Light, Truth, Freedom

John 8:12-59

This particular passage introduces the second phrase in a series of declarations for Jesus.
These are the “I AM” statements of Jesus found in John’s Gospel.

These are on the video screen behind me.

 I am the Bread of Life (6:35)

 I am the Light of the World (8:12)
 I am the Door of the Sheep (10:7,9)
 I am the Good Shepherd (10:11,14)
 I am the Resurrection and the Life (11:5)
 I am the Way, the Truth and the Life (14:6)
 I am the True Vine (15:1)

Jesus makes these great declarations throughout the gospel and John puts them in significant
places.

This particular statement comes during the Feast of Tabernacles. We looked at the Feast of
Tabernacles last week and the ceremony of water that takes place. During that time Jesus declared
that rivers of living water would flow from him. HE is the source of true living water.

This statement also comes during the Feast of Tabernacles. There was a lighting ceremony that
took place in the Temple during this festival. The lighting of the lamps in the Temple area was
powerful because it would be the only light in Jerusalem at night during the festival. The lamps
would really light up the Temple area giving a brilliant contrast to the darkness around them.

And out of that brilliant display comes the declaration of Jesus: “I AM the Light of the world!”

The temple display would burn out. It would need replenishing. If you left the temple area, you’d
be in darkness.

Following Jesus and you don’t walk in darkness. The light always abides.

Light is vital for us as human beings. Darkness holds fear, uncertainty, and limitations. There is
only so much that can be done in the darkness. To move, to advance, to walk more freely, light is
needed.

Jesus is always described in terms of light. The kingdom of God is always described in terms of
light. It is the enemy that is described constantly as darkness. The place where you didn’t want to
get tossed was into the darkness where there is weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth.
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Light, Truth, Freedom Pastor Dan Thompson
Columbia Heights Assembly of God
Jn. 1:5 – Jesus is the light that shines in the darkness.

Gen. 1:3 – God’s first creation was light.

Ex. 13:21-22; Ps. 78:14 – God led the Israelites in the desert with light.

Ps. 27:1 – The Lord is my LIGHT and my salvation

Ps. 119:105 – The Word of God is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.

We are called to walk in LIGHT.

Jesus declares boldly in this ceremony: I AM THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD. You abide in me…
NO MORE DARKNESS!

It’s a bold statement.

John 8 is another lively exchange between Jesus and the people as to his authority. He is
getting bolder along the way. In this chapter he lets them know they THINK they follow God, but
they don’t really know him at all (v. 19)!

Telling someone who thinks they believe they don’t really know what they believe isn’t a very
safe conversation!

The dialogue is intense.

There are two places I want to focus in this passage. The first is what we have already read in
v. 12.

The second is vv. 31,32.

Out of these two passages there are keys to the Kingdom of God.

LIGHT

TRUTH

FREEDOM

We want to walk in light. We know that darkness in our natural lives has a place, but when it
comes to the Kingdom of God and abundance and living well… we really want light. We really need
light.

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Light, Truth, Freedom Pastor Dan Thompson
Columbia Heights Assembly of God
 We really want truth. Too much of our world doesn’t want to deal with truth. We want our
apparitions of truth. We want to deal in our own version of truth. In Christ, we get TRUTH. We
great reality.

And when we know the truth, we are set free.

No one wants to live in bondage. No one wants to live as a slave to anything. We want freedom.

Jesus gives us the invitation to walk in light, live in truth, and experience freedom.

Where is this found?

In Christ. Verse 31 is our key.

“If you ABIDE in my word, you are truly my disciples.”

We are to LIVE in the words of Christ. We are to hear what he is saying and LIVE THERE. It is
a call to remain. It is a call to keep walking FULL of the Word of Christ. Remember what he said.
Latch onto his teachings. Abide there.

We can know LIGHT, TRUTH and FREEDOM when we dwell in his Word.

The use of word here is logos. It is not just written word. It is his spoken word. In that day it
was important because they could hear him and they needed to remember what he said. In our day
it’s vital we also remember the WRITTEN WORD because the gospel writers recorded those words
of Jesus for us.

It’s a combination.

We need the TRUTH set firmly in our lives. This is done by moving out the voices of this world
and absorbing the voice of Christ in our lives. The more we take in of Christ, the more it shoves out
the voices of the world and the enemy. We need TRUTH saturating our lives. And Jesus gives us the
answer: ABIDE in his word.

Daily

I have found that for all the gadgetry we have available to us, we still have a gap between
having something available to us… and USING it.

I remember years ago working in a flooring company. One of the guys working there was terrible
at remembering things. He would forget follow up phone calls that needed to be made, he would
forget to order material, he would forget to schedule installs… you know… non-essential stuff.

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Light, Truth, Freedom Pastor Dan Thompson
Columbia Heights Assembly of God
 He finally came up with a brilliant device. This was back before we had smart phones, etc. He
bought a small digital voice recorder. It was great for him, he said, because he was in his truck so
much that when he remembered to do something, he couldn’t just write it down. But with the voice
recorder, he could whip it out, speak what he needed to remind himself to do, and it was done.

He loved it!

A month later he hated it.

He found out that he could say into the device: “Call this guy to schedule this deal,” but then he
would forget to check his recordings! What would have worked is the thing to call for him!

So, with that said, and with our technological advancement, I would say that our opportunity to
have PLENTY of reminders all around us to spend time daily in the Word would help… but that’s not
necessarily true.

We can get email reminders, text reminders, voicemail reminders… all of it. And if we don’t stop
and take in the Word… it’s nothing.

But we DO need to find good ways to be reminded of the Word and TAKE IT IN! We need to
find ways to walk daily in prayer… AND PRAY!

What is valuable to us, WE DO. If Christ is precious, if truth is valuable, we find ways to take in
truth. We find ways to abide.

Friends, we need to fight the temptations of laziness all around us. We need to fight the
temptations of busyness all around us. We must find ways to commit to soaking in the Word so that
we walk in TRUTH. To walk in truth is find the LIGHT of Christ. To find that light is FREEDOM.

One daily practice is praying the Psalms. You can make it a habit to pray the Psalms every
day. If you read through five Psalms a day you will pray the Psalms in a month.

The Psalms TEACH us to pray! They give us the raw emotions and keep us anchored to the truth
of the kingdom of God.

Every morning you open up the Word to a Psalm, or several Psalms, and begin praying. Use the
Psalms to guide you. Don’t forget to LISTEN!

There are good daily reading schedules available. Take advantage of them. There are terrific
reading schedules that will give you the opportunity to read portions of the OT, the Psalms, the NT,
and the Gospels… every day.

“Oh, man! That sounds like a lot of work!”

To which I say, “Do you want the truth or not? Do you want light and freedom or not?”

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Light, Truth, Freedom Pastor Dan Thompson
Columbia Heights Assembly of God
 It has a price! It has a call to commitment! Jesus isn’t messing around with us here, friends!

One way to find good daily readings is to link to our church website. I will put links to good sites
that have daily readings. You look for the correct dates and follow those weekly readings.

If I’ve succeeded this morning, I’ve also been able to print out a sample of those readings for
you and they’re on the back table.

We keep wanting to SAY we follow Christ, but the call of Jesus is to actually follow him. So, we
pay attention to what he says and we allow that truth to soak into us!

Weekly

Here again, we need to measure our willingness to walk in obedience. Part of that obedience is
being with the Body of Christ. It is staying connected.

There is an illustration I’ve used before, but I want to repeat it here.

Years ago in a rural community the pastor of a congregation was out visiting some of his
parishioners. There was a member of his church that didn’t quite make it very often. The wife would
come to church faithfully, but the husband would find excuses week after week.

The pastor found the farmer out in his field one day burning some brush. The fire had burned
down and it was getting toward dusk. The pastor crouched by the fire with the farmer and let him
know he was missed at church.

“Well, you know, pastor, going to church doesn’t make you a Christian. What’s that saying? Going
to church to think you’re a Christian is like standing in a garage and thinking you’re a car.”

The pastor said, “That’s a good point.”

Then, the pastor took a larger stick that was stuck in the fire and pulled it out. The tip of the
stick was ablaze and red hot as the pastor pulled it out. He laid it to the side of the fire and the
two watched the hot tip begin to cool. The glow left.

The pastor then put the stick back into the fire and they both watched the tip immediately
light up again, the glow being restored. Neither one said a word.

Finally, the farmer said, “I’ll see you in church next week.”

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Light, Truth, Freedom Pastor Dan Thompson
Columbia Heights Assembly of God
 We can let excuses pull at us. We can say trite phrases about parking yourself in a garage and
thinking you’re a car…

But we need the Body of Christ. We need worship together.

In this place, we want to be INTENTIONAL about walking with Christ, so that when you are
here you know you will have a place where you can encounter Christ. You will also get the Word. The
preached Word. The written Word.

We will read the Word publicly. Lots of it. We don’t apologize for it. We want TRUTH in our
innermost being, and TRUTH is found in the Word of God.

We will preach faithfully. We want to lead you in seeking the Scriptures. We want to lead you in
worshiping faithfully. We want to lead you in seeking the power of the Spirit.

And it’s done when you are CONNECTED. It can’t happen when you’re away from the source of
fuel! We can say all we want that being in church doesn’t save us. That’s not the issue.

What Jesus set up was his Church being a place to fuel the fire. A place where we can learn. A
place where united worship brings about a sense of his presence. We need to fuel ourselves on a
regular basis. We need the community of believers. It’s crucial.

Over the next few weeks we are going to keep working on how we can continue to be
INTENTIONAL in our worship. We want the Body of Christ GROWING. And we do that best
together.

We will have more time in prayer and worship. We will focus more intentionally on the table of
the Lord because we want to keep ourselves in a place where we can hear his voice and obey his
word. We want TRUTH.

As we allow the TRUTH of the words of Christ soak into us, we find freedom. We then find
strength to speak truth into the lives of others. We will find strength to lovingly bring LIGHT into
darkness. We will find strength to battle darkness as we walk in the freedom of Christ.

We need to live the declared freedom of Christ. We do this by abiding.

EVERY DAY

Don’t just FIND that time… MAKE that time… to be in the Word. Put it in your schedule and DO
IT. A few minutes in the morning. A few minutes at noon. A few minutes in the evening. Soak in that
Word. Don’t be in a hurry. Listen. Breathe it in. Dwell.

Listen to these words carefully again:

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Light, Truth, Freedom Pastor Dan Thompson
Columbia Heights Assembly of God
“If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will
set you free!”

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Light, Truth, Freedom Pastor Dan Thompson
Columbia Heights Assembly of God