John 8-9 Takeaways (Digging Deeper)

Jesus never hid from His destiny.

All throughout His ordained time of ministry, Jesus never shied away from who He was or what He came to do. Jesus was (and is) God, and no Pharisee or unbelieving Jew would keep Him from proclaiming the truth about Himself. The reality of what He would have to say, though, would not fall silently on the ears of those who heard it.

Jesus wanted their attention.

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. (Jn. 8:12, ESV)

No ifs, ands, or buts … Jesus spoke only truth.

And yet, while His words would have been enough, He did more than just say them. Jesus gave everyone present then, and those who have read about it ever since, an action plan. He showed us the way of Salvation.

So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed Him, ‘If you abide in My word, you are truly My disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.’ (Jn. 8:31-32, ESV)

For those who have ears to hear and eyes to see, Jesus tells us all we need to know.

‘Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am.’ So they picked up stones to throw at him, but Jesus hid himself and went out of the temple.” (Jn. 8:58-59, ESV)

Here are some of my takeaways from John 8-9:

One of the first things Jesus did was bring light into darkness; order to chaos.
The light reveals what is around it. Light is either there, or it is not. Without light, the darkness reigns.
For news to be good, like the Gospel message itself, it needs to invade bad spaces.
We are slaves to sin by default, and only Jesus can rescue us out of it by giving us freedom from this sin (Jn. 8:34-38).
God named himself “I AM” when He first introduced himself to Moses, and Jesus is carrying on the name and introducing himself in that same way to others (Ex. 3:14, Jn. 8:48-59).
Even after the blind man has his sight restored, he still must progress through his understanding and belief in Jesus, but he does so quickly (Jn. 9:30-38).
The blind man did exactly what Jesus said and found himself dramatically changed as a result. Everything became new to him when his eyes were opened by Jesus.

Now it is your turn. Write out and share with someone your biggest takeaways from Pastor Josh’s sermon along with your study of John 8-9.

Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who practices sin is a slave to sin. The slave does not remain in the house forever; the son remains forever. So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed. (Jn. 8:34-36, ESV)