Jesus: The Light of the World Part 4 - Make Room for the Joy of the Lord - John 8:38

1:46And I'd say many of us do not believe upon Christ as we should. And John makes it very clear that these who professed this superficial belief in him in verse 30 were not true believers. They did not have saving faith. And that brings us to our verse this morning. Look at verse 38. I speak the things which I have seen with my father, therefore you also do the things which you have heard from your father. We're going to come to those words here in a moment. But before we keep going in this rich passage, John 8, I want us to stop. I want us to give more thought to making room for Jesus in our lives. It's where I left off last week with this exhortation to make room for Jesus in your life. That is, by making more time in your daily and weekly routine to be hearing, meditating upon God's Word. And so, I really want to drive this home because if we fail here, we fail.

3:08If we do not make room, we can never be his disciples. And so, the exhortation, again, to make room, but it's not just making room for an impersonal individual. This really is the one that God has given to restore joy, to bring lasting satisfaction, to bring true freedom. This is where humanity thrives. This is the banquet. And so, he says, make room for Jesus. Look at verse 8:12. Remember, here, backing up, Jesus declared himself to be the light of the world. He said, I am the light of the world. He who follows me will not walk in the darkness, but will have the light of life. And Jesus leaves us with two options in this world. He makes it very clear that the true disciple is the one who continues to follow Christ. There's a lot of reasons why some might start with Christ and not go on. But he makes it very clear that the true disciple is the one who continues to follow Christ. And Jesus, as the light of the world, shines his heavenly truth into the darkened realm of fallen humanity, and he leaves us with two options. How do you respond to the light? Well, you can. Can either accommodate the light by making room for him and his words, or you can be seeking to extinguish his light by rejecting him and his influence. Who has influence over your life? Who is the primary one who influences you? I want all of you to think deeply and answer this question as honestly as you can with your soul. Who is the primary influence in your life? This, as we will get to, is your father. And there's one of two. And you will either make room or you will seek to murder him. And that's what happens in our passage that we're working through. Jesus left the Jews there when he declared himself being the light of the world. He left them with two choices. You can either make room for Jesus in your life or you can murder him. You can make room for his influence or you can silence his influence. And that's what he does with these people here. And guess what they chose? They chose to murder. They didn't like what he had to say. They didn't want to go where he was taking them. They didn't want to follow him, so they chose to murder him. And they will do so later.

5:53But it's important for us to understand why. Why would they seek? To murder somebody who was doing such good in their midst, why would they choose to murder an individual that had been so good? Why would they murder instead of making room? We have to bring that question down to us today. Why would we choose to silence his influence as opposed to embrace or welcome his influence? We need to know why they chose to murder him so that we do not make the same mistake. So, before moving on, what I want to do this morning, before moving on in our passage in the weeks ahead, I want to reorient you to where we are, and I want to re-emphasize this exhortation to make room for Jesus. We're still here at the Feast of Tabernacles. We have been for some while, and there are two major declarations that Jesus makes at this feast: one, and we'll look at both of them, we'll look at both of them here in a minute. But this Feast of Tabernacles, it was the celebration of joy. And two key features of this celebration: water, the daily water libation of going down to the pool of Siloam, scooping up the water. Bringing up and pouring it out on the altar, and light lighting up the temple. So, water and light are the center, really, of this celebration. And these are expressions of joy. In fact, one rabbi would say, You have not experienced true joy unless you've been there at the Feast of Tabernacles and seen the light, see the water, all of this.

8:01And so, what I want to do is, I want you to make room for Jesus. That's the exhortation of my whole ministry, if it will be, and the purpose of this church: make room for Jesus in your life. That's the exhortation. And I want you to do so so that you will experience the joy that can only come from being a true disciple. Make room for Jesus so that you will experience the joy that can only come by being a true disciple.

8:36Two reasons. I want to give you this morning two reasons why you should be making more room for Jesus' teaching, and then I want to give you the only reason why you wouldn't. Okay? I want to talk to your head, and then I want to talk to your heart. I want to talk to your head and give you two reasons why you should be making more room for Jesus in your life. And then I want to talk to you about the reason, in fact, the only reason why you would refuse and go down the path of murder instead, the path of accommodating him.

9:11So, two reasons why you should, and one reason why you will refuse. So, first reason, and this is going to be by way of review: first reason why you should be making room for Jesus in your life is because, number one, those who make room for Jesus will be satisfied by him. If you turn back to John chapter 7, verses 37, Jesus makes one of the most generous invitations and promises recorded in Scripture. You'll remember this in verse 37. Now, on the last day, the great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried out, saying, If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. He who believes in me, as the scripture said, from his innermost being will flow rivers of living water. But this he spoke of the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were to receive, for the Spirit was not yet given, because Jesus was not yet glorified. So here you have an invitation to the thirsty.

10:19Here he is speaking about water, living water, the thought connected with the drawing of the water from Siloam, the pool of Siloam. And Jesus is saying, listen. And he cries out, very uncharacteristic of him. Here is heaven's king himself coming to deliver you an invitation. And he is going to do so in the most dramatic fashion. He's going to cry out. One who isn't characteristically crying out, he stands up and he says, Listen, everything you are acting out points to me. I am the one who will satisfy your soul, and I am the only one that can satisfy your soul. So come to me. That's what he publicly says.

11:04And notice this invitation is for the thirsty. Oh, it goes out far and wide, but it is for the thirsty. Who are the thirsty? The thirsty are those who are anxious in soul, who know there's something not right, those who have a need that needs remedy, a longing that needs to be satisfied. Those people who are in need of soul relief. That's who this goes out to. You know, last week, thank you for praying for us. We were in California during some pretty interesting fires. We went out, Nancy and I went out to a missions event for the Masters Academy International. It was a, it's one of the president's retreat. It's one of the most important gatherings, really, in many ways of the year for the. Mission agency. And we were there.

12:05Our plane landed round 2-ish, 2:30-ish, waited a long time to get our car, and then we were off on the road. And we noticed off in the distance, wow, there looks like smoke. The fire had really just started. We're making our way up the interstate, and we see the we just get the smoke gets thicker and thicker and thicker. And we come to our resort, which is this really nice little place there in Agura Hills. And we make our way in there, and the smoke. It's like, wow, there's smoke everywhere.

12:38So the smoke is so thick that the event had to be moved indoors. We usually have it out in this nice little patio area, but moved it inside. And so a lot of the VIPs of this agency are there. So it's really a fun time. You'll remember Todd Friel and Susan, you know, they were with us. They were there. You remember Eric Weathers, and you remember, you probably recognize several individuals. But anyway, so we're there. We have this nice meeting. We go to our rooms, and Nancy's like, you know what? A lot of smoke in here. So we take toilet paper and we stuff every crack in our room. It's like, well, there's a lot of smoke. And she's like, I think we've got, that fire is getting pretty close. I'll go to bed, no problem. Around 2:45 in the morning.

13:30Fireman yelling, Get out of here. You have 10 minutes to get out of here. The fire has taken an aggressive turn and move towards this place. And it burned pretty much all around that resort. I think they saved the resort, but it was pretty much gone up there where Johnny and friends and all those are. All that area just gets hit very hard. We're right in the middle of it. So at 2:45, we get up, we make our way out.

13:59And it was fun. We can look back and laugh now. It was fun to see all these VIPs, you know, at 2:45 in the morning and their wives, you know, pulling out. I didn't realize Eric Weather's hair could stand up like it did, you know, because he and it was just we got out. They closed out, they closed down the event, or they closed down the freeway right after we got. So we had to escape. And so thank you for praying. We kind of lived as refugees. Others were not so fortunate, if you read the news. And we had 10 minutes to pack a hotel room. Some people had 10 minutes to pack everything they owned. And some didn't even have that much time. But here's a testimony of a local nurse. And she described how she was nearly killed by getting away from the radiology building at the hospital. She gets in her car, she starts taking off, and then all of a sudden she's rammed into the ditch by another person trying to get away from the fire. She's fleeing, she then runs to another car, but the door handles are melting. So then she keeps going, and her pants catch on fire. Okay, and then she's breathed. The air is so hot that she can taste blood now in her lungs. She is in the hottest air she's ever been in. Then she's about to hit the ground, but then she realizes the soles of her feet are melting. The shoes on her feet are melting. So that's no refuge. And so here she is, thinking she's going to die, and she just cries out to God. She says, she put her hands out in front of her and said, God, please do not let me die like this. That's a soul crying out with thirst. A soul crying out for need.

16:03But you can imagine the relief she felt when no sooner had she finished praying than through the smoke and through the blaze, a team of firefighters came through. But this is what Christ is saying. You who are thirsty in soul, you who need soul relief, come to me and I will. Satisfy your soul. Listen, the thirsty soul is one who feels the conviction of sin, the one who feels a deep need for God to bring relief. The thirsty soul is the one who is pained over sin and its consequences, the one who desires victory over sin, the one who yearns for forgiveness, the one who yearns for reconciliation, the one who yearns for peace in their lives, for rest, for those who long for true companionship with God.

17:11The thirsty soul is the one who says, This, God, do not let me go on living like this. That's a thirsty soul. Do you thirst for him today? Well, Jesus invites people to be coming and drinking in what he gives. And the promise, the promise back in this verse, verse 38, is to find their satisfaction. Come to me, and I will satisfy your soul. That is his promise. It's what he does is he invites people to abandon their self-reliance. He calls them to be satisfied in him. And look back at verse 3. 38, how is one satisfied in Christ? By believing in Him. He promised to satisfy all those who believe in Him.

18:11Do you believe Him? Do you believe that this call is for you? You see, faith is necessary to find satisfaction. If you don't believe in Him, if you don't believe His claims, you'll never come to, you will never find satisfaction in Him. Now, listen, how do we walk with the Spirit anyway? You might be thinking today, like it's a little bit easier to walk with people, isn't it? Right? It's easier for me to walk with Nancy because Nancy's my wife and she's there. I can walk by sight with her, right? It's a little more difficult to walk by faith, right? You might think, right? Or is it?

18:58Is it easier to walk with somebody by sight, or is it easier to walk with God by faith? Let me ask you a couple of questions, and I want you to go in your mind right now to the individual that you think knows you the best or who loves you the most. You think about your closest companionship. And let me ask you: can you walk with that person through life? Can they be there in your life all the time?

19:31Can they? My wife and I, we can, as close as we are, she isn't always there, right? She can't be. She's not omnipresent. But Christ has promised to never leave you, never forsake you. He is always there. Do you believe that? Or do you think he's lying? Those are really your two options. Let me ask you another question about this person that might be closest to you. Do they know every little detail about you? Even Nancy, my wife, doesn't know every detail about me. She can't be there all the time, nor does she really truly know me. Yet, Scripture is very clear that God knows us deeply, every detail. He knows us better than we know ourselves. So is it easier to walk with one who can't always be there? No, God says he is always there. What about this? Is the one you think is closest to you? Are they perfectly unselfish? Even if they knew everything about you, and even if they were with you all the time, would they be unselfish enough to make sacrifice to meet your needs?

20:52We're fallen human. You can't look through other people to do that, right? But Christ is perfect. And because of his perfection, he is perfectly. Unselfish, and he perfectly gives and sacrifices. So he's always there. He knows everything about you, and he knows how to be, he is completely unselfish. A fourth, let me ask you this: the person that you know the best, are they able to satisfy? Even if they could always be with you, know you perfectly, and be and they were perfectly unselfish, could they really meet?

21:29Are they able to satisfy your soul? There's no one like that. Do you believe that? Do you believe that what Jesus says here, come to me and I will satisfy your soul? Do you believe him? You see, faith is necessary. Either he's lying or he's not. You see, we demonstrate that we believe him when we make room for him, when we make room for his teaching in our lives, when we take time to hear, meditate, and obey. That's when we hear. That's when we believe.

22:13And notice that, notice the degree in verse 38. Those who come to him, he satisfies joyfully, and he joyfully satisfies them, and he himself is joyful, and the satisfaction he gives. Joyful. Verse 38, he who believes in me, as the scripture said, from his innermost being will flow rivers of living water. In other words, he will give of his own spirit. He will satisfy to such a degree that you yourself will become a source of satisfaction to others. Not only will you be joyfully satisfied, but you will become a fountain of joyful satisfaction to others. That's the degree of satisfaction he gives and he offers.

23:06So the first reason why you should make room for Jesus is because you will be satisfied in him. Second reason why you should be making room for Jesus is because those who make room for Jesus will truly live. Remember back in chapter 8 and verse 12, look ahead. He promised, he says he's the light of the world, and he promised those who continue in him will have the light of life. You see, Jesus is present with his word. Where his word is, he is. And so when you make room in your weekly routine for his words, authored by his spirit, and you expose your mind to his words and meditate upon his words, and you take Time to make room to carry out the demands of His words. You walk in the light. You walk with the light.

24:13You see, the Spirit of Jesus Christ is in and with those who follow Him. So, how do we walk in the Spirit of God? Well, just what I said. By hearing, by meditating, and obeying the revealed words of His Spirit. You see, I think we intuitively know this. What you make room for in your life, what you let dominate your thinking, affects the way you think or the way you act, the way you feel. Why do you do the things you do? Well, let me ask you a question: Who are you making room for in your life? What voice, what influence holds prominent sway in your life? Now, I think, let me say it like this, and I think we all get this. Let's suppose you are Jewish and you're living in Germany, the time of Adolf Hitler. And let's suppose you get an invitation, you get two invitations to go out to dinner. And the first invitation comes from an individual who loves God's Word, who meditates on. On his word day and night, who loves the word, who is constantly seen obeying the word. Now, let me ask you: let's suppose there's another invitation that you get, and it comes from an individual who reads nothing but Adolf Hitler's propaganda. Who would you rather go have dinner with? Is that a hard one? It really isn't, is it? Because intuitively, we know what drives our thinking, what we let into our mind, is going to drive the way we act or how we feel.

26:10I want to focus on something here. Jesus said, Those who follow Him will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life. So, there's no wonder we are such a depressed society. There is, it's because what we let in our mind all week long drives the way we feel, the way we act. I want to focus on this concept of life here. And let me tell you something about Jesus: He knew how to live, he really knew how to live. Okay, he, every aspect of his being was perfectly alive. He was. Was alive.

27:02All of his emotions were perfectly in tune and perfectly responded in every situation to the Father. Perfect alignment. I mean, he knew how to mourn over sin. He knew how to grieve over the effects of sin. That's because he's alive in a fallen world. He knew how to display appropriate anger at the right time. And other times he knew how to breathe a heavy sigh. He also knew how to laugh. Listen, there can be as much holiness in a laugh as there can be in a cry. There can be as much display of holiness in a smile as there can be in a sigh.

27:54You see, Jesus knew how to rejoice in the good. He knew how to enjoy fellowship with one another. He was perfectly alive. Sometimes he listened. Sometimes he spoke. Sometimes he was indignant over sin and the misery it causes. Sometimes he was passionate to set things straight. Sometimes he was indifferent to the selfish demands that were placed upon him. But those who let him be who he was really enjoyed his company. And that's what I want you to do. Let him be who he is. Listen, the only people that really had problems with Jesus in his day were those who tried to bully him around or make him do, or called him a liar, or denied who he was. But those who received him as he was and let him be who he was in their lives really enjoyed his company.

29:00We can say this about Jesus: he frowned, he mourned, he smiled, and he laughed. He displayed the full range of human emotions throughout his entire life. That was Christ. Everything was in perfect harmony with the Father's heart. Let me tell you something else about him. There was an innocence about him, he loved life. He was the picture of joy. He delighted in the Father's will. He was a perfect picture of innocent joy. Hebrews 12:1 says some of the most astounding words in Scripture. He says, Let us run with endurance the race that is set before us. Okay, so you run the race before you. Now, how do you do this? By fixing verse. To fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who, for the joy set before him, endured the cross.

30:12Joy? Cross. It doesn't say that the cross was a joyful experience, but when he looks at the agony of the cross and he looks at the joy to follow, he can go straight to the cross for the joy set before him. You know what's driving him to go to the cross is the joy of the Father and sharing that with his people. It's like Jesus is saying, I will joyfully go through the cross for the reward on the other side. Listen, he came to re-establish true joy upon the earth.

30:51He wanted his people to delight in his Father's will as he did. And guess what? But before Jesus could lead his people into the joy of life, he had to set them free from the tyranny of sin. Look at chapter 8 and verse 31. We spent a little time there last week. If you continue in my word, then you are truly disciples of mine. And you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free. Look at verse 34. Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who commits Sin is the slave of sin. The slave does not remain in the house forever. The Son does remain forever. So if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed.

31:43You know what being enslaved to sin is like? I'm going to tell you: if you do not know Christ, if you are not growing and making room for Him in your life, let me tell you, let me describe who you are. You are like a dead man on a horse, strapped to the horse, let loose in a barren wasteland. That's you. Or I could say it like this: if you do not know Christ and you are not progressively making more room for him in your life, you're living in a tomb. And before you can truly live, you must get out of the tomb. You are incarcerated by your own sinful desires, by your own sinful direction, and it owns you. And it's going to define who you are. And it's going to take you where it wants to take you.

32:48But the Son of God came to set people free from their slavery. Who are you serving? Who is your master? And that's where this is going. You see, he came to set his people free from slavery so that they could begin to experience the joy of being fully human, to the joy of being in stepped with the joy of their creator. That's where God wants us to live. And that's why Christ came. I'd love to say so much more on this. Listen, the truth frees. How does the truth free? Well, the truth kills the many fears which ignorance to the truth brings.

33:40The knowledge of the love of God brings a freedom. The knowledge of the full atonement and the righteousness that covers his people brings an incredible amount of freedom to come right into his presence. The knowledge of the eternal nature of the new covenant, it's not going out of style, it's not going to be upgraded. The knowledge of the unchangeable faithfulness of God, it never changes. It's liberating truth. It sets the soul free from the prisons of our own fears.

34:23The knowledge that God disciplines, he prunes back those. The basis of false joys. He guards us against sorrow. He guards us against dangerous ways. All this is liberating. And the knowledge that Christ, if he denies us of anything, we know it's good for us so we can move on. If he commands us to do anything, we know it is to promote our highest well-being. We know this. And this truth is liberating. But before you can truly live, you have to be untethered from your dead nature. You have to get out of the tomb. And you get out of the tomb by knowing the truth, by believing the truth.

35:20And it sets you free. Those are the two reasons why I say to you to make room for Jesus. Because, number one, those who make room for Jesus will be satisfied by him. Number two, those who make room for Jesus will truly live. So why would you not make room for Jesus? There's one reason. One reason. And I want you to see it in our text this morning. Look at verse 38. I speak the things which I have seen. With my Father. Therefore, you also do the things which you have heard from your Father.

36:12Who do you make room for in your life? It's interesting how Jesus relates all this back to fatherhood. The distinction between his actions and the difference between those superficial believers has to do with their spiritual paternity. Jesus is saying something to this effect. I am saying and doing only that which my Father brings to my mind. You, on the other hand, are doing and always do the things which your father brings to your mind. You welcome his thoughts, you drink them in, you meditate on them, and then you act accordingly, and that's why you're seeking to kill me. You don't have room for my thoughts because you're too busy entertaining the thoughts of your father.

37:25Who are you making room for? In your daily and weekly routines. It's an issue of who your father is. There's a lot of superficial belief out there. Who you're making room for each week says who you really are. The reason they were not making room for Jesus had to do with their spiritual heritage. They could not and would not make room for Jesus' teaching in their lives because they were too busy making room for the devil's propaganda. And that's what defined who they were.

38:19You see, the vast difference between Jesus and superficial believers has to do with fatherhood. And we can think of fatherhood very simply, right? The concept is not hard, at least in a biological sense. We understand that the father provides some genetic influence into what his children look like, right? Each of us bears a striking resemblance to our physical fathers. Our biological father shows up in our physical frames, but we're more than Physical beings, aren't we? We're also spiritual beings.

39:06And on a spiritual level, each of us are shaped by a primary spiritual influence. You see, your spiritual father is the one who shapes your spiritual disposition, your moral character. His likeness dominates who you are. And just as physical children resemble their earthly father, so spiritual children resemble their spiritual father. And see, it comes down to this. We move from the practical to the theological. One can either be making more room for Christ's words or the devil's.

39:59Let me get it even more plain. Your spiritual father will allow you to either make room for Jesus or murder him. Are you moving in a direction of welcoming his influence, or are you moving in a direction of silencing him? Who's your father? Your father, if it's not God Himself, you are serving a cruel tyrant. And that's why Christ came. Perhaps you're not making room for Christ today, and that's because your spiritual father won't allow you. You need a new father.

40:54How do you get a new father? You see, I don't want to just change, I just don't want to give you two reasons to satisfy your mind. I want to speak to your soul so that you will have a new father because that's who defines who you are. So, how do you get a new father? You cry out and you say, God, do not let me go on living like this. I want you to be my true father.

41:32Turn, confess, he will answer, or he's a liar, and he's not a liar. And if you pray, God, God, do not let me go on living like this, guess what? You know what you're going to see? You're going to see coming through the smoke and through the blaze, a Savior, the Savior of your soul. And he'll say, Hey, come. Follow me, and let me show you the joy of the Lord. Come. So make room for Jesus.

42:13I mean, make way for the joy of the Lord. He loved life. He was the picture of innocent joy. He was a picture of delight in the Father's will, and he wants to take you there with him. So continue to follow him. Trust him. Believe him. You see, he came to establish true joy upon the earth. Read to you the words of Charles Spurgeon on this. You see, man was not originally made to mourn. He was made to rejoice. The garden of Eden was his place of happy abode. And so long as he continued obedient to God, nothing grew in that garden which could cause him sorrow. For his delight, the flowers breathed out their perfume. For his delight, the landscapes were full of beauty, and the rivers rippled over golden sands. God made human beings as he made his other creatures to be happy. They are capable of happiness.

43:30They are in their right element when they are happy. And now that Jesus Christ has come to restore the ruins of the fall, he has come to bring back to us the old joy. Only it shall be even sweeter and deeper than it could have been if we had never lost it. A Christian has never fully realized what Christ came to make him until he has grasped the joy of the Lord. Christ wishes his people to be happy. When they are perfect, as he will make them in due time, they shall also be perfectly happy. As heaven is the place of pure holiness, so it is the place of unalloyed happiness. And in proportion as we get ready for heaven, we shall have some of the joy which belongs to heaven. And it is our Savior's will that even now his joy should remain in us and that our joy should be full.

44:34You see, Jesus came to impart to us that same innocent delight in life that he had. He wants us to rejoice in the Father's will. And that's why he says, Come and follow me. I will satisfy your soul. I will make you truly free so that you You can truly live. Let's pray. Lord, help us to be making room for you. There are so many influences, Father, in our lives that do not come from you. And we know that they ultimately come from one source to distract, to turn away our hearts from you. Father, even as believers, help us to believe more.

45:40Help us to go in our minds where you take us and to make increasing room for you in our thoughts, in our weeks, and in our daily routines. Help your thoughts to dominate our thoughts, that your ways may dominate our ways. And therein, Father, may we find our true delight and our true joy in your will. For we know that truly to do your will is to delight in you, because your will is truly delightful, even if we can't fully see it.

46:31Thank you. Help us to walk by faith. In Jesus' name, amen.