Father, sometimes your word speaks of things that are hard for us to maybe accept.
We want to turn our minds and our hearts away from them.
In fact, Father, sometimes your word says things that we might be a little bit embarrassed to talk about.
Father, we thank you so much that you know us.
You know our hearts.
You know our weakness.
And so we ask that you would gently but deeply and powerfully pour out your Holy Spirit upon us
and bring these words of Jesus, his encounter with his opponents,
bring these words of Jesus deeply into the very center of our lives,
that we may have a greater and greater confidence, Father, in Jesus and in you and in the power of the Holy Spirit.
And we ask this in Jesus' name. Amen.
Please be seated.
Amen.
So you might have been wondering why I prayed like that.
And it's a little bit.
I guess this is probably the type of day when we don't have many guests.
But if we do have guests, and I can't quite recognize you right now, welcome.
But there's a bit of a warning.
Today we're going to talk about hell a little bit.
And, you know, it's funny.
I guess there are some churches that talk about hell constantly.
But my limited experience in most Canadian churches is you could go a long season in a church
and never once hear any reference to hell.
But the scripture text that we're going to look at,
because I didn't read all of the texts that I'm going to preach from,
the scripture text that we're going to look at today, Jesus talks about it in effect.
So we're going to talk about it a little bit later on.
So it's a bit of a heads up warning that we're going to talk about hell.
And so let's look at that text.
If you'd like to follow along, it's chapter 8, John chapter 8, verse 12.
And part of the context of what's going on here,
well, first of all, some of you who come here week in and week out,
I mentioned this in my blog.
I don't know if many people read my blog.
That's fine.
But I'm skipping a story, which is in many of your Bibles.
And if you look carefully at most of your Bibles,
if it's at all a modern translation, there's brackets around it.
And that's because the story of the woman caught in adultery
probably shouldn't be in the Bible.
It's not found in the earliest manuscripts.
And because we preach the Bible, I'm going to skip it,
because it probably shouldn't be there.
And you can read my blog.
And if you have more questions, you can talk to me about it during coffee.
You can give me heck if you want or push back.
But the text flows quite interestingly if you take out the story of the woman caught in adultery.
And so the context that's going on here is Jesus has been making some big statements
in the context of lots of disagreement, lots of confusion.
Some people believe him.
Many people are calling him demon-possessed.
His family are rude and gnarky to him.
And he makes this very, very big claim about rivers of life.
If you believe in him, rivers of life will flow out of him.
And so the religious and cultural authorities, they're sort of all one.
And they've been trying to kill Jesus since chapter 5.
But it has this brief scene where they get together once again and say,
listen, we've got to do something about this guy.
We've got to capture him.
He's condemned.
We've got to get rid of him.
And Nicodemus puts up a little quivering hand and says,
like, maybe is this against the law?
And so, you know, as the part that we're reading right now,
it continues on in that vein.
It's talking.
In fact, you know, if you think about it, it's a world very much like ours, isn't it?
We're both in religious circles and outside of religious circles.
Sometimes the law is just inconvenient, isn't it?
Like, I'm not going to get into politics, but the whole pipeline issue with B.C.
The fact that the summer jobs program, the government misrepresents,
the government that's supposed to know what the law is misrepresents the law,
ignores the Charter of Rights and Freedoms to mean that certain people can't get summer jobs.
I mean, there's many times, it's the world we live in, isn't it,
that often the law is an inconvenient thing for those in power.
And it's not just in the secular world.
It's a common problem in churches and religious movements and in mosques
where people just disregard what their holy books say
when they get inconvenient for those who are powerful.
And so it's in this type of context that the Bible says,
again, it's a bit of a loose time marker.
Sometime after what has just happened, but continuing this same thought,
this is what Jesus says.
Verse 12.
Again, Jesus spoke to them saying,
I am the light of the world.
Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness,
but will have the light of life.
Now, just pause here.
This is one of those verses that Christians should memorize.
And it's definitely a verse that we should meditate upon.
It's an unbelievably huge claim.
Jesus doesn't say, I point the way to the light.
He doesn't say, I have a little bit of light within me.
We all have a little bit of light within us.
And let's all just pool our light.
He says, I am, which is a claim to being God.
I am the light of the world.
And there are a small number of religions and faiths and spiritualities
which are basically very dark.
They worship things like blood and violence and death and destruction.
But for most people, the light, and even those dark religions
sort of do so in a type of rebellion and anger against the light.
But it's sort of a universal idea in pagan religions,
in the East and in the West.
This idea of the light being something which is fundamentally good and powerful.
And Jesus makes this sweeping claim that he is the light of the world.
Not a light in the world, but the light of the world.
And that to follow him, which is another analogy or another metaphor
for believing in him, for trusting him,
to believe what he says and to actually try to follow him,
that we will receive something,
that we will actually have the light.
What does it say?
The light of life.
The light that is living.
The light that gives life.
It's an absolutely huge claim.
On Friday at lunchtime, I had the great privilege and honor
to be invited to speak at Parliament Hill
to the Parliament Hill Christian Fellowship.
It sounds more impressive than it is.
It's a small number of mainly Christian staff workers on the Hill
who gather on Fridays to spend a bit of time looking at the Bible
and maybe a brief time in fellowship to get to know each other.
And so I got to speak there at Friday over the lunch hour.
And I always give them a rough draft or a first draft of the talk I'm going to give.
And in their case, I introduced it by saying,
none of you folks will be able to relate to this text
because it deals with the problem of flagrant self-promotion,
something which you, of course, on Parliament Hill
have no experience with whatsoever.
And, of course, it got a bit of a laugh.
And then, of course, somebody said,
of course, in the church nobody's familiar with flagrant self-promotion either,
which is completely and utterly a valid point.
By the way, Andrew, are you having our 1-800 number
and how to give flashing above the screen right now as we speak
for autographed copy?
Never mind.
You know the problem which we live under.
So, you know, on one hand,
we're going to return to this statement a little bit at the end
because it sort of casts its bright light
throughout this entire text that follows.
But, you know, let's just be honest.
I mean, I've talked last week about the Rajna Sri Bhagwan
in the film thing, The Wild Wild West.
And he claimed he was basically divine.
In fact, it's very interesting.
When he was buried, they don't say that he was born and that he died.
What they say is that he only visited this earth.
And he began his visit in whatever it was, 1932,
and he ended his visit in 1990.
But, you know, that's just all malarkey, isn't it?
I mean, the fact of the matter is,
is if you went back, you could find out when he was born
and you know that his...
I mean, you can't find his body now because it was cremated.
But you know that he lived and died.
It's just malarkey to claim that he only visited the planet
and then came for a little while and left.
So Jesus makes this unbelievably huge statement.
It's flagrant self-promotion, isn't it?
I mean, for people who aren't Christians.
And that's how it's recognized by the people who hear him.
It isn't as if they go, oh, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.
No, no.
Jesus is in the middle of all sorts of conflicts.
So how is it that they respond to this big claim that Jesus makes?
Look at verse 13.
In verse 13, it says,
they push back.
So the Pharisees said to him,
you are bearing witness about yourself.
Your testimony isn't true.
They just push back.
I mean, you know, you can just picture Christopher Hitchens
saying something like that.
You can picture your grocer, your accountant, your mechanic,
the stay-at-home dad who lives next door to the artist.
They just say, okay, well, sure, yeah, go ahead.
You can make those claims if you want.
Just you making a claim.
Like, why should I believe it?
So how does Jesus respond to that pushback?
Well, once again, we talked about this similar type of thing a couple of weeks ago.
At first glance, and at second and third glance, in fact,
his answer is profoundly disappointing to us.
But how does he answer?
Well, let's look at how he answered.
It's profoundly disappointing,
but if you press through our disappointment,
which really tells us something about our heart,
not about him, but our heart,
it's a very, very powerful answer.
So how does Jesus respond to their pushback?
Yeah, you're just talking about yourself.
It's not true.
It's just malarkey.
It's baloney.
It's garbage.
So verse 14, Jesus answered,
He said,
Now,
there's sort of three really big things in this innocuous and initially disappointing statement.
The first is the context.
The text begins with a game.
And if you go back and look at the end of chapter 7,
what is it following?
They've illegally, unjustly, and immorally condemned him to death.
Illegally, immorally, unjustly, and in defiance of their scriptures condemned him to death.
And when Nicodemus makes a very timid but still very brave little comment,
Isn't this maybe not right?
They just call him a name.
They just say,
You know what are you?
Are you from Hicksville?
Like, are you from,
Like, what are you from?
Like, are you from northern Saskatchewan or something?
Or northern Ontario?
Like, are you just from where people don't know anything?
Like, just shut up.
So, here it is.
He's having this conversation with people who have unjustly, immorally, improperly, illegally,
and unscripturally found him guilty without any type of trial
and are seeking to have him captured and kill him.
And they're saying,
You're only bearing witness about yourself.
And he says to them,
Well, if I judge, I judge by the truth.
And doesn't your Bible say something about judging?
Now, as you're going to see from the rest of the story,
it doesn't seem as if any of them get red or embarrassed.
I don't mean they become red Tories or something,
like, or liberals.
Like, none of them get red in the face.
None of them seem to have any sense of shame or embarrassment about this.
They have a complete and utter indifference to what they're doing.
So, this raises a very interesting point.
How on earth could Jesus ever bear witness to people like that?
Like, how could he, actually?
When they show no embarrassment or shame when the topic comes up
after what they've done.
It shows there's a bit of a problem, isn't it,
in terms of Jesus trying to reveal himself.
And by the way, the reason that the Bible says this
isn't so we can say,
Gosh, those people are really stupid and evil.
Like, the question, the reason it's raised is for us to say,
Is that me?
You see, that's, we, in a sense, become just like the Pharisees
if we hear this and we say,
Gosh, I wish Trump would hear that.
Or, gosh, I wish Clinton would hear that.
Or, gosh, I wish Trudeau would hear that.
Or, gosh, I wish Kathleen Wynne would hear that.
Or, gosh, I wish Andrew Scheer or Elizabeth May.
Go through the political spectrum.
And the second that we wish that somebody else would hear it,
there's a bit of a question.
Wait a moment.
Am I hearing it?
And then there's a second, even bigger problem with the text.
And it's a problem which is,
it's so big we don't see it.
I know that's a bit contradictory,
but it's so big we don't see it.
Look at verse 15 again.
Sorry, in verse 17.
In your law it is written that the testimony of two people is true.
Well, think about that for a second.
Why is it that the Old Testament laws say that you need at least the testimony of two people?
It's because we human beings lie.
Don't we?
We human beings lie.
We dissemble.
We cloak.
We give ourselves passes.
We make excuses for ourselves.
We flatter ourselves too much to detect or hate our own sin.
We overestimate how smart and brilliant we are and we put other people down.
Unless we get very depressed and everybody seems brilliant and we seem unbelievably dumb.
But that's in fact just the shadow or the other side of the teeter-totter from the fact that we often think of ourselves as like gods.
And so it's because God knows.
You see, if everybody in the people, if we human beings told the truth,
the Old Testament law would just say you only need the testimony of one person.
Because we know that one person tells the truth.
But we know that truth is a complicated, inconvenient...
I mean, the Bible doesn't say that nobody ever says the truth at all or knows the truth.
But it's very frank about the fact that there's a truth problem for human beings.
And when I'm saying human beings, I'm including myself.
I really am.
It's not that because a person becomes a Christian all of a sudden,
it's been like there's been a brain transplant in their head and they now...
and a heart transplant and we only speak the truth.
We know that's not true, don't we?
And so this actually is pointing to another...
Once again, well, how actually is it that the Holy God,
who is true, how does he break in and reveal himself amongst a people
who tell lies and love lies
and have a tricky relationship with the truth?
Well, how actually can God reveal himself in such a context?
And that brings us then to the third sort of aspect.
It's an even bigger problem.
We think to ourselves, we're very disappointed in Jesus' answer.
Well, I know where I'm coming from.
I'm speaking the truth.
And God the Father also bears witness.
And by the way, in John 5, a similar type of argument happened.
And in John 5, if you go back on it and look at it,
basically Jesus says to the Jewish people
that when you hear the Bible, you're hearing God the Father's witness.
But in this particular case, there's another bit of a problem.
If you think about it for a second,
who can bear witness to God?
Like, when I shared this at Parliament Hill Christian Fellowship yesterday,
or Friday,
you know, there's like three or four levels of security
to get into the East Block on Parliament Hill.
There's security guards outside.
They have to make sure the door gets opened.
I go through a screening process.
Then there's a desk.
My things are mic...
Not microwaved.
They look, they scan everything.
I have to go through this as if I'm going to fly in an airplane.
And if my name's not on the list,
I don't even get through the first door.
But if that happened,
if for some reason my name wasn't on the list,
which happened a couple of months ago
when I went invited to speak,
I can call Craig.
And Craig will either come down himself or somebody else.
And they can come and they can deal with it.
He can bear witness to me.
He's another human being.
He can bear witness to me.
But who's going to bear witness to God?
And if you think about it for a second,
if we human beings have a truth problem
and a lying problem,
then, like, how's that going to actually work?
Like, if we just think about it for a second,
how's that going to work?
And that's one of the things which is so profound
about John's Gospel,
is that John just keeps on...
Jesus keeps sort of pointing
to this particular thing.
And we think he's dodging the bullet,
but he's actually just forcing us
to ask ourselves the question,
one second,
let me just think about this for a second.
How is it that any human being
can bear witness to God?
Like, there's going to be a bit of a problem.
If you could put up the first point, Andrew,
and this is something...
I got inspired for this point
by a man by the name of Leslie Newbigin.
He gave me the germ of the idea,
and I sort of changed the language.
But the only way for light
to bear witness in darkness
is to continue shining bright and clear.
The only way for light
to bear witness in darkness
is to continue shining bright and clear.
You see, light can't ask darkness
for a witness, can it?
Darkness, could you just give me
a little bit of a push?
Darkness is dark.
Now, some of you might say,
well, George,
I can sort of see the problem,
but, I mean,
does that just mean
anybody can just make these big claims,
can't they?
In fact, there's a very, very different thing
that's going on here in the story,
and part of it is
that you have to remember
that the gospel of John is a book.
Story, I have a little bit...
Because I've watched this movie
about the wild, wild country,
which you don't have to watch it.
I just found it very...
I found it very moving,
very curious and everything like that,
and this guy, Rajneesh,
who made this claims to be God
and was going to create, like,
the new man in the middle of Oregon,
all the while amassing
more semi-automatic weapons
than all of the police forces
in Oregon at the same time.
Like, is there any discont...
Is there any dichotomy
between these ideas?
Well, the fact that a lot of his followers
didn't sense any type of dichotomy
is that I found this out
from a Christopher Hitchens, actually,
that he actually had gone
to the original ashram in India
in the early 80s,
and, I mean, he's been dead
a few years now,
but he actually...
There's a thing on the internet
you can find about Hitchens
commenting about this guy,
and what he says,
which they don't show
in the documentary,
is when you go into the ashram
where the Rajneesh
was going to be doing his teaching,
there was a big sign
over the ashram
before you entered,
and it said,
please take...
I should have written it down.
Basically,
please remove your shoes,
or please take your shoes off
and turn your mind off,
basically.
Oh, no, that's it.
Sorry.
I got the wording now.
Leave your shoes
and your mind
at the door.
Leave your shoes
and your mind
at the door.
Now, Jesus never tells us
to leave our mind behind.
And at the end of the day,
the full answer to this
in the context of Jesus
is just his wisdom,
his shrewdness,
his insight,
his goodness,
his gentleness,
his humility,
but the full answer
to their question
won't come for another
13 chapters
and in real time
six months
when he dies upon the cross
and he rises from the dead.
That's, in fact,
how God vindicates
his son
by having him
die on the cross
and rise from the dead.
the Romans
crucified
thousands and thousands,
hundreds of thousands
of people
and to my knowledge
in all of
the history
of crucifixion
there was only one person
who ever partially
survived a crucifixion
but it was a very
unusual one.
It didn't go with
the flogging beforehand
and they weren't
crucified for a very long,
just like an hour
or something like that
and there were physicians
who were right there
to care for him
and he sort of survived.
But in centuries
of this as a punishment,
hundreds of thousands,
that's the only case
and it's not like Jesus is
with the flogging,
with the spear thrust.
And it's not just
the resurrection of Jesus
which is going to be
the vindication of it.
It's both
as we're going to see
in a moment.
It's his death upon the cross
which in an odd way
vindicates who he is
because he said
he's going to die on the cross
and his resurrection
from the dead
vindicates who he is
and what he said.
So there's going to be
a vindication
by a spectacular miracle
on top of the other signs
and miracles
which Jesus has done
and there's never
any invitation
for us to leave
our mind behind
when we read the Bible.
In fact,
the problem we have
when we read the Bible
is that we
don't actually
look deeply enough
at what's being said
to pierce behind
our arrogance
and our disappointment
in the answers.
It's the shallowness
of our thought
which is the problem
and the scripture
keeps calling us
to pay heed,
to look deeper,
to look at our own heart,
to look at how
our own mind works,
to look at the problem,
to consider it.
So,
Jesus has pointed
to a big elephant
in the room
about judging
and the fact
that they've done
something illegal,
unjust,
and immoral.
how is it the Pharisees
respond
to Jesus'
bringing an elephant
into the room,
whether they notice it
or not,
whether they're so filled
with pride and conceit
that they don't notice it
or how do they respond?
Well, let's look
in verse 19.
They said to him,
therefore,
where is your father?
Jesus answered,
you know neither
me nor my father.
If you knew me,
you would know
my father also.
These words he spoke
in the treasury
as he taught
in the temple,
but no one arrested him
because his hour
had not yet come.
It's a very interesting thing.
They don't say to him,
who is your father?
They say,
where is your father?
Isn't that an interesting question?
Where is your father?
Now,
part of it's
probably a little bit
of a put down
because they might know
that there's
these claims
of a virgin birth
and that Joseph
really,
in a sense,
had to adopt Jesus
and didn't marry Mary
until she was quite
noticeably pregnant
and it might be
a little bit
of a put down
about,
yeah,
where is your dad?
Jesus,
where is your dad?
Do you even know
who he is?
But,
of course,
the great tragedy
and irony
is that God,
the Son of God,
is standing right
in front of them.
God,
the Son of God,
who reveals God,
is standing
right in front of them.
of all people
in the history
of the planet
most privileged
and blessed
that they could see
God,
the Son of God,
stand in front of them
and have a conversation
with them.
But instead,
they sneer.
Is this talking
about me?
So,
Jesus said to them
again,
verse 21,
and this is a very,
very,
it's a very small
little sentence,
but it's a very,
very powerful sentence.
And it's one of those
things which I'm sure
for John
and the disciples
later on
as they thought
about it,
they thought about
the profound
insight of Jesus
and the profound
tragedy of what
he says.
He says in
verse 21,
we'll read
21 and 22,
I am going,
Jesus said to them
again,
so Jesus said to them
again,
because you're not
getting it,
I am going away
and you will seek
me and you will
die in your sin.
Where I am going,
you cannot come.
Say it again
and then we'll read
22,
I am going away
and you will
seek me
and you will
die in your sin.
Where I am going,
you cannot come.
So the Jew said,
will he kill himself
since he says
where I am going,
you cannot come?
Now here's the
great,
great tragedy
of this text.
The people who say
this are plotting
his death.
That's how the story
goes.
They are plotting
his death.
Just before this,
they said they
weren't able to
arrest him because
his hour had not
yet come.
It's just in the
shadow of their
attempts to arrest
him so they can
have him put to
death.
And in a sense,
they have the gall
to wonder whether
he's talking about
suicide.
He's not talking
about suicide.
He's talking about
his impending
murder by those
same people who
are asking him
these snarky
comments and
questions.
And the great
tragedy is there
seems to be no
reddening of the
face or looking
down or shuffling
of the feet or
embarrassment or
catching of the
throat.
They seem to be
completely blind.
But look,
listen again to what
Jesus says,
I am going away.
He's referring to
his death.
He's referring to
the fact, as we'll
see in another
couple of verses,
that he knows that
he's going to go,
that he's going to
die.
And then he says,
and you will seek
me.
But isn't that very
interesting?
Because that's exactly
what does happen.
They seek his body
because they can't
believe he actually
rose from the dead.
And as you know
from reading the
other biographies,
they seek the body,
they bribe the
soldiers, they
collude with the
Roman authorities
to make sure that
the soldiers aren't
punished, and they
pay the soldiers
and they put out
lies because they
can't find the body.
What do they seek?
They seek his body.
They don't seek
him.
They don't seek
him.
They seek his body.
And so what does
he say?
I'm going away,
and you will
seek me, and you
will die in your
sin.
Where I am going,
you cannot come.
Now this is where
we're going to talk
a little bit
about
hell.
Let's read verses
21 to 23
and 24
first.
So you notice how
just at the end
of 21 he says,
where I am going,
you cannot come,
and just before
that you will die
in your sin.
And three times
you will die
in your sin is
said.
The first one in
21, you will die
in your sin.
23, he said to
them, you are
from below, I am
from above, you are
of this world, I am
not of this world.
I have told you
that you would die
in your sins.
For unless you
believe that I am
he, you will die
in your sins.
Three times.
Just a couple of
months ago, one of
the people that I've
had quite a few
conversations with
about the Christian
faith, and I've
tried to share the
gospel with her.
Out of the blue,
she said, George,
do you think I'm
going to go to
hell?
Are you one of
those Christians
who believe in
hell?
And if you do, that
must mean I'm going
there.
Is that what you
believe, George?
I wasn't prepared
for the question.
And it's one of
those things I wish
I could tell you
that I gave you a
really snappy
response.
I can't really
fully remember my
response.
I wonder if there
was a videotape,
if it would have
shown me looking
like I was a deer
caught in the
headlights.
I hope not.
I know I didn't
back down and say
no.
And I know
afterwards I
thought of about
three different
things I could
have said that
would have been
a better answer.
But I know I
did say that,
yes, there is a
hell, and I
mean, that's all
part of the
reason of Jesus,
is to put your
faith and trust in
him so that you
don't go to hell.
And I probably
said something about
how my, it's not
that I'm better
than anybody else.
No Christian should
ever think they're
better than another
person, that we
are dependent upon
God's grace.
I know I gave
some type of an
answer, and I
know I didn't
back down and
say, no, no, no,
no, no, we
don't believe those
things, or no,
no, no, you
don't have to
worry.
Like, I know I
didn't say
anything like that.
And I, we've
never returned to
the topic, and
she still speaks to
me sometimes, so
I guess it was,
you know, this is a,
I just want to
share this with you
because, you know,
one of the things
that we worry about
when we bear witness
about Jesus is that
we're going to
blow it.
So here's the
good news.
You will blow it.
So get over it.
Because you will
blow it.
Everybody blows it.
Everybody without
exception blows it.
But that's, Jesus is
the evangelist, not
you and me.
The Holy Spirit is
the one who moves.
Just try to be as
honest as you can and
as loving as you can
and do the best you
can, and it's the
Holy Spirit that does
the work of
evangelism, not you.
But if you could
put up the next
point, Andrew, here's
the thing.
Jesus warned of
hell, so if I never
warn of hell, I am
not being Christ-like.
By the way, this
point and my next
point, there's a guy
by the name of J.C.
Ryle, and he said
something like this,
and I've sort of
adapted his little
insight just to, I
just adapted it, but
I have to give the
credit to Ryle for
this in the next
point.
But Jesus warned
of hell.
So if I never
warn of hell, I'm
not being Christ-like.
And that's what
Jesus says.
Look at that verse
21 again, and you
will die in your
sin.
Where I am going,
you cannot come.
And then they
repeat it in 22 as
a sort of a
question.
Will he kill
himself?
Since he said,
where I am going,
you cannot come.
So you sort of
notice it.
And then in
verse 24, he
says, I told you
that you would die
in your sins.
For unless you
believe that I am
he, you will die
in your sins.
Now, in evangelism,
I would never raise
the topic of hell in
Canada because it
would just cause
people to roll
their eyes.
There's other ways
you have to bear
witness to Jesus.
Jesus.
But the reason I
put this up is
because every
Christian has the
problem of
potentially turning
into a duck.
You know that
old thing, if you
start walking like
a duck, talking
like a duck,
pooping like a
duck, shedding
little duck-lean
feathers, and you've
just turned into a
duck.
And it's really
easy for us to
sort of just become
completely and
utterly comfortable
in the world.
And before you
know it, we just
don't look any
different than
people in the
world.
And the fact of
the matter is, is
all we've done is
become worldly, and
maybe we've never
been a Christian at
all.
And so even though
it might be that we
very rarely have to
actually warn
somebody about hell,
it's one of those
truths which is
central to the
Christian faith, which
we need to hold
clear.
Because even if
we're talking to
people and we're
doing lots of other
different ways of
bearing witness to
Jesus, we have to
remember where true
north is.
We have to
remember where we
are.
We have to
remember what's
true.
And the fact of
the matter is, is
that hell exists.
And one of the
great problems that
I have, and
probably you, is
that we've lost any
sense of the
lostness of the
lost.
We start to lose
any sense of the
lostness of the
lost.
And so we can
have a very hard
time sharing the
gospel with those
who seem to be
very good.
And we start to
live and pray as
if the good people
in Canada, and
there's lots of
good people in
Canada who live
far better lives
than you and I,
and it's as if
they don't need
the gospel.
But everybody, good
people need the
gospel.
The lost are
lost.
And I don't say
that because I'm
special.
I just say that
because what does
Jesus say?
Jesus warns us of
it, and he said,
he invites us to
believe that he
is the one, that
he is the light
that comes into
the world, that he
is the one who's
the source of the
river of life, that
he is the bread of
life.
He keeps saying
things like this,
that we would say,
Jesus, I need you.
Please be my
savior.
Please, I want to
follow you.
I want to be
yours.
I want the light
that gives life.
I can't do it
myself.
I humbly
acknowledge that I'm
completely and utterly
dependent upon you.
Jesus doesn't say
these things to
depress us, but that
we would call out to
him for savior.
And you know, these
lines here, it tells
us something about
the gospel.
It tells us something
about the gospel.
Let's just keep
reading to see how
they respond.
Verse 25, so they
said to him, who are
you?
And Jesus said to
them, just what I
have been telling you
from the beginning.
Verse 26, I have
much to say about
you and much to
judge, but he who
sent me is true and
I declare to the
world what I heard
from him.
Verse 27, they did
not understand that
he had been speaking
to them about the
father.
So Jesus said to
them, when you have
lifted up the son of
man, then you will
know that I am he
and that I do nothing
on my own authority,
but speak just as the
father taught me.
And he who sent me
is with me.
He has not left me
alone, for I always
do the things that are
pleasing to him.
And all the way
through John's gospel,
when you hear the
phrase, when you have
lifted me up, when I
am lifted up, it's
always referring to his
crucifixion.
So you see, here's the
blessed hope.
If you could put this
up, Andrew, that would
be a great help.
In Christ, when you
put your faith in, when
I put my faith in
Christ, when you put
your faith in Christ,
your sins die before
you do, because it
dies with him.
Without Christ, you
die in your sin.
That's the gospel.
When I follow Jesus,
when I put my faith and
trust in him, my sin
has died with him.
When I die, I don't
die in my sin.
I die in him.
My sin died 2,000 years
ago in him.
That's the hope of the
gospel.
Brothers and sisters, if
you are in Christ, when
you die, right now you
might be struggling with
depression.
You might be struggling
with feeling very
unworthy.
You might be struggling
with feeling like you
are a failure.
You might be struggling
with some great
besetting sin, which
seems as if it's going
to devour you.
You might be struggling
with dashed hopes and
failed dreams, but I
can tell you right now
that when you die, your
sin died 2,000 years
ago because you put your
faith and trust in Jesus.
You do not die in your
failure.
You do not die in your
sin.
You do not die in your
shame.
You die in Christ.
But without Christ,
without Christ, you die in
your sin.
You die in your sin.
And so would I.
I am not special.
I am saved.
But I am not special.
And I am not being a
narcissist and saying that.
Far from it.
That far from it.
Because a Christian isn't
saying, I'm a narcissist.
I'm so wonderful.
I'm so beautiful.
I look at Facebook and I
never get depressed because
I just think I am so
wonderful.
That's not the Christian
life.
The Christian life is my
sin has to die.
I don't want to die in my
sin.
Jesus, take my sin.
If you could put up the
final point, Andrew, that
would be very good.
Jesus says to you and me,
I am the light of the
world.
Whoever follows me will
not walk in darkness, but
will have the light of
life.
That's the bright light
that shines over this.
In the face of people who
have judged Jesus unjustly,
immorally, and unbiblically.
In the face of people who
have no shame, no
embarrassment.
Jesus just says, listen, I
am the light of the world.
I am the light of the
world.
Listen, George, I know you
have a truth problem.
I know you have a sin
problem.
I know you have a shame
problem.
I know all these things
about you, George.
I am light of the world.
Follow me.
Come and follow me.
And what am I going to
give you?
The light that gives life.
We all know that truth can
be very cruel and very, very
hard.
And truth can condemn.
I was speaking to a
retired professor on the
streets of Ottawa just the
other day, and he went on
about a 10-minute rant about
how terrible university
students are nowadays.
how they're all a complete
dead loss.
He's lucky if he finds one
in a billion who have even a
spark of interest or
intellect or desire to read
or learn.
I could go on and on and
on.
I could not master his
eloquence.
But he went on for 10
minutes.
And I said after that was
all, and he talked about
how the whole educational
system is completely corrupt.
It's a complete and utter
scam.
The government knows this.
Everybody knows this.
Students go into it knowing
that it's like getting a
lottery ticket.
You don't get jobs out of
it.
On and on and on and on
and on.
And after he finally caught
a breath, I said, well,
thank you for giving me a
dose of optimism this
afternoon.
Whether or not he's true or
not, I don't know.
But the truth can be cruel.
I doubt he's true.
He was filled with despair.
The truth often just brings
death.
But Jesus is the light, the
truth that brings life.
And he offers it to us.
One final thing, brothers
and sisters, just before
we go, two final things.
First of all, if you haven't
given your life to Jesus,
follow the light.
He's calling you.
He's calling you to come to
him and say, Jesus, you are
the light of the world.
I want to follow you.
And I know if it's just up to
me following you, I'm going
to fail.
So grab a hold of me and
Jesus, thank you that you
will never let me go.
And give me this light that
gives life.
And the second thing is one
of the things that we can
pray about us as a church.
Our culture is increasingly
becoming a culture that
pursues and embraces death.
Can you pray that we will
become an island of life,
an island of light in a
nation that is slowly but
surely embracing death?
Make us an island of light
that prays for our nation,
that it will turn away from a
culture of death.
Please stand.
Bow our heads in prayer.
Father, we know that light is
life.
We know that light is life.
And we thank you for Jesus.
We thank you that he is the
light of the world.
We thank you, Father, that he
came into this dark world and he
just shone bright and clear and
pure.
That he shines in a way that
touches our hearts, that changes
our destinies.
And not just changes our
destinies, but changes how we can
begin to live today.
As the light that brings life
becomes the ground upon which we
stand, the covering over our head,
the oxygen that we breathe, the
drink that we drink and the food
that we eat.
Father, make us disciples of Jesus
who are gripped by the gospel,
learning to live by following
Jesus and having the light that
gives life.
Father, help us to be gripped by
the gospel and live for your glory.
And we ask this in the name of
Jesus.
Amen.