of the world.” He’s already told them this. Remember back in chapter 3.You see, the problem is the light reveals the sin. He’s a consuming fire. The closer you get to absolute perfection, the more you get burned. You have to hide in the cleft of the rock or you’ll be incinerated. The more you realize just how filthy you are. Proximity to the white-hot holiness of God pulverizes us into dust. It’s the cry of Isaiah, “Woe to me for I am ruined.” And men loved the darkness because their deeds are evil. Light has this unfortunate dual quality. The light results in both guidance and guilt. It shines and shames.All men find themselves in this love hate relationship with the light. Yes it illuminates, it guides, but it is also a massive problem because it reveals. Into those closed, hidden chambers of the heart that we once thought perfectly sealed away, in comes the streaming light and we are horror stricken.And so we find ourselves in desperate need of some of what the light offers and in abject fear of the other part of what the light offers.And we want to parse out the properties of light. We all want the characteristic of light that guides but we don’t want that characteristic of light that reveals. So what do we do? What’s the solution?Jesus claims to be the judge that reveals the problem and the savior who solves the problem. Where do we get this point?This is what Jesus is saying: “It’s so audacious. If you do not believe in me, you will ABSOLUTELY, most CERTAINLY die in your sins.” The assumption, of course, is that the only possibility of escape lies in genuine belief. In this condition of BELIEF, men and women will not die in their sins.Notice he says “you will die” twice; the first time he says you will die in your sin [not plural] and the second time he says you will die in your sins (plural). The singular in verse 21 refers to the one sin of unbelief. And that one sin of unbelief mushrooms into the diverse and ugly forms of corruption that we see infesting the human heart.So unless you believe that Jesus is the light of the world, you will die in your sins. And you may think to yourself, it seems to be that coming to the light of the world, coming to the judge of all the earth, coming before the white hot heat of the presence of absolute holiness, it seems that this will reveal my sin and consume me. How is coming into the light going to fix the problem? I’d rather stay in the darkness.And you know what the answer is. It’s incredible. It’s so shocking. There’s a very specific moment when the answer to this question is revealed.Here’s what Jesus says, “You want to know how it can be that the judge is the justifier? You want to know how it can be that coming into the light can save you? You’ll find the answer when you crucify me.” He says this incredible sentence: “When you lift up the Son of Man then you will know that I am he.” There’s two very noteworthy things about that sentence.First of all, do you remember the title son of man? That’s Jesus’ favorite title for himself. Do you remember where that comes from? It comes from Daniel 7 where Daniel has a vision of a promised messiah/deliverer coming on the clouds of heaven. That messianic figure is identified as the “son of man” and he’s given dominion and glory and a kingdom and people worship him. So Jesus is taking this title to himself. So that’s the first significant thing. When you lift the son of man (this promised messianic deliverer) up you will then know that I am he.That’s the first noteworthy thing about what Jesus says. But here’s the second. Pay attention here. In order to make our second point we need to back up to verse 24. In verse 24, “Jesus says unless you believe that I am he you will die in your sins.”Now the ESV translates it, “I am he.” The word “he” is not in the Greek. (ἐγώ εἰμι) It’s supplied by the translators.And that same thing happens again in verse 28.It says, “You will know that I AM he…” But again, that’s not what the Greek says. The Greek simply says, when you have lifted up the son of man, you will know that I AM (ἐγώ εἰμι).Now the fact the object is not included is very significant. Here’s why.The phrase has a bit of ambiguity to it. The phrase by itself needs context to be understood. It’s the same in English. For example, if you are in a group of people and you ask, “Whose going to the BSU game tonight?” Someone might say, “I am.” ἐγώ εἰμι (egō eimi). That would make perfect sense. Your mind supplies the object automatically. Even though you only said, “I am,” you know that what he meant was, “I am going to the BSU game.” We are lazy and it’s a language shortcut.But if I were to say, “Have you seen the latest Marvel movie? I think when you see it, you’ll agree, I am.” ἐγώ εἰμι (egō eimi). That’s not clear. It leaves you hanging. Finish your sentence. I am what? The object is definitely not clear.Well that’s exactly what’s going on here. Grammatically it’s totally unclear what he’s referring to. When you have lifted up the son of man, you will know that I am.Now to the Jewish ear that’s not just ambiguous, that’s DANGEROUSLY ambiguous. Why? Because ἐγώ εἰμι (egō eimi) without an object does mean something. Without an object, this is the name of God. All through the OT, in Ex 3, Deut 29, but especially in Isaiah 40-45 this is the name of God.In all these examples, the Greek translation of the OT (LXX) has this exact phrase, ἐγώ εἰμι (egō eimi).So when Jesus says to them, “When you have lifted up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am (ego eimi)” what is he saying? It’s a play on words. When you lift up the Son of Man, you will know that I AM he. I am the light of the world. I am the Son of Man. But it also could mean, when you lift up the Son of Man (Jesus) you will know that I am (God). When you lift up the promised Messiah you will realize that the one you have crucified, is in fact, the great I AM. It is God himself who has been lifted up.The light has been lifted up to the height.Do you see how significant that is. Do you see it? The Jewish Light is the Greek goodness. The light is the goodness. The goodness is the light. It’s one in the same. God is the light. The Messiah is God. The Light judges and his goodness saves.The Jew understood that the light was problematic in that it both simultaneously illuminates and exposes. It results in both guidance and guilt. It both shines and shames. The light burns us. It’s heat is too much. We cannot approach it’s white hot holiness. The white hot perfect light of God reveals that all we deserve is judgment.And what the cross revealed was that the judge became the justifier. The one who reveals the sin is also the one who pays for the sin so that he can forgive the sin. The judge became the savior. The one who knew no sin, became sin that we might become the righteousness of God. The great goodness was lifted up and illuminated the minds and hearts of men to see that GOD DIED FOR US.The ImplicationsOkay, there are implications folks. I want to return to my roof analogy that I began with. I know this was my experience but I hope you can enter into it with me. Now, I need you to believe me that I was seriously dreading that roof project. I mean real dread. As in I’d rather walk to New York kind of dread.There was about a two month period of time between when the claim was awarded and the work was complete. The check was signed. The money was in the bank. It was as good as done but the actual work had not been done.Let me ask you, when do you think my relief kicked in? When I got the check or when the roof went on? As soon as I received that check, my dread dissolved. My worries flew out the window. How silly it would have been to continue dreading the roof project when the check insured that I would not have to do the work.Listen, we as Christians live between the check and the new roof. Jesus’ death on the cross secures our heavenly roof. But we live in the leaky, broken down, earthly tabernacles. Like the children of Israel, we live in these temporary booths that are full of holes. But we have an advocate who went to the Father and the claim was paid out.Stop living as if your righteousness depends on you. Stop living in dread that you are going to have to somehow do the work to pay the penalty for your sins. Another took the nails for you. Another sweated great drops of blood in your place. And when you see Jesus on the cross, when you hear those nails, when you see those drops of sweat and blood, know it is for you!The gospel is like sitting in the safety of your house listening to the roar of the roofers and know that the price has been paid so you don’t have to do the work.If that is the case, stop judging one another and stop judging yourself based on performance. In other words stop believing that you have to do the work. Christ has done the work. Christ has paid it all. Your work is to receive his finished work.The reason our world is such a mess right now is because without the light all we are left with is self. Isn’t that what Jesus said, “If I go away, you will be left in darkness and die in your sins.” And yes it’s true, when the light goes away, God is not present to expose the sin, but now it’s up to you to achieve your own righteousness. That’s why the world is in the condition it’s in right now. We live in a world that expects you to be perfect. And if you are not perfect, you are out. And it’s up to you to atone for your sins.Listen, the church is the opposite of that. The gospel is a message that is opposite. We are going to fail, hurt each others feelings, mess up and the righteous will stumble. The world wants to make you pay for that. Atone for your transgression. But Christ has already paid. The check is in the bank. Our sins they are many his mercy is more. Come to the throne room of grace where he is faithful and just to forgive your sins.If you feel tired, broken and weary of sin, then you are in good company. Welcome to a community of beggars who have been redeemed. Welcome to the community of bankrupt sinners who receive and receive sweet mercy from Jesus Christ.CommunionNow we come to communion. Guilt says, “Be gone you wretch. Get out of this place you filthy animal. People like you don’t belong here.”Jesus says, “Come. Come and I will give you rest. I love you. I bore the blame. It is finished. Come.”Guilt says, “If only they knew who you really are, they would have nothing to do with you.”Jesus says, “I know exactly who you are. I see it all. The light of the world has flooded your heart and I see it all. And the good of the world has taken it all on him. He’s washed you white as snow. And I have given you my righteousness. I both know you and love you. Enter into the joy of my master.”Guilt clings tightly to your side. They are not easily shooed away. Guild accuses you of your lack of worth, reminds you of all your sin and its horror, reminds you of how shamed you’d be if everyone knew.Jesus says, “My grace is sufficient for you. My power is made perfect in weakness. Grace is greater than your sin. I see more than you even remember and I forgive it all. Let me receive the nails. Let me sweat. Let me bleed for you. And rest knowing that I paid it all. And because it’s paid it’s removed as far as the East is from the West.”There’s an old hymn that has this epic line,“May the accuser roar of sins that I have done. I know them all and thousands more, Jehovah knoweth none.”

Follow the LightJohn 8:12–20IntroductionC.S. Lewis once said, “I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen: not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else.”I love that quote because what he’s saying is that Christianity not just an abstract truth, it’s also something that brings sense to the world.Maybe C.S. Lewis took this from Ps 36:9, which says, “In your light we see light.”When you turn on the TV, pull up YouTube, or look at a Twitter feed, you’re instantly met with a cacophony of voices. People bloviating about the world, politics, injustices, all kinds of other things, and if you don’t have a reliable reference point, the world can feel like a black oil spill that you’re sloshing around in, with people pulling you in their direction from all sides.I sometimes feel like that, but then I like to just pause and think about how refreshing it is to remember that we have a beacon of light to follow. We have a compass that doesn’t spin around with the whims of society. It points to one person––Jesus. HE is the light of the world, and whoever follows him will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.That’s the verse I’m going to focus on this morning.The OccasionThis is six months before Jesus will be crucified. Booths is in October, Jesus is on the cross at Passover: April.For the previous six months Jesus had been keeping a low profile.After Jesus fed 5000, the people wanted to make him king by force (John 6:15). He gives a big sermon in Capernaum (“Bread of Life Discourse”), but then heads out into more non-Jewish areas to keep a low profile.He goes up to Tyre/Sidon and casts out a demon out of a Syrophoenician woman’s daughter. Mark says Jesus “did not want anyone to know he was there” (Mark 7:24).When he goes to the region of the Decapolis (Greek area), he sees a deaf man and heals him privately, then tells him to tell no one (Mark 7:36).Jesus goes back to Bethsaida but heals a blind man outside the village, then tells him not to enter back into the village (Mark 8:22).Peter confesses Jesus as Messiah as Caesarea-Philippi, but Jesus strictly charged them to tell no one (Mark 8:30).After that Jesus is transfigured and he tells Peter, James and John to tell no one about this until he’s raised from the dead (Mark 9:9).Jesus goes through Galilee and Mark says, “He did not want anyone to know, for he was teaching his disciples” (Mark 9:30).So then Jesus comes to the Feast of Booths and everybody is sort of surprised to see him. Not only does he go to the feast, but he begins teaching in the temple area and the people say, “Is not this the man whom they seek to kill? And here he is, speaking openly and they say nothing to him!” (John 7:26).The spotlight is on him once again, and Jesus goes for it. He doesn’t back down. He walks to the center of the stage and makes some really big claims.So the occasion is the Feast of Booths––of Sukkot.Feast of Booths: John 7:2.They had a water ceremony, which Jason talked about a couple weeks ago. They’d bring water up from the Pool of Siloam near the COD and pour it out in a flask in the Temple area.Another thing to remember is Sukkot is in October. No rain for 6 months prior.“Plan an outdoor wedding anytime between April 15–Sept 30 and you don’t have to pray that it won’t rain at your wedding.” (At least not water, sometimes it rains rockets in the summer––like right now).During Sukkot though, it almost always rains. Pretty much every year it rained right at Sukkot.So in that context Jesus says: “Come to me and drink, and out of your heart will flow rivers of living water” (John 7:38).Like going to the Mall of America at Christmas time. There’s Santa Clauses, trees, decorations, Christmas music, and someone stands up and says, “I am the ultimate gift-giver. Everything you have has been given to you from me. I’m Santa Clause.”Jason talked last week about John 7:53–8:11 is not part of the Scriptures.It’s not in the earliest manuscriptsIt has unique words found nowhere else in JohnIt has a unique styleIt’s not quoted in early patristic writings up to the fourth century ADAnd it appears in 5 different places in manuscript tradition, meaning it was a “floating narrative” not originally part of the book.So with that in mind, the narrative flows from John 7:52 to 8:12. We’re still in the festival of booths and Jesus speaks out in the temple area and says, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”Let’s focus on Jesus’s statement here for a few minutes.Jesus’s Claim: the light of the worldThis is the second “I am…” statement. There are seven in John:I am the bread of life (John 6:35)I am the light of the world (John 8:12)I am the gate (John 10:7)I am the good shepherd (John 10:11)I am the resurrection and the life (John 11:25)I am the way the truth and the life (John 14:6)I am the true vine (John 15:1)These statements explain the character and nature of Jesus.He says it again in 9:5. So chapter 9 seems to me to be connected to chapter 8.Let’s look at the significance of Jesus’s claim to be the light of the world.In the OT, God is the true “light”:Slide. Ps 27:1 “The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? The Lord is the stronghold of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?”Slide. Isa 60:19–22 speaks of a time at the end of the age when the sun is no longer needed because God himself is the light: “The sun shall be no more your light by day, nor for brightness shall the moon give you light; but the Lord will be your everlasting light, and your God will be your glory…the Lord will be your everlasting light.”This is picked up in Rev 21:22–23 “And I saw no temple in the city, for its temple is the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb. And the city has no need of sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and its lamp is the Lamb.”Why is God often depicted as light? Because HE is the true source of illumination.Slide. His word is also a lamp and light unto our path (Ps 119:105), but that’s because it points to the TRUE light––God himself.Slide. Interestingly, in Isaiah the servant––or Messiah––is also depicted as light.Isa 9:2, 6 “The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who dwelt in a land of deep darkness, on them a light has shined…[and what is this light’s name?] Wonderful counselor, mighty God, everlasting father, prince of peace.”Isa 49:6 (servant is a light for the nations)Luke 1:76 Zechariah talks about the light, sunrise, star…that has visited his people from heaven.So the Old Testament says that God is the true light, and his messiah is a light to the nations.When you think about this statement a bit more, you might be tempted to think that Jesus’s claim isn’t all that significant. Slide. In Matt 5:14 Jesus says to his disciples: “You are the light of the world.”So is Jesus saying anything significant here about himself?To answer the question, let's look at Jesus’s statement in light of three contexts: the immediate discussion, the festival in general, and the book as a whole.Context of the DiscussionFirst, notice that Jesus points to himself as the source of light.Listen to Jesus’s words again in John 8:12: “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”Jesus points to himself. We can’t do that. We point people to God.I think if any one of us were to do that, we’d be blaspheming.The Pharisees believed Jesus was making an “over the top” claim.Jesus’s statement strikes a chord with the Pharisees. They say: “You are bearing witness about yourself, your testimony is not true” (John 8:13).“Anybody can say anything they want, but let’s see some proof. Who are your references? We want to fact-check.”In 2002 Stephen Spielberg put out a movie called Catch Me if You Can. The movie is based on the real life story of Frank Abagnale, who posed as a commercial airways pilot, a doctor, and a prosecutor. He made all these great claims about who he was, but when the FBI looked into him, they realized he was a total fraud. He had no references––just a big mouth, a lot of confidence, and a lot of nerve.The Pharisees use Jesus’s own words against him. In John 5:31 Jesus says, “If I alone bear witness about myself, my testimony is not deemed true.”That goes back to OT law, which said you had to have several witnesses to substantiate somebody’s claim (Deut 17:6). Usually that applied to a crime (Deut 19:15), but by NT times it applied to other legal situations.And Jesus doesn’t back down.He says, “Yeah, I can give you a reference. How about…God himself?”John 8:18 “I am the one who bears witness about myself, and the Father who sent me bears witness about me.”What does Jesus mean that God the Father bears witness about him?He probably means that “God the Father has borne witness to me the Messiah through the OT scriptures.”And if we wanted to flesh that out, we’d go look at what the OT has to say about the Messiah.But the discussion doesn’t go in that direction.Instead of asking Jesus what God the Father has to say about him, they ask, “Where is your father?” (8:19).And Jesus says, “You don’t know God the father. If you knew me, you’d know the Father” (8:19).In other words, knowing Jesus means knowing God the Father.In John 14:9 Jesus put it this way, “Whoever has seen me has seen the [otherwise invisible] Father.”Knowing Jesus means knowing God the Father because Jesus is God. So, the Pharisees believed he was making an “over the top claim” in saying he is the light of the world, and in the discussion, Jesus doesn’t back down.But then he even goes further than that.As the narrative continues, Jesus claims to be able to do things that only God can do.Jesus claims to be a co-judge with God (John 8:16)Jesus claims to have come down to earth from God’s presence and therefore is not from this world (John 8:23, 42)Jesus claims to forgive people of sins (John 8:36)Jesus claims that God glorifies him (John 8:54); shouldn’t it be the other way around?Jesus claims to be the “I am” of Isa 44:11, 25––who in that context is God (John 8:58)SummarySo, as the discussion continues, Jesus doesn’t back down. He advances the Jews’ suspicion about who he was claiming to be. He is the source of light, not just a reflection.Context of the FestivalWhen his statement is also heard within the context of the festival they were celebrating, his words take on even more significance.First, let’s look at where Jesus makes this statement. John 8:20 says he made the statement in the treasury of the temple.Part of the Court of the Women where the Mishnah says there were thirteen trumpet shaped containers to collect offerings.This was where he was when he saw the widow put her two mites into one container (Mark 12:41–44).The reason this location is significant is because at the Feast of Booths they also lit four massive lamps in a pretty pompous ceremony.The Mishnah says that during the Sukkot Festival, there were in the court of the women in Jerusalem golden candlesticks with golden bowls on top of them. The younger priests would take oil and light them in a ceremony.The Talmud indicates the candlesticks were 50 cubits high––that’s 75 feet tall; half the full height of the temple. Picture.The Mishnah says that, “There was not a courtyard in Jerusalem that did not reflect the light of the house of water-drawing [reference to the water ceremony]” (Sukkah 5.3).And then they had this ceremony. Let me read a little more from the Mishnah:“Men of piety and good works used to dance before them with burning torches in their hands, singing songs and praises. And countless Levites played on harps, lyres, cymbals and trumpets and instruments of music on the fifteen steps leading down from the Court of the Israelites to the court of the women, corresponding to the Fifteen Songs of Ascents in the Psalms; upon them the Levites used to stand with instruments of music and make melody.”“They went on until they reached the gate that leads out to the east, they turned their faces to the west and said, ‘Our fathers when they were in this place turned with their backs toward the Temple of the Lord and their faces toward the east, and they worshipped the sun toward the east; but as for us, our eyes are turned toward the Lord.”“They used to repeat the words, ‘We are the Lord’s, and our eyes are turned to the Lord.’” (Sukkah 5.4).So the people had this big ceremony at Sukkot in which they faced east where the high places of the past were and remembered the idolatry of the Israelites.  1 Kgs 11:7 “Then Solomon built a high place for Chemosh the abomination of Moab, and for Molech the abomination of the Ammonites, on the mountain east of Jerusalem.”Then they turn around, have this light ceremony, there’s dancing and singing, light is shining all throughout Jerusalem, the Jews say, “Our eyes are turned to the Lord…”And it’s with this background that Jesus stands up and says, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life” (John 8:12).Remember Jesus went up to the festival in the middle of the feast (John 7:14).So it’s probably not right after they lit the lamps, but all this was still fresh in their mind. He says it in the temple area.Now that’s a bold statement in this context. The Jews are saying, “We don’t want to be idolaters anymore, we want to worship God only,” and Jesus waves his hands, points to himself and says, “I am the light…not of the neighborhood, village, city, Jews…but of the WORLD.”He doesn’t say I’ll point you to the true light. Doesn’t say I know who the true light is.He says I am the light of the world.So while the Jews are very careful about who they are pledging allegiance to, Jesus steps up into the temple area under the massive lamps that are burning, and says, “Look to me. I am the light.”Context of the BookJohn starts out his book with Jesus the light, and there, Jesus is God:John 1:3–4 “All things were made through him [the word], and without him was not anything made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men.John 1:9–10 “The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world. He was in the world, and the world was made through him.”So in John, the true light that has come into the world is Jesus––who was with God before the world began, and who created all things.Putting all those contexts together, we see that Jesus is claiming to be the source of light. Just as God is light, Jesus is light. He’s not just a good Galilean rabbi, he is God himself––the true light.ApplicationIt might seem obvious to us Christians that God is the true light or illumination in this world, but this is not the case outside of the Christian worldview.Western society is very much influenced by rationalism:This worldview was heavily developed in the Enlightenment period, where “coming to the light” meant using your reason and rational faculties (rather than emotion or tradition) to truly know about the world, one’s self, and everything else in the cosmos.By thinking logically and using the scientific method, one truly comes “to know.”Rational thinking pulls you out of the darkness and brings you into the light.You can think of a philosopher like Rene Descartes who pushed the idea of rationalism for knowing truth. He wrote several books on how to think clearly and soundly in order to arrive at truth, or “enlightenment.”So according to a rationalistic worldview, your mind––which is logic or correct thinking––is the light of the world that guides you.Our culture today is also very much influenced by emotionalism (today even maybe more than rationalism):David Hume, another philosopher, emphasized feelings, emotions, and sentiments.  He said that moral judgments themselves ultimately rest on ‘some internal sense or feeling which nature has made universal in the whole species.’So reason is second to the role of moral feelings or sentiments.You don’t have to think very hard to see how much this worldview has impacted our society today.I can identify however I feel like identifying––who are you to tell me I’m wrong?If I feel like behaving in a certain way, who are you to tell me I’m wrong?So in an emotionalistic worldview your feelings are the light of the world that guide you. Jesus blows both of those out of the water. His claim is that HE is the guiding light of the world.Many of Jesus’s claims and works defy rationalism.Rationalism doesn’t leave a lot of room for a God-man.Rationalism doesn’t leave a lot of room for a dead man to come back to life.He also destroys emotionalism.Jesus says in Matt 16:24 “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.”I don’t like that. My emotions say, “Put me first, then I’ll be happy!”Living with my girlfriend before I’m married might “feel” like the right thing to do, but that’s not what Jesus advocates.We can ask the question: what is your beacon of light in your life? What is the source of truth in your life?Is it your mental capabilities?Your emotions?Or do you recognize that this God-man, Jesus, is the ultimate source of truth?But Jesus doesn’t stop with an “ontological” statement about himself. He places a demand on people: John 8:12b“Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”Jesus’s Demand: Follow HimExample: Imagine waking up in the middle of the night on a small ship and everybody who was on the ship with you is mysteriously gone. You look around and all you see is water. It just so happens, though, that you have some sailing experience, so you would know how to use a nautical chart if you had one. So you work your way up to the wheelhouse, open up the cabinet, and all the nautical charts for that part of the ocean are actually there. And it also happens to be a perfectly clear night. You can see the north star shining clearly in the sky, so you could line up the charts perfectly to know which direction to sail. Imagine how stupid it would be if you just pulled the shades down in the wheelhouse, threw the maps away, and said, “I’m just doing to do my own thing. I think I’ll sail this way.”The map and the star would do you no good. You have to act on it for it to help you. Your knowledge would be useless if it wasn’t applied.That’s what Jesus demands of us here. Whoever follows me doesn’t walk in darkness. There’s an active part of it.And when Jesus says you’ll have the “light of life,” he means you’ll have the “light that produces life.” In other words if you follow Jesus, you’ll have eternal life.So what’s the question? What does it mean to follow Jesus?It doesn’t mean works get you into heaven. Two chapters earlier Jesus says in the Bread of Life sermon:John 6:29 “This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent”.John 12:46 “I have come into the world as light, so that whoever believes in me may not remain in darkness.”On the other hand, truly believing in him will change your life.Jesus says in John 15:8 that the father is glorified when we bear much fruit and in so doing we prove to be his disciples.So following Jesus means believing, but true belief will alter the course of your life.It’s not just knowing the north star exists, it’s actually following it.I met a guy in Israel a few years ago called Tony Simon. My wife had known him for years, but this was the first time I met him. Well in that first conversation he was telling me about a person he met and how he was evangelizing to him, then later the person said, “Hey, it’s OK, you don’t have to evangelize to me, I’m a Christian.” And Tony said, “What? Well why didn’t you try to share the gospel with me?” And the guy said, “Well do I have to share with everyone?”That story always stuck with me because this was the only time I met him.Tragically killed in Iraq a couple years later smuggling Bibles into Iraq.So the one time I met him he was telling me about Jesus.The only thing, really, that I know about him, is that he was a follower of Jesus.Would people say that about you? Even if they only met you one time? What’s the one thing they would associate with you?For some in this room following Jesus might mean:Breaking up with a boyfriend or girlfriend who is not pointing you to Jesus.Investing a little less in your work, and a little more in the things of heaven.Putting away the alcohol or repenting of a particular sin.Spending more time in prayer.It might mean a major life change, or a small change.TobyMac has a song that says “I want to be rich in love, rolling deep, loaded in friends and family.”I’ll add to that and say, let’s be rich in following Jesus.Let’s be rich in following the one who said, “Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”

IntroductionWe are in John chapter 8 this morning. And today is not your normal sermon and you’ll see why in just a second.Let’s begin in Samuel.When you read through the book of Samuel and Kings you very quickly pick up on a pattern. Here’s the pattern: when the author introduces us to a new king, he uses this formulaic introduction that looks like this:So hopefully you are seeing the idea. This formula is used at least 16 times that I could find. Now, there’s an interesting problem when you get to 1 Samuel 13:1. 1 Samuel 13:1 is another one of these formulas and it’s applied to Saul.But when you read it, you’ll see a problem. I’ll illustrate the problem by showing you three different translations: door 1, door 2, door 3, door 4.Now what’s going on here? The answer is the text is lost. Somewhere along the way, in the process of transmission, these numbers were either intentionally left out, forgetfully left out, or got destroyed so they could not be copied.Here’s the question. How does that make you feel to know there is a fallible human process that is associated with the English Bible you hold in your lap this morning? Does that destroy your confidence? Does that mean that the Bible contains errors? Don’t we teach biblical inerrancy, that the Bible is a book WITHOUT errors?Yes we do, but it’s important to note that this doctrine applies to the original autographa, that’s a term that refers to the original documents, the actual scroll that the inspired writers wrote on, which of course we no longer have. We must acknowledge that errors have been introduced through the copying and transmission process. It’s called textual corruption.Now, the word corruption is a little unfortunate. It brings to mind corruption in politics. If we say the Bible is corrupt, that’s a pretty negative picture. But it’s a technical word that just means there is some change from the original.Imagine transferring a file from your phone to the computer. If the file makes it 99% of the way and just one bit changes then the file has been corrupted even though it still contains 99.999% of the original information. But it’s also the case that if 99.999% of the data is lost and only a fractional portion is preserved, that too is a corrupt file. So the real question is how corrupt is it? It all hinges on the answer to that question.Textual corruption can come in two different flavors. 1 Samuel 13:1 is corrupt in that something was taken away from the original text. But it is also possible to corrupt the text by adding to it.Today we come to John chapter 8:1-11. This is the story of the woman caught in adultery and all the Pharisees want to stone her and Jesus says, ‘he who is without sin cast the first stone.’ He begins writing on the ground and one by one they walk away. And then Jesus turns to the woman and says, “Go and sin no more.”It’s a beloved text. But here’s the problem. This section of the Bible almost certainly was not part of the original text. John chapter 8:1-11 is an example of corruption through addition. This was a story that had circulated around and was likely even true, but was not part of the original text and was added much later. If you’ll notice in most English Bible’s they point this out at varying levels of specificity.In my NAS you’ve got this tiny little footnote.In my Greek NT it sets it apart like this.The ESV does it like this.Maybe this is the first time you’ve heard something like this. And maybe it’s even disturbing to you. So here’s what I want to do today. The goal is to BOTH convince you that this text is not part of the Bible which means we are not going to preach it as Scripture AND to have you walk away with FULL confidence that this book can be absolutely trusted in all it’s parts even though this transmission error exists.The Transmission ProcessSo I’m actually going to start with the second part of that. Knowing that transmission errors like this exist, how can we trust that any of it is reliable at all? It’s a very good question. It’s the same feeling of uncertainty that you get when you discover someone has lied to you. Well, if you just lied right there, what kind of assurance do I have that everything else you’ve told me isn’t a lie. Is this a fluke or a habit?Many liberal scholars will attempt to attack the Bible in this very same way.Bart Ehrman’s who is one of the world’s foremost scholars in this area in best-selling book, “Misquoting Jesus” focuses on this issue as it pertains to the New Testament text:So his point here is simple: There is no need to examine the content of the New Testament if we don’t even have the New Testament. Now it’s difficult to feel competent to address a conclusion like this from a scholar.So here’s the question, “Can we defend the claim that the actual TEXT of the BIBLE is trustworthy?” From a raw textual transmission point of view, how corrupt is the text we possess today?To answer the question of how reliable the text is, we have to develop some minimum criteria for determining if a document is reliable (this criteria is not be specific to the Bible. This could be any historical document). And there really are only about three tests that matter here.Let’s start with that first point. What we mean by this is how long of a gap exists between the original writing (the autographa) - the actual scroll that was originally penned, and the first extant copy (that is, the oldest copy we have discovered that is still in existence today).As you know the Bible is made up of two halves - the OT written in Hebrew and the NT written in Greek and they represent very different processes of formation and transmission.Just think in rough terms about the differences. If you think about the Hebrew OT it records thousands of years of history and was written over roughly a thousand year period of time. So let’s assume Moses wrote the Pentateuch - the first five books. He’s around 1400BC and the last book of the OT was written maybe around 400BCCompare that to the NT. The NT records roughly about 50 years of history and was written in that same amount of time. So they are quite different documents. So it makes sense to discuss the transmission process of these two portions individually.The OT WitnessLet’s start with the OT. When it comes to the OT, by far, the most relevant and interesting discussion is the dead sea scrolls. Here’s why.If you were alive prior to 1947 and someone were to ask you, “What is the oldest complete copy of the OT you possess?” what would your answer be?Well you’d have to answer the Codex Leningrad B19A.Codex is the word for book and B19A is a cataloging identifier. It’s housed in the National Library of Russia in Saint Petersburg. Here’s a picture of the inside of the book. It’s quite beautiful.Now there were other fragments and parts that were older. The other really famous manuscript is the Allepo Codex. It’s mostly complete but isn’t much older. So this is the oldest complete copy of the OT we possess. And when was this written? This was written in 1008AD. That’s a HUGE GAP between when the original author wrote the book and our oldest existing copy!Let’s just draw that gap on the timeline. How many hand copies are represented here? Answer: lots. How much confidence do you have that this book has not changed? It creates a lot of uncertainty. How much does a manuscript change in 1000 years? If a manuscript wears out every 100 years (best case) that means at least 10 copies and probably a lot more than that. There’s just no way to know.Well, in 1947 there was a massive discovery. In fact, it’s hard to argue against the fact that it’s the greatest discovery of the 20th century. It happened by accident. Some Bedouines were throwing rocks and scrambling down into caves by the Dead Sea and found 7 scrolls housed in jars.These are tall jars designed to hold scrolls. Those jars were found in this cave which is now known as Cave 1. This is an extreme desert climate so the conditions were absolutely optimal for preservation.At first they had no idea what they were. They were hanging them on the post of their tent, selling them to antiquities dealers. But then they fell into the right hands and the search was on.The area was scoured and hundreds of more scrolls were discovered. There are were 972 manuscripts found and tens of thousands of fragments. 90 percent of the scrolls were found in cave 4 here.I had to laugh at one book I read. “In the fourth cave the fragments were torn into up to 15,000 pieces. These small fragments created somewhat of a problem for scholars.” If any of you like putting together impossible puzzles without a picture on a box this might be a job for you. The main guy in charge of this died before it was complete. Even to this day the study of these scrolls continues.About 40 percent of the manuscripts are actually copies of OT books. All the OT is represented except for the book of Esther.There’s one scroll in particular that is especially impressive. It’s called the Great Isaiah Scroll. It’s the complete book of Isaiah in almost perfect readable condition.If you are curious you can go to this Digital Dead Sea Scroll website and interact with the text.Here’s the significance for our purposes. We are asking the question, what is the gap between the writing of the original document and the oldest copy we possess today? Prior to 1947 and the discovery of the scrolls it was Codex Leningrad B19A at 1008AD. With the dead sea scrolls we can get to about 100 years BCE. That’s 1100 years earlier. That’s a GIANT leap. And of course the question is how much has the text changed in that 1000 year period? The answer is virtually none. It really is remarkable.Now to be sure, we still have a gap. If Moses wrote Genesis then we are still 1300 years away from the Pentateuch but only 250 years or less away from the last of the prophets. But it does give us tremendous confidence to say if the text didn’t change for 1100 years between dead sea scrolls and the Leningrad codex, it’s reasonable to assume that the text has been faithfully preserved despite the gap. So that’s the gap that exists in the OT. What about the NT?The NT WitnessIn the NT we have a much smaller gap. Let’s start with this quote.Now I don’t love the way that quote is worded and honestly a lot of the NT apologetic material because it is worded to make it sound like we have complete books. We don’t have complete books at these early stages.Here’s a list of some of the earliest manuscripts we have of just the gospels. These are all fragments but very, very early.So we have a very close gap in terms of fragmentary evidence. But what about larger sections and complete manuscripts? Every book of the NT is different in terms of it’s manuscript evidence. It would take a whole class to understand all this, but since we are in John, let’s just take John as an example.We could ask the question, "How many significant manuscripts of the book of John exist that were written before 300 AD. Circle that date 300 AD in your mind. Do we have 1? Do we have 2? The place to go to discover this is actually this website that is known as the K-List. Why is it called K list? Because it’s mercifully shortening this German phrase.(Short List of Greek Manuscripts of the New Testament) It’s funny that they call it a short list since it catalogs every NT Greek text or fragment ever discovered.You can filter by fragment size, date, location it was discovered and every other imaginable tag. So if you filter by date and the book of John you discover that there are 20 significant, existing manuscripts of the Gospel of John written before A.D. 300 and many manuscripts. One of the most famous is P66. Here’s a leaf.This is a nearly complete copy of the book of John and many date this around 200AD. The gospel of John was written maybe around 90AD so this is about 110 years after the fact.Now that’s not bad. But it’s still a bit of a gap. But here’s a really important question: If you were the scribe copying parchment 66 what would you be using as your master copy? You’d find the oldest possible manuscript available to you because that would be closer to the original.So the Scribe of P66 is writing around 200. How old of a manuscript do you think he could find? Let me show you some pretty interesting quotes from some church fathers who lived right around this time. This is from an early church father named Turtullean who lived AD 175.This is even more fascinating since it references the book of John - the book in question. Now keep in mind this is Peter of Alexandria who wrote this in 311AD.Here he is claiming that the original still existed in 311AD. If that is true, it’s possible that the P66 manuscript which predates this quote by 100 years was hand copied from the original.I told you to circle that year 300 in your mind. It would have been possible for any manuscript of John earlier than 300AD to have been copied from the original. We know that the manuscript existed in 311. But it’s not like it exploded right after that. We don’t know how much longer that survived. So it could have lasted another couple hundred years. We don’t know. So it’s possible that manuscripts much later than even 311 were copied from the original.We could strengthen the case further still by pointing out that in many cases there was not just one autographa. We know Paul used an scribe. And since many of his letter were sent out for circulation, almost certainly from day one there would have been multiple copies increasing the chance for the original to be preserved. Here’s the point: what is certainly, certainly not the case is that there were dozens and dozens and copies upon copies and massive errors crept into the copies we possess today.So we’ve discussed these first two criteria for reliabiliy - both the proximity to the original (the gap) and the number of copies.Now let’s jump forward two hundred years. The number of copies we have of biblical texts that have survived really begins to multiply. So if we go the 5th century which would be the 0-500AD, this is what the manuscript evidence looks like. This fragmentary and whole book evidence.Five hundred years sounds pretty far removed. So again, ask yourself the question. If you are copying a manuscript from this era, what is the oldest possible manuscript to copy from? You could probably reach back 200 years. At this point it’s easily conceivable that if someone was really trying to get to the original, this is only the second copy.Now after this point, in history the number of manuscripts just explodes. I think this is a helpful chart.“Many of these are fragmentary, of course, especially the older ones, but the average Greek New Testament manuscript is well over 400 pages long. Altogether, there are more than 2.5 million pages of texts.”So our total number of Greek manuscripts is around 5800 and if you include translations of the Greek manuscripts we are talking north of 23,000.And just to get a visual impression of the total number of manuscripts; it is really overwhelming.“If the average-sized manuscript were two and one half inches thick, all the copies of the works of an average Greek author would stack up four feet high, while the copies of the New Testament would stack up to over a mile high! - Dan Wallace”Again, keep in mind, most of this is later (Medieval). Most of this is fragmentary. Only about 8% of the manuscripts we have are complete.It’s sometimes helpful just to compare this to how well preserved other ancient documents are that have come down to us through the corridors of time. So if you compare the biblical manuscript evidence to some other classical literature you see just how well preserved the Bible is.Just to be clear, these are cherry picked examples in that they are the BEST preserved documents we have. Here’s another way of visualizing the data.Okay you have all these documents but how different are they from each other? That’s our third criteria for reliability.How much variation is there from one verse text to another across manuscripts?If you count literally every single possible type of variants. 62.9 percent of verses show no variants whatsoever. This means that if you examined all 5500 scripts they would be in 100% agreement on 62.9 percent of the verses in the Bible. That’s not that great. Does that mean you can only trust a little more than half?The picture changes drastically when you realize the nature of the variants.75% of the variants are spelling errors.19% don’t actually make sense. The scribe came along and a scribe is not supposed to correct. He’s just supposed to copy so he carries forward the mistake.5% are meaningful but not viable.1% less than one percent are both viable and meaningful.The two largest discrepancies by far in terms of meaning is John 8 and the end of Mark 16 (called the longer ending). If you exclude these (which is easy to do as you’ll see in a second) after these two, the longest discrepancy is two sentences and then quickly drops off to small phrases and single words.So hopefully this assures you that what we hold in our hands today is a very accurate edition of the NT and very, very closely reflects the original autographaWhy is John 8 Suspect?So let’s come all the way back to it. So we have all this manuscript evidence that points to great preservation. Why are we saying with such certainty that John chapter 8 and this story of the woman caught in adultery is NOT part of the original text? What is the evidence for that? Well, I only need to spend 3 minutes on this point. Now that you understand how this process works it won’t be hard to convince you.Five points:These verses are present in most of the medieval Greek miniscule manuscripts, but they are absent from virtually all early Greek manuscripts that have come down to us, representing great diversity of textual traditions.Let me give you one more wrinkle of detail here. Manuscripts can easily be divided up into families. Once a certain error is introduced into the text that error gets copied and recopied and develops into a family. There are about five major families of manuscripts:In every major family of manuscript this is excluded until you get to the medieval era. There is one exception is the Western uncial D, but it is known for its independence in numerous other places. They are also missing from the earliest forms of the Syriac and Coptic Gospels, and from many Old Latin, Old Georgian and Armenian manuscripts.Moreover, a number of (later) manuscripts that include the narrative mark it off with asterisks, indicating hesitation as to its authenticity, while those that do include it display a relatively high frequency of textual variants.All the early church Fathers omit this narrative: in commenting on John, they pass immediately from 7:52 to 8:12. No Eastern Father cites the passage before the tenth century. Now that might not sound all that significant to you. But very few people realize how much material has been preserved from the church fathers. Do you realize that there are over a million NT quotations that have been preserved from the church fathers. If all we had was the church fathers we could piece together well over 95% of the NT.Although most of the manuscripts that include the story place it here (i.e. at 7:53–8:11), some place it instead after Luke 21:38, and other witnesses variously place it after John 7:44, John 7:36 or John 21:25. The fact that it is not consistently placed in the same location is pretty strong evidence that it was added later and not part of the original.Finally, even if someone should decide that the material is authentic, John almost certainly didn’t write it. The style is completely different. There are numerous expressions and constructions that are found nowhere else in John.Now that being said, it does appear to be a piece of oral tradition carried down. It most likely was true. It just doesn’t belong in the Scriptures and can’t be treated with the same sort of unquestioned authority. It would be foolish to make a theological point using this text or to preach it in the same way we preach the rest of the Bible.How Should we Respond?So we could have just skipped this section all together. But we talked about this as elders and decided it best to take this opportunity to demonstrate how we go our Bibles. Now, what I want to do now is just apply what we’ve learned today. There’s a few really important points to make here.Thank the Lord you have a Bible!We definitely take it for granted that we are able to read the Bible literally whenever we want to. It has most certainly not always been this way.The first reason that most of history has not been able to read the Bible in their language was because if you wanted your own volume you had to copy it by hand. Copying the Bible would have been a massive undertaking and took professional scribes close to a year. Contrast that to a modern printing press that can crank out 75 pages per minute. My Bible has 1106 pages for a total print time of 14 minutes. In quantity each page costs less than a penny and I can pick up this nice leather bound version for $18.95. If you want a paper Bible, grab one on the way out. They are free. You can take a whole case of them if you want. Nobody cares. They are so cheap. You can read it online, download an app and get 300 translations in a second.My friends, this has not always been so. Just try to hand copy the Bible. Long copy times means high cost. Gutenberg’s Bible which was the first printed Bible was significantly less expensive than handwritten copies and cost 30 florins in 1452.People were so incredibly excited at how drastically the prices had been slashed with the invention of the printing press. It was a moment of ecstasy. Now you could buy a Bible for 30 Florins. You want to know what that is in today’s dollars. At a very conservative exchange rate is about 100,000 dollars. How many of you could afford to purchase one? Churches might be able to purchase a single copy. And they would chain it to the pulpit.The second reason that many could not read the Bible is that it wasn’t in their language. We are so fortunate. All this careful compiling, comparing, studying the original manuscripts so that we could then have an accurate original to then translate. Our English translations are among the best in the world. We are so thankful.Read it.The claim is that this book is the Word of God. You need this. You need to be shaped by it in every way. What you love. What you do and don’t do. This is your food. It is bread to your soul. This connects you to Jesus Christ, the author of life. READ IT. It’s a treasure. It’s been passed down. Men have given their lives to preserve it. What a tragedy if we don’t read it. The great 18th-century evangelist John Wesley provides a good answer:“I want to know one thing, the way to heaven. . . . He hath written it down in a book. Give me that book! At any price give me the Book of God! I have it: here is knowledge enough for me. Let me be homo unius libri [a man of one book].”In the beginning was the WORD. This is the WORD. Application: Read Psalm 119. Make a Bible Reading Plan. Download the Dwell App.Pray for the Spirit of God to use it in your life.Don’t trust in the labor saving deliverance of technology! It’s not a life hack that is going to give you the next level of breakthrough.Let me make this point by way of 3 P’s. You have the Production of Scripture under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. We don’t believe this is any old book. We believe this to be the inspired words of God. Then there’s the Preservation which we have talked about. But then there’s the Perception. How do we perceive the words? How do we understand them?You see we ultimately need the Spirit of God to ascertain and discern spiritual things. Many will look at this book and write it off as foolishness. But ultimately it’s the Spirit of God working in us that is the true test. Ultimate test of authenticity. The Holy Spirit. God gives us the Spirit of God which is the WORD in us.