I Am the Light

[00:00:03] Welcome to Gospel in Life. Where do you turn when you're searching for spiritual truth? Some approaches to spiritual searching look to traditional religion or morality, while others tell us that the answers lie within ourselves. The Gospel offers something completely different. It points us to a relationship with the person of Jesus Christ. Today on the podcast, Timothy Keller explores Jesus' own statements about Himself and shows how our search for truth can only be satisfied when we understand who He really is.

[00:00:39] Passage on which the teaching is based is printed in your bulletin. I'm actually going to read something slightly different than what is printed there, and I hope you'll forgive me for that. I'm going to be meditating and talking to you more on the very first verse, so I'm going to read a little less than we have printed. I'm going to read John chapter 8, verses 12 to 20. When Jesus spoke again to the people, He said,

[00:01:05] I am the light of the world. Whoever follows Me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life. The Pharisees challenged Him, Here you are, appearing as your own witness. Your testimony is not valid. Jesus answered, Even if I testify on my own behalf, my testimony is valid. For I know where I am going. I know where I came from, and I know where I am going. But you have no idea where I come from or where I am going. You judge by human standards.

[00:01:33] I pass judgment on no one. But if I do judge, my decisions are right. Because I am not alone. I stand with the Father who sent me. In your own law it is written that the testimony of two men is valid. I am one who testifies for myself. My other witness is the Father who sent me. And they asked Him, Where is your Father? You do not know Me or My Father. Jesus replied, If you knew Me, you would know My Father also.

[00:01:57] He spoke these words while teaching in the temple area near the place where the offerings were put. Yet no one seized Him because His time had not yet come. We're going to end the reading of God's Word right there. All fall we've been looking at the subject of spiritual searching, that there's an enormous amount of spiritual hunger that's evident in our culture and our society today.

[00:02:23] We mentioned last week that Robert Wuth now, perhaps the leading sociologist of religion at Princeton University, has recently come out with a book called After Heaven. And in After Heaven he says that the new spirituality of modern people has rejected what you could call scientism. It's rejected the idea that science and reason is all we need in order to have the life, the world we want.

[00:02:50] But, he points out, that the new spirituality also has rejected moralism. It says I'm spiritual, but I'm not religious. I want spiritual reality, but I don't want dogma and rules. But we also saw last week, as we began looking at this series in the Gospel of John, that the original message of Christianity, the original message of the Gospel,

[00:03:17] the message of Christ, was not scientistic, moralistic, or New Agistic. The new spirituality hates scientism and, of course, hates moralism, but it itself is kind of vague and general and it's self-accredited. There's no accountability. The Gospel says, come meet a person. Come and see a cosmic person. And that's not secular science and that's not the rules of traditional religion,

[00:03:47] but that's not the vagueness of the new spirituality. It's something else. It's the Gospel. Come and see Jesus. Now, how can we come and see Him? How can we know this spiritual reality that really is none of those options? One of the best ways is to see what John, the writer of this Gospel, tells us that Jesus said about Himself. There's a whole series of enormously staggering claims

[00:04:17] that are called the I Am statements of Jesus. He says, I am the light. I am the bread. I am the good shepherd. I am the way, the truth, and the life. And so on. And we're going to start this week and we're going to go right up to Christmas with it because who was born in the manger? First of all, let's take a look and see this way. Here he says in verse 12, I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.

[00:04:47] That statement has got in it a metaphor, a claim, and a call. Jesus has a metaphor, light of the world. And then he has a claim. I am the light of the world. And then he has a call. Follow me and you'll have the light of life. And the metaphor and the claim and the call are magnificent. They're huge. And so let's take a look at the magnitude of each. The magnitude of the metaphor, the magnitude of the claim, and the magnitude of the call. First, the magnitude, the profundity of the metaphor.

[00:05:18] Light of the world. Now, back then, the people had very little concept compared to what we have of the richness of this metaphor. And that must mean that we have actually a kind of poor grasp of it compared to what people are going to know a couple hundred years from now. But here's what we do know. We know about the wonder and the danger of light. Let's think about it for a minute. What is the light of the world? Wonderful, but it's incredibly dangerous. The wondrousness.

[00:05:46] First of all, sunlight, light of the world, is a source of all of our life, basically. It's the most basic source of life. If we didn't have the sun, we'd freeze. But more than that, you know, in all those nuclear winter scenarios, if even it went behind a cloud for a couple of years, we would die. Not necessarily from the radioactivity, but from lightlessness. You see, because all the plants would die and the food chain would be destroyed.

[00:06:13] In fact, even our fossil fuels, when you think about the sources of energy we have, ah, you say, well, if the sun goes out, we have coal, we have oil, we have those things. But those things are all from plants and those things are all from the sun. The sun is the most basic source of life. Secondly, light is not just a source of life, it's a source of truth. Let's say I'm riding along my bicycle, and there's a tree up there. Now, there's a couple ways to get information about the tree. There's a couple ways to get information about what my reality is,

[00:06:42] what my environment, what's really out there. One is I run into it, and that's a very fast way to know. But that's not the best way to get information. I would like information about the fact of the tree, the size of the tree, the location and the shape of the tree before I run into it. And the only way for me to get that kind of information, which is the only helpful information, is light. It bounces off the tree. It hits my retina and tells me exactly where it is and exactly what it is. And that's the fact.

[00:07:11] If you try to find your way to the bathroom in a pitch dark room, in a room you're not used to, you smack into things and you stumble over things because you don't know what's your environment. You don't understand your environment. The light gives you truth. So light not only tells me, A, life, it not only gives me life, it's also the main source of truth, knowledge about my environment. And light is also one of, if not the, one of the most basic sources of joy.

[00:07:41] Life, truth, and joy. People who have to stay at the poles, North Pole or South Pole, during those weeks and weeks and weeks of endless darkness, wrestle tremendously with depression and despair. Because we're now coming to understand, though it's, again, we were just on the cusp of understanding, that people need light, not just for life and not just for reality, knowledge, truth,

[00:08:10] but even for joy. When a little child wakes up in the middle of the night, screaming at night, what do you do? You don't put on all the lights and come in and say, oh, no, you want to comfort the child? Turn on the lights. You see? And so, light is wondrous because it's the source of life and truth and joy. But, and here's one of the things that's so profound about this metaphor, the same light that is really our only or main source

[00:08:39] of life and truth and joy is also something that unmediated will take it all away. Light is every bit as dangerous as it is wondrous, and that's, therein lies an enormous paradox. Here's what I'm saying. For example, first of all, unmediated sunlight without protection, if we really got the light, I mean, we go to the light for life and we go to the light for truth, we go to the light for joy. You can see the trees

[00:09:08] and the flowers actually literally climbing to the light. Light is the source of all these things. But if you'd ever actually get the light, what would happen? First of all, it'd be the end of life. I mean, everybody's disagreeing about whether or not our atmosphere is deteriorating. Everybody disagrees about the ozone layer. But here's one thing nobody disagrees. That if the atmosphere does deteriorate even a little bit, more and more people are going to die of cancer. The oceans are going to dry up. The deserts are going to spread.

[00:09:38] We're going to die. Without light, we die. With light, we die. Not only that, unmediated light not only takes away the very thing that we need light for, life, but secondly, it'll take away sight, truth, the ability to know what's out there. I forget which one of the silly summer sci-fi movies I saw this in, but one of the silly sci-fi movies, there's a guy either on the moon or the asteroid and the sun comes up. Right? You can tell me afterwards.

[00:10:07] Don't tell me now, please. The sun comes up and he forgets to put his visor down. So he closes his eyes. It's too late. He's blinded. Why? Because unmediated sunlight, the light of the world, this wonderful positive statement, I'm the light of the world. Oh, how wonderful the light of the world. If you get the light of the world, not only will it kill you, it'll blind you because you close your eyelids, it's not enough. It blasts right through and burns out your optic nerve. But not only that, if you actually ever

[00:10:37] would get light, really have it, if you'd actually have light, not only would it kill you, before it blinded you, I mean, actually, who cares then, right? But let me say something. Light also is deeply disturbing. It'll take away your joy. When I was a teenager, I had a lot of problem with my... I had a skin problem. I had a tremendously bad acne problem. And one of the only ways in which I could really handle even looking at my face was I always did it

[00:11:06] in a controlled situation. I used to see it in my bathroom in a mirror and it was kind of a softer dim light in there. One thing I absolutely hated doing was having to ever go to the department store where my father worked because that department store not only had bright lights, but every pillar had four-sided mirrors on it. And you see, I walked in there and I was unavoidably shown by the light what I really looked like. And you know what? I'm not sure human beings can possibly be happy

[00:11:36] to really know what they look like spiritually, psychologically, emotionally, morally, even physically. We need light for life. And yet, if we get light, it will kill us. We need light for knowledge of our environment, but if we get light, it'll take it away. We need light for joy. Without it, you know, we get into depression, but with light, we get into depression. Hmm. How profound.

[00:12:07] How amazing. See the magnitude of the metaphor? Now, only because we have that. Have we done a little reflection? Do you see it? Now and only now can we turn secondly, not just from the magnitude of the metaphor to the magnitude of the claim. Now we can begin to see what Jesus is claiming. And what am I? What is, he says, I am the light of the world. Now, let's see how incredible this claim is now. In verse 20, you know, I only read verse 20, and I'm pretty much not talking about all that little dialogue

[00:12:37] between the Pharisees and Jesus. But in verse 20, we're told, he said this in the, literally, in the treasury, he said this in a certain part of the temple, and John says, and they didn't kill him. John says, Jesus said, I'm the light of the world, and nobody killed him. Now, why would John say that? Because John knew something that we don't, so let's figure it out. John said, if you understood what he was claiming, you would be amazed that nobody just went up

[00:13:06] and choked him. What did he say? He was actually making three basic claims. Let me just go through them quickly. Number one, well, I'm not going to tell you what it is. Let me explain it. The first one is remarkable. Where was Jesus when he said this? And when was Jesus when he said it? Well, look at verse 12, and you can see it says, and when he said again. Now, the word again means they're going to have to go look up earlier in the passage, in the narrative, to find out when this is.

[00:13:35] And we're told back in chapter 7, verse 37, that Jesus was in Jerusalem on the last night of the Feast of the Tabernacles. Now, the Feast of the Tabernacles was a great feast, and it was seven days long, and it happened at the harvest time. But it was at harvest time that the Feast of the Tabernacles was held because it was appropriate since the Feast of the Tabernacles commemorated God's provision for the people in the wilderness. When they left Egypt, they got out of slavery.

[00:14:05] They went into the wilderness for many, many years. And see, that's when there were no harvests. That's when there was no crops. There were no homes. And the people would come together once a year at the Feast of Tabernacles to commemorate and to celebrate the great things that God did to provide for them in the wilderness. One of the things they did was they lived in little booths. They lived in little thatched huts to remember what it was like not to have a home. The second thing they did was they poured out water. There was a water-pouring rite or event during the Feast

[00:14:35] that reminded them of how when they were dying of thirst in the wilderness, Moses struck the rock and out of the rock came water. And the water, of course, assuaged their thirst and so they did not die. But the third thing they did was every night they lit an enormous candelabra at one place in the temple. This had a number of huge lamps in it. And those huge lamps were so huge that when they were lit

[00:15:04] the light just flooded into the rest of the city and the orchestras of the temple just struck up and cut loose and people danced and it was remarkable. Why? Because it was remembering, it was commemorating not just how God gave them a shelter, not how just God gave them water, but how God gave them light in the wilderness. And do you remember how? Wow. As they were leaving Egypt, suddenly something appeared before them. And in the daytime it looked like a cloud. And it sheltered them, actually.

[00:15:33] It sheltered them from the sun. But when the sun began going down, instead of what usually happens to clouds and that is they get invisible, the cloud began to radiate. The cloud began to glow. And when the sun went all the way down and when it was darkest of dark and it was the pitchest of black dark night, the cloud was a pillar of fire. And when they began, in the very beginning, it led them out. And when their pursuers came from behind, the cloud destroyed

[00:16:03] the pursuers. You can read about that. And when they got to Mount Sinai, the cloud came down on Mount Sinai in thunder and flame. And when they built the tabernacle, it appeared over the tabernacle. Whenever the cloud picked up and started moving, they followed it. And when they built the temple in 1 Kings chapter 8, the cloud came down and no one could even stay on their feet. It says they couldn't even stand because the glory filled the temple. Well, I've told you

[00:16:32] what it is. What was it? We read about it actually in Exodus 13. It's just a little verse to let you know. It says, And the Lord went before them by day in a pillar of a cloud to lead the way and by night as a pillar of fire to give them light. It was the Shekinah glory light of God's immediate presence. He came down

[00:17:01] and he gave them light himself. And every night they lit the candelabra. But on the last night of the feast, which is when this happened, they didn't light it because they were rolling things up. They were taking down decorations. And the last night of the feast is even worse. The last night of that feast was worse than any, the last night of any other feast. I mean, it's terrible to take down the Christmas tree. It's terrible to take down the lights. It's terrible, of course, but it was far worse for them and here's why.

[00:17:31] Because in that temple court, in front of those cold, dark lamps, it was impossible not to realize that the glory light of God's cloud had not been seen in the temple or anywhere for years, for centuries. The prophet Ezekiel had actually said, had declared Ichabod, which means the glory is gone. Ichabod means without glory. And of course, therefore, the last night of the feast,

[00:18:01] when after all that light was there, when the lights go out, there was a tremendous despair, really. And we're told that was the night that something happened. We're told in chapter 7, 37, that Jesus Christ walked into the temple courts and in verse 20, we're told he was at, literally, at the treasury, right in front of the candelabra. We're told in chapter 7, verse 37, that he was not teaching gently amongst with parables, but he began to cry out.

[00:18:30] And here's what he's saying. Jesus Christ stands before the candle. Candelabra. That represents the missing glory of God and says, I. He says, I am the light of the world. I am the glory light. The thing that you so long for is here. The true light. In fact, the thing that you wish would come back was provisional, was imperfect, was partial,

[00:19:01] but I am the very glory of God. He says, I'm not like the prophets who point to the glory of God. I'm not like the gurus who reflect the glory of God through their consciousness. I am the glory of God. I am God. Come to you. I am the way that the light of God can come centrally and permanently into you and you into it. And see, when he says, I am the light of the world, he who follows, when he says,

[00:19:30] whosoever follows, that immediately shows he's not talking the way many people read this about some kind of abstract principle. He's not talking about philosophy. He's not saying all enlightenment in some general way. Follow. This is a moving light. This is the glory. When it moved, they followed through light, light through the wilderness. And he's saying, I am the Shekinah glory. Now, I am the glory of God means, therefore, I am the ultimate source

[00:20:00] of ultimate life and ultimate truth and ultimate joy. That's what he's saying. Ultimate life, ultimate truth, and ultimate joy. First of all, ultimate life. What he's trying to say is I and I alone can bring you eternal life. When the sun comes up in the spring and starts to get near the earth, things melt and things begin to grow. And when I come near you, when I stop just being an inspirational example to you, but I actually become your light,

[00:20:29] the way you know is you begin to change. The life of God comes into you and you begin to change, you begin to sprout and that life will last forever and you will live forever with me. I am the source of ultimate life. And secondly, I'm also the source, he's saying, of ultimate truth. And this is, you know, people say, boy, where does Jesus Christ say he's God? When he says this, when he says, I'm the light of the world in front of the candelabra at the Feast of Tabernacles on the night in which the lack of the glory of God

[00:20:58] is most felt, the lightlessness of their lives just hangs over them. What he is saying is, I am the only way for you to know who God really is. Now listen, here's what he's saying. He is not saying that no other prophet, no other faith, no other philosophy, that nobody else knows anything about God. He's not saying that, but he says, they're moons and I'm the sun. They reflect my glory, but I am the glory. And of course, you know, you can see a lot

[00:21:27] in the moon. You can get around in the moon, but nothing like what you can see in the sunlight. And listen, if you say, boy, boy, that's quite a claim, I'll say, the founder of every other single major religion has actually said, I am the moon. They never say, they say, I'm pointing the way. I am not divine, there is the divine. I am not God, there is God. I am not the way, there is the way. They're all saying, I'm the moon. I'm reflecting, but I am not. But Jesus is the only major religious founder of any religion that said, I'm the sun.

[00:21:59] How do I know that tree's over there? Because the light tells me. The light, in a sense, you know, shows me. It's not reflected light like in a pool, which gives me such a kind of vague understanding where the tree is. It's direct. It's the light of the tree. And Jesus Christ says, what it says in Hebrews chapter 1, 3,

[00:22:26] A lot of people think they know the Christmas story. Cultural references to the birth of Jesus are unavoidable this time of year. But how closely have you examined what really happened that first Christmas night? In his book, Hidden Christmas, Tim Keller takes you on an illuminating journey into the surprising background of the Nativity story to help you better understand the redeeming power of God's grace. Hidden Christmas is our thanks this month

[00:22:56] for your gift to help Gospel and Life share the good news of Jesus with more people. Request your copy of Hidden Christmas today when you give at gospelandlife.com slash give. That's gospelandlife.com slash give. Now, here's Tim Keller with the rest of today's teaching. Now, thirdly, he's also saying, he says, not only am I the ultimate life, without me, you have derivative life, but you don't have eternal life. He says, secondly,

[00:23:25] I'm the ultimate truth. Without me, you've got pieces of the truth, but you don't have the ultimate truth. And then thirdly, he says, I'm the ultimate joy. Actually, what he's saying is I'm the ultimate beauty. See, light is where we get our beauty from. Colors, what are colors? They're nothing but parts of light. And Jesus says, you want beautiful, you want a beautiful lover? You strive for a beautiful body? You spend quite a bit of money to go to beautiful places? You long to listen to beautiful words?

[00:23:55] You do everything you can to look at beautiful art or beautiful things? But he says, those things will never satisfy the deepest recesses of your soul. I am the beauty you've been looking for. I am the only beauty. See, they're just the moon. I am the sun. Now, that's not all he's saying. He is not simply saying, I am the glory of God and then, therefore, I am the ultimate source of life and of truth and of beauty and joy.

[00:24:25] But he's actually also saying, I am the mediator. See, look, we today have the scientific insight that the very thing we most need is the very thing that will kill us if we get it. However, the Old Testament knew this. Because when the Old Testament showed us God coming near, God wanting to give his people light, God wanting to give his people heat, God wanting to give his people shelter, he could only come so close. Right?

[00:24:55] He could only come so close. I mean, when the glory cloud came down on Mount Sinai, Moses warned everybody, don't touch the mountain or you'll die. When the glory cloud came down on the pursuers of the Israelites coming out of the land of slavery, they were killed. When the glory cloud came down on the tabernacle in Exodus 40 in the temple in 1 Kings 8, then the people, everybody, you know, they just turned to spaghetti, they fell down, they couldn't even stand up to look at it. It was that great,

[00:25:24] that powerful, that impossible to get near. But perhaps of all the places you see this, I mean, the Old Testament understood this, the Bible understood this, when Moses comes to God in Exodus 33 and says, show me your glory. Now, what is he saying? Doesn't he see it? Doesn't the Bible say there's the cloud? I mean, Moses was always seeing it. Well, what is he talking about? There it is, you know, it's incredible, it's impressive, it's wonderful, light, truth, you know, it gives us the way. What was he saying? He was saying, it's not enough.

[00:25:55] He says, it's not enough. He says, I want to get in. I want to see you face to face. And what does God say? He says, it'll kill you because you have no mediator. It'll overwhelm you, it'll destroy you, it'll kill you. And so God puts, remember, he puts Moses in the cleft of a rock and the glory cloud comes by, it comes near, but no cigar. Moses doesn't get what he wants.

[00:26:25] God says you can't get what he wants. So what should we do? Should we say, well, all right, near is okay. We don't have to get in. But no, you can't really say that. You can do, you can try, you can try, you can try to kill the part of your heart that wants to get in. You know, in C.S. Lewis' very, very famous sermon, The Weight of Glory, he puts it like this. He says, he shall give us the morning star. He's thinking about the place in the book of Revelation that says he will give us the morning star. And here's what Lewis says. He says, hasn't God given us

[00:26:55] the morning star already? We can go out and enjoy the gift on any fine morning if you're ready to get up early enough and it's clear. What more you may ask do we want? Ah, we want much more. The philosophers of the aesthetics take little notice of it but the poets and all the myths are filled with it. We do not merely want to see beauty. We want something that can hardly be put into words. We want to be united with it. We want to pass into it. We want to receive it into ourselves. We want to bathe in it. That's why the poets

[00:27:24] tell us these lovely falsehoods. They talk of the west wind sweeping into the soul but it can't. They tell us beauty born of murmuring sound will pass into the human face but it won't. We're on the outside. We're on the wrong side of the door. We discern the freshness and purity of morning but they do not make us fresh and pure. You get older, you start to feel yourself hardening up, you start to feel yourself decaying, you start to feel yourself wearing away. You see the freshness and you see the purity of morning but they do not make us fresh and pure.

[00:27:53] We cannot mingle with the splendors we see but all the leaves of the New Testament are rustling with the rumor that someday we will get in. Please do not think I'm putting forth the pagan fancy of being absorbed into nature. We are summoned to pass through nature beyond her into that splendor which she so fitfully reflects. Now you say, well, what is all that? I mean, Moses said, I want to get in. I don't want to just get near. God said no.

[00:28:23] Common sense says no. C.S. Lewis says, we haven't really been able to stop. If you say no to yourself, you're going to, the deepest part of you is going to die but Jesus Christ here in chapter 8, verse 12, does not say, if you follow me, you'll get near the light of life. He says, you'll have it. The thing that God said to Moses, you can't. Jesus Christ says, you must. You can. How? Because you see, he is the mediator. Now in two ways. First of all,

[00:28:53] in his incarnation, finally the light can give us what we need without overwhelming us. When you just looked at the pillar of fire, what did you see? Glory? Yeah, of course. I mean, what would you walk away saying about God if you looked at this pillar of fire? You know, like, wow, that's about it. But look at Jesus. Look at him raising the little girl and saying, honey, it's time to get up. Look at the power of being able to raise someone from the dead without a sweat.

[00:29:22] We saw this two weeks ago. But look at him calling to her like a mother calls to a little child in the morning. Who would have thought of that? Now we begin to see the glory in a way we never could have before. Veiled in flesh, the Godhead see. Hail the incarnate deity. We're going to sing that a lot. Are we not? In Hark the Herald Angels sing. The only way to look at the sun is to put a filter over it and then you can see the flames. Otherwise, it just burns you out. And Jesus Christ is, he says, the glory of God

[00:29:52] in a way that I can grab, in a way that I can embrace. But we don't just need mediation. The light of God would not kill us simply because we're too weak for it. The light of God also would kill us because we're too sinful for it. God says to Moses, it'll kill you not because, well, you know, it's just, you know, you need sunglasses but because you're a sinner and my light is pure in me. There's no darkness at all.

[00:30:22] And one night, Jesus Christ took his three disciples up onto a mountain and he began to radiate and he began to look like, remember it said his clothes and his face became as bright as lightning. And when the disciples awoke, they saw Jesus talking to Elijah and Moses. And suddenly, he's talking to Moses and it says, and this is in Luke chapter 9 and you only see this if you read it in Greek. You know, Tony, here's one of the reasons why you learn Greek.

[00:30:51] Jesus uses the weirdest word when he's talking to Moses. He says, they were talking to Jesus about his exodus. Now, in the English translations they always say departure or something because they don't know how in the world. It says exodus. And suddenly, down came a cloud around Jesus and the disciples and they were petrified. Of course, they were petrified. How in the world would they survive this? The cloud, the glory light that hadn't been seen in centuries coming down and they didn't die.

[00:31:23] And a voice came out of the cloud saying, this is my son. And soon they saw Jesus only because Jesus is the glory. But why isn't he the glory that kills? Because Jesus Christ was the whole exodus. You know what's so weird about this? Peter offers to build Elijah, Moses, and Jesus booths. If you read that in Luke 9, it's incredible. He says, let's make some booths. Why? It's the Feast of Tabernacles. Even he was starting to get it. And if Peter can get it, we can get it. And what are we getting? Jesus is not just

[00:31:53] the glory cloud in reality. Jesus is the whole exodus. Jesus is also the lamb slain so that they could get out of Egypt and slavery. Jesus Christ was also the rock struck so that they could drink. And Jesus Christ was the cleft in which if we hide in what he has done for us, the light, the glory can come into us and we can come into him. And it won't kill us because he's paid for our sins. Now, let's lastly say,

[00:32:24] look at the magnitude of the metaphor and now and only now do we see that Jesus Christ, the light of the world is the whole gospel. The very thing that we most need is the thing that if we get will kill us and only because I have come to live the life you should have lived and to die the death you should have died, can you actually have this light in your bosom? Can you actually finally have it? You can finally get in and you're not going to be on the outside of the door anymore. Now, he doesn't just stop there. He doesn't just say,

[00:32:54] isn't this great? He says, follow it and have it. And so it's not just a, there's not just the magnitude of the metaphor and the magnitude of the call. There's an incredible, pardon me, the claim, there's an incredible call. Now let me just say something to those of you who are Christians and let me say something to those of you who aren't sure you are, okay? Or maybe some of those of you who know you're not, okay? There's only three kinds of people here. People say, I'm a Christian. People say, I'm not a Christian. People say, I don't know anymore after listening to you

[00:33:23] what in the world I am, okay? And every week that middle group gets bigger, I think. Now, the first, Christians, what does it mean when it says, follow me, follow my light and you'll have it? Well, first of all, it is a call to live with absolute consistency and integrity. Some of you, all right, let me be real broad. Some of you are doing things in the dark. Some of you are hiding things from your spouse you don't want them to see. Some of you are hiding things from your friends.

[00:33:54] Some of you, many of you, are hiding things from yourself. You're going to have to sit and think about it. You're in such denial. But I want you to know that the darkness here is very temporary. Jesus Christ sees everything and someday the light will come up. The sun will come up. And the Bible keeps saying over and over and over again, the tendency of history is that everything will be revealed. It even happens here. Things come out. Things come out. Everything comes out almost here and eventually everything will come out.

[00:34:23] Live in lies of integrity. Realize that the light is shining here or at least it's going to shine here inevitably because Jesus is the light of the world. Do not be different in the dark than you are in the light. Do not be different when no one's looking. Don't be. If you understand, if he is your light, you will not be any different when no one's looking. Be a person of integrity. Secondly, okay, live not just consistently but live attractively. Jesus says you are the light of the world.

[00:34:55] He is beautiful. Is there anything beautiful about you, Christian friends? Is there anything remarkable about you? When people watch you take criticism, when people watch how you treat people under you, when people watch you just deal with others, when people watch you handle trouble, are they amazed? Are they surprised? Is there anything beautiful about you? Live attractively. Thirdly, live courageously. Now I'm going to give you a caveat in one second but here we go. Live courageously.

[00:35:25] If you're light, you will expose people and you won't be able to help it. These are all true. These are people I've known over the years. I knew a Christian once who just was doing a regular job at the post office and everybody came and said, you must stop working so diligently you're making the rest of us look terrible. I knew a Christian who was a waiter and everybody came and said, you're reporting your tips on the IRS. You're reporting every tip. You must stop. You must lie

[00:35:55] because otherwise the IRS is going to come after all the rest of us. Number three, these are all true. I knew a Christian policeman and everybody came to him really in his department and said, you are not taking the kind of bribes that come every day from the pimps to stay away from certain street corners. You must start taking the bribes or maybe next time you call for backup somebody won't be there. Number four, a Christian couple was welcoming the first black family in their neighborhood and people came to that Christian couple and said, you must not be

[00:36:24] so friendly because soon a lot of other black people will come and our property will lose its value. I'm going from the simple to the severe. Now here's what I want you to know. I am not saying the post office workers are all lazy. I am not saying that waiters are all cheaters. I am not saying all cops are corrupt and I'm not saying all white people are racist. I'm telling you what I saw and simply by just doing the normal thing, you are going to expose people. People are going to say,

[00:36:54] put out that light and if you do, you're a coward and here's what I'm trying to say. If no one's ever come to you and said, put out that light, you are a coward. You are not following the light. Live consistently, live attractively, live courageously and by the way, live hopefully. Do you realize that in a sense, Jesus, the sun is not up yet? Do you realize as beautiful as nature is now, look at the mountains, look at the sea, look at how incredibly beautiful it is out there. The sun's not up yet.

[00:37:24] Do you realize what it's going to be like? Do you realize what you and I are going to be like when the sun finally comes up? Do you realize what blossoms are going to happen? Do you realize what's going to go on? Live hopefully. Now for those of you who aren't sure you're Christians or you're sure you're not Christians, here's what I suggest. Test yourself. Somebody says, how do I, two things, I'll just say. Somebody says, how do I know if I'm beginning to get illumined? I'll tell you. I can tell you how you know that the light is beginning to dawn. That you move from just thinking

[00:37:53] of Jesus as a nice guy to starting to have the light shine on your heart. Here's how you know illumination is beginning. The only way I can get my kids up in the morning. I go in, I go in, I say, I say, you know, you're going to be like, I pull up the blinds. Yo! Why? Because you see, light is rousing. Light makes it impossible to sleep. Light makes it impossible to hide from yourself the fact that there's something out there. And here's the way you know

[00:38:22] that you have begun to get illumined by the light of Jesus. You're mad, or you're scared, or you're filled with love and wonder, but you're not indifferent. You're not sitting there as a bump. Think about what I just said. I said, Jesus Christ, listen to me everybody, let's use this as a test. Jesus Christ is the sun. Everything else is the moon. Jesus Christ is the only way to know God truly. Okay? Test yourself. Are you really mad? Are you saying, how dare he say that he's not just a teacher of love, but he's God? How dare you say that? It's a good sign.

[00:38:51] The lights, you know, the blinds must be up. Or some of you are saying, you're scared. You're saying, oh my gosh, if he's not just a teacher of love, but he's God, I've got to change. If he's this, I've got to either run from him or run toward him. That's a good sign. Or some of you are saying, I surrender. If that's who he is, I need to, the only thing that matters is my relationship with him. He alone is important. Now you see, if the light is up, you get roused. You might be angry, you might be afraid,

[00:39:21] or you might be running to him and throwing everything down and worshiping him and kissing his feet. But if you're just sitting there saying, well, I don't know what I think about Christianity and all that, you haven't, no, the light's not dawned. As a matter of fact, you're not a person who's even heard the claim. You haven't even begun to listen. But what if there's somebody here who says, but I, okay, fine, tell me. How do I have Christ in my life? How, tell me. You know, you've been real interesting, all these metaphors. Give me something straight.

[00:39:51] How do I become a Christian? Well, years ago, there was a Baptist preacher named Charles Spurgeon who became a Christian this way. When he was a young man, he sometimes went to church, but on a very, very, very, very, very, very snowy day, very snowy day, he had to go to a little church around the corner and he went in, this is in London, 1850s, and he goes in and he sits down and he and one other person are sitting in the, in the sanctuary and then the preacher gets up. Turns out the minister

[00:40:21] couldn't get there so it was an elder who never preaches and was preaching the sermon. So it was the preacher, the elder, never preaches, one guy and Charles. So he gets up and he reads his text. He opens the Bible and he reads his text and you know, he doesn't know how to preach. He reads the text and he just keeps repeating it. He says, he reads the text, it's out of Isaiah and he says, what's the text? Look to me and be saved all ye ends of the earth and he closes and he looks out there

[00:40:50] and he says, look to me and be saved. Don't you see? You don't have to do anything. You don't have to walk anywhere. You don't have to take even one step. Look. All you can do is look. You have to see you can't do anything. You have to see you can't walk anywhere. You just have to look. You have to see what he's done for you. You just have to look. And after he'd done that for about 15 minutes, he looks at Spurgeon. I mean, there's only two people out there and he looks at him and this will make a lot of you very happy

[00:41:20] you come to a big church. He looks at Redeemer and he points, pardon me, he looks at Spurgeon and he points at him and he says, young man, I see that you're miserable. And you're going to stay miserable till you obey my text. And Spurgeon had actually been for a year struggling with trying to figure out how do I get to know spiritual reality? And he'd been doing everything. You know, he'd sworn off this and he'd sworn off that and he was just trying to say no to this. So he tried moralism. And then he went into mysticism and he tried to, you know,

[00:41:50] fast and pray and try to have experiences and suddenly, when he said, obey my text, it dawned on him. Jesus Christ is the light because the only way I can be saved is just to look. There's nothing I can do. I have to accept what he's done. Look to me and be saved. All the ends of the earth, some of you are miserable and you're going to stay miserable until you obey that text. Let's pray. Thank you, Father,

[00:42:20] for the joy of the light. We thank you that Jesus promises joy and he says, because you are not in the light, you're not rejoicing. Father, as we now sing about the joy of Jesus, as we think about the joy of the light, we pray that those of us who do believe but are living in the darkness would become consistent, would become attractive, would become courageous, would become hopeful, and those of us who are really walking

[00:42:49] in the darkness would look to him and be saved. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. Thanks for joining us here on the Gospel in Life podcast. If you were encouraged by today's teaching, you can help others discover this podcast by rating and reviewing it. And to find more great gospel-centered content by Tim Keller anytime, visit gospelinlife.com. Today's sermon

[00:43:19] was recorded in 1998. The sermons and talks you hear on the Gospel in Life podcast were recorded between 1989 and 2017 while Dr. Keller was senior pastor at Redeemer Presbyterian Church.