Michael Youssef - I Am the Light of the World
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Some years ago, a Naval Institute magazine published a true story. Actually, it’s not a story; it was an incident that took place about a battleship navigating its way on a very dark and foggy night. And the light coordinator reported to the captain of the big battleship and said, «Sir, we are on a collision course with another vessel.» So the captain said, «Send him this signal very quickly, and immediately send this signal because we don’t want to be on a collision course.» The signal to the other ship said, «Change direction 20° immediately.»
The return signal came back from the other light and vessel, or whatever they were, and it said, «Uh, it is advisable for you to change direction 20°.» The signal came back from the battleship: «I am Captain So-and-so of X, Y, and Z battleship, and I ask you to change course 20° now.» The response came: «I am Seaman Second Class So-and-so, and you must change course 20° now.» By that time, the captain was furious, to say the least. I mean, he was livid. Who does this Seaman Second Class think he is, talking to me as the captain of this battleship? How dare he talk to me like this, a battleship as big as mine? So he yelled to the signalman and said, «Send this message: I am a battleship X, Y, and Z, and I’m ordering you to change course 20° immediately.»
Then came the response: «I cannot change course; I’m a lighthouse.» Well, my beloved friends, this is happening today. Our great God and only Savior of the world declared, «I am the light of the world.» And yet, increasing numbers of humanity in general have been defying, denying, and demanding that Jesus change His course to accommodate us. I think that any thinking person— you don’t even have to be a believer—any thinking person, any discerning person, any honest person can see clearly that we are on a collision course with the lighthouse of God.
And that is why the cry of our hearts and the prayer of our souls is to plead with everyone who would listen, everyone who would listen: please change course while you can. Please change course before it is too late. Please change direction before the great collision.
We have just begun a new series of messages. The last message was on the exclusivity of Jesus. In this age of inclusion, we have done everything possible to make Jesus be inclusive. Why these theories? Because in the last 10 to 15 years, there has been a growing movement among many so-called professing Christians to undermine the exclusivity of Jesus. Many church leaders now are saying that Jesus is just the founder of a religion or that He is a way, not the only way, to God the Father, that He’s a mere teacher or a great ethicist, a role model that He wants us to emulate—good luck with that! They are going directly against the truth of the Word of God.
We saw that in the last message. He testified about Himself that He is no other than the Creator God in human body, that He is no other than God’s promised Messiah, foretold for thousands of years in the Old Testament. That He is no other than our only Savior, only Redeemer, and only Lord; that He is no other than God the Son, who coexisted in the Godhead with God the Father and God the Holy Spirit since before the world began. In the last message, we saw how Jesus is the only lifegiver. He’s the only lifegiver; there is no life apart from Him—certainly no eternal life apart from Him.
And Jesus said, «I am the bread of life,» as we saw in the last message. Today, we see Him as the only lightgiver. He said, «I am,» to remind them that He is the one who appeared to Moses—the pre-incarnate Christ appeared to Moses in the burning bush. And when He said to him, «Who do I say sent me to rescue God’s people out of the slavery of Egypt?» He said, «Tell them, I AM.»
Turn with me, please, to John 8, beginning at verse 12. When Jesus spoke again to the people, He said, «I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness but will have the light of life.» The context in which the Lord made this declaration, «I am the light of the world,» was at the great Feast of Tabernacles. Well, you may ask, «Michael, what’s the great Feast of Tabernacles?» I want to tell you it is the Jewish Feast of the Tabernacles, when God’s people were celebrating the time when God remembered how He delivered them out of slavery in Egypt, how God protected them, how God provided for them, and how He guided them in the wilderness with this pillar of light at night when they could not see their way in the darkness.
He gave them a pillar of light. You remember He provided that for them the entire time they were in the wilderness. We saw in the last message when Jesus said, «I am the bread of life,» that it was supposed to remind them of the manna that God sent from heaven to them in the wilderness, the manna their ancestors ate to survive, how He provided them with this food to fill them physically and sustain them physically. But now He is the bread of life who can fill them and sustain them eternally and give them eternal life.
John chapter 8, follow it with me, please. When Jesus claimed that He is the light of the world, He was telling them—and telling us, even in the 21st century—that we may understand and comprehend that He is the divine light in human body, that He is the source of all light to humanity, that He’s the only one who can banish the darkness of sin and guilt, that He’s the only one who can banish the darkness of death and the grave, that He’s the only one who can banish the darkness of addiction and slavery to sin. Therefore, everyone everywhere, it doesn’t matter which part of the world you come from, needs to turn to Him and to Him alone if you want to avoid the collision course with the lighthouse.
But there is something else I don’t want you to miss here about Jesus, the light of the world. It’s very important. Oh beloved friends, please listen. Today, so many of us who have experienced the love of Jesus, those of us who have experienced the light of Christ, the light of the world, cannot help but see how darkness is engulfing our culture. How spiritual darkness is engulfing our society. How the forces of darkness are gathering like dark, ominous clouds. How the forces of darkness are now uniting together like never before.
These are people who normally would be at each other’s throats, but now they are united against God’s Messiah and His followers. The evil one senses his time of being thrown into the lake of fire is drawing near. He senses that, and therefore he is intensifying his attack— the dark forces' attack—on God’s children. But there is good news. There’s great news. There’s fantastic news! Just as the children of Israel in their dwelling places had light while the rest of the land was dark, God’s children today can live, function, operate, and thrive in God’s light amidst the darkness of the world. That is the good news.
And if anyone at the sound of my voice has not crossed over from the darkness of Satan and sin into the light of the world, you can do that today. Turn to the light of the world before complete darkness engulfs you. Turn to the light of the world and experience the power of His light. Turn to the light of the world and let His power engulf you, deliver you, and set you free. Turn to the powerhouse and let Him pluck you out of the middle of that life’s darkness. Change course now! Change course now and let the light of the world, Jesus, take you to a safe harbor.
In the Gospel of John 1:9, they spoke about the witness. You’re the only one. And yet they went running out into the wilderness to listen to John the Baptist. Listen to what John the Baptist said in John chapter 1:9: «The true light that gives light to everyone has come into the world.» Yet here’s the sad part about this: many then and many even now have rejected the light of the world. Many have preferred to stay in the darkness of sin and death. The folks who have rejected the light of the world, Jesus, have chosen to live in darkness. Oh beloved, listen to me.
That is why we who know and love Jesus must never, never, never grow weary of lovingly calling everyone who will listen, everyone who will respond, to come to Jesus, the light of the world. Amen. Listen to this: Jesus is not only the light; He cannot be found anywhere else other than in the Word of God. You cannot find the light of the world in any philosophical thought. You cannot find the light of the world in your progressive thinking. No, no, no, no, no! Only Jesus, the light of the world, can truly change our lives. He changed mine, and I know He changed many of your lives.
You know, at Christmas time we have the candlelight service, and every Christmas I remind you of the words of Jesus: «I am the light of the world.» That’s why we light those candles; it’s a symbolic thing. We don’t do it because it’s romantic or because it gives us good ambiance for Christmas. No, no, no! We do it because of what the Bible says about the birth of Jesus. The Bible said in Luke 1:78-79, «Because of the tender mercy of our God, by which the rising sun will come to us from heaven to shine on those living in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the path of peace.» That’s what it says about Jesus on the birth of Jesus in the Gospel of Luke. Read it when you go home.
Question: why did Jesus refer to Himself as the light of the world? Because by definition, light does two things: First, it radiates energy—power energy. And secondly, it shows us the way; it reveals the way. The rays of light break through the ether, and their effect renders the invisible visible. Look at Jesus’s claim one more time with me. «I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness and will have the light of life.»
We are seeing today utter darkness resulting from rejecting the light of the world. We are facing utter darkness of moral relativism. We are seeing the darkness of sexual perversion. In many churches today, we have the darkness of biblical relativism. If the Bible condemns something we like, if the Bible condemns something our culture approves of, if the Bible condemns something the law said is okay, then we get unhitched from these biblical passages. Today, we are facing the darkness of devaluing human life. And in the midst of this engulfing darkness, we who know and love Jesus must uphold His exclusivity as the light of the world.
We must never give in to accommodate the culture or please the people of the world and say, «Yes, you’re right; Jesus is just my Savior, but He’s not everybody else’s Savior.» He is the only Savior for everyone around the globe. Let me dig deeper into the context of this passage. If you look at the first 11 verses in this same chapter, John 8, you’re going to find that these self-righteous Pharisees came to Jesus, dragging a woman who was caught in sin, each of them with a big stone ready to stone her to death.
You read it when you go home. Please read it carefully. All these self-righteous Pharisees came to test Jesus. They came to say to Him, «Okay, she was caught in sin; what are you going to do about it? Are you going to follow the law of Moses or not?» I love what our Lord did; it’s the most amazing thing. He just sat on the ground—remember the dirt ground. There was no pavement; it was just all dirt. And the Bible said He started writing. No, not from here to the left, because it’s Hebrew. He was writing and writing, and they were all waiting with bated breath. They couldn’t wait to get this woman stoned—they were just so ready.
Jesus kept writing and writing. Now the Bible doesn’t tell us what He was writing. So I always go—I don’t go beyond Scripture—but there are a lot of speculations. There’s one speculation that I really love—I’m telling you my bias ahead of time—that what Jesus was writing were the sins of these Pharisees who came with the stones, and He wrote this sin down—yay! And He wrote this sin down. The reason I think this is feasible is that the reaction of these Pharisees was that they would look and say, «Ooh, that’s my name! Oh, He knows what I did!» And they started walking away.
And then it came to the next guy: «Oh, that’s my name! Oh, He knows what I did!» And they walked away. And one after another, they kept going away until no one was left but Jesus. Jesus said to them, «Any of you without sin cast the first stone.»
Listen to me. Here’s the sad part: so many today, so-called progressive evangelical preachers, stop at this point, and they walk away because the light of the world has exposed their hypocrisy, exposed their sin. Beloved, listen to me. Sin has only one cure; sin has only one answer; sin has only one remedy, and it is confession and repentance and receiving forgiveness and grace from the hand of the light of the world.
That is why we must never leave the rest of the story out. He said, «Go and leave behind your life of sin.» Self-righteousness takes pride in sin. Self-righteousness says, «I’m a good person.» Oh, I’m a good person! And they have to say it louder so they can convince themselves. «I’m a good person.» They know deep down they’re not. None of us are. Self-righteousness says, «I can’t help my sin; therefore, God has to accept it and has to accept me that way.» No, no, no, no, no! That is blatant denial of the power of God over sin, of the power of God to forgive sin, of the power of God to enable us to have victory over sin.
When this woman, whose sin was exposed to the light, repented, she was totally forgiven. She was totally forgiven. And the one thing that all of us who have received the light of the world know experientially is that when we repent of our sin, we know that this light of the world is full of grace and full of mercy and willingness to forgive and expose and confess sin. The psalmist said, «If I hide my sin in my heart, if I don’t confess it, if I cherish it,» one translation said, «God will not forgive me.» But if you confess it, John said, «If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. But if we confess, God is faithful and just to forgive us all our sins and our unrighteousness.» God justifies the confessed sin.
Sadly, those who are on a collision course with the lighthouse, the light of the world—those who think they have no sin to confess or that their good will somehow outweigh their bad—are on a collision course with the lighthouse, the light of the world. But the good news about the exposure of our sin, the confession of our sin, the repentance of our sin is the light of the world. Listen to me: the light of the world, after you receive Him, you can never walk in darkness again. You can never live in darkness again. He made sure of it. He’s the one who sustains us to do that.
Once we expose our sin to the light of the world, we cannot stay in the dark for very long; rather, we cannot wait to get back to the light. Hear me right, please—it’s important. By nature, whenever light shines, darkness vanishes. Amen? You cannot have both light and darkness coexist together. When the light of the world, Jesus, comes into our life, sin is no longer committed thoughtlessly, habitually, or calculatingly—or even for a very long time.
Now the question is, what does it mean for Jesus’s disciples to live in the light and stay in the light, the light of the world? Does it mean we’ll become perfect? Does it mean we become sinless? Absolutely not! Absolutely not! But when we are tempted and fail, Christ, the light of the world, will shine the light in that dark corner. We confess, we repent, and we’re restored. Run back to the light! For that is the only way you can be restored.
There can be nothing more frightening than being lost in the darkness. If you have ever been in that situation, you’ll understand what I’m talking about. All the rationalizing of sin will not work. If you are in the darkness of sin, come to Christ, the light of the world. All the efforts to silence the voice of God that is speaking to you will not work. All the efforts to extinguish the light of the world will not work.
Today, the bright light of the world, which I’m lifting up as high as you can see, is waiting for you with open arms. Come to the light! Come to Jesus! Come to Jesus!