Reformed Baptist Church in O'Fallon, Missouri
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Christ the Light

Sermon Transcript

The following is a lightly edited transcript generated from the audio; it may contain small errors.

Opening Prayer

All right, why don’t we all of us stand? We’re going to pray and then we’re going to look at the word Lord, we thank you for This morning and we thank you for the wonderful Presentation and we thank you Jesus that you are the light of the world We pray as we look into your word Lord that we would have a better understanding of what that really means I pray Lord also at this time of year that with the busyness and all the we the time we spend with family and shopping and all the things we have to do, that we would truly keep our hearts focused on you. This is what the season is about. It’s about you, Jesus. We love you very much. We pray that you glorify today. We pray in your name. Amen. Be seated.

John 1

Why don’t you open your Bibles, if you have a Bible, to John chapter 1. We’re going to at a passage in John where John talks about Jesus. In John chapter 1, starting in verse

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1 it says, In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness does not comprehend or overcome it. Now there was a man sent from God, whose name was John, and this man came for a witness, to bear witness of the light, that all through him might believe he was not the light, but was sent to bear witness of that light. That was the true light which gives light to every man coming into the world. He was in the world, meaning the light was in the world, and the world was made through him, and the world did not know him. He, he came to his own and his own did not receive him. But as many as did receive him, to them he gave the right, or the authority, or the power to become the children of God to those who believe in his name, who were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of the will of God. And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, And we beheld his glory, the glory is of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and of truth.“ So the word here is also called the light, which was the theme of our presentation this morning. And we know from verse 14 that this individual called the Word or the Light was incarnate and as we know from reading on in the book of John that this was Jesus. Jesus is called the Word and he is called the Light. So what can we learn from this passage about the Light? Well the first thing we learn is that that this person called the Word and the Light is an eternal person. Notice here it says, in the beginning was the Word. In the beginning, of course, echoes the text in Genesis which says, in the beginning God said, let there be light. In the beginning God created. The beginning is the beginning, the beginning of time. So this Word, this Light was in the beginning, meaning this light was an eternal being. Not just pre-existent to us, but eternal, existing forever. Secondly, this light is not a force, not a power, but a person. A person. It says, in the beginning was the word and the word was with God. In other words, There’s a distinction between God and this person, but this person has a relationship with God. And it’s very interesting in the original, it could read, and the word was facing God.

And it implies not only being with in an abstract sense, but being with someone in the sense of being in communion with them, being in fellowship with them, facing them, having face-to-face communication. So this word or this light is an eternal person, but also not only was the light with God, but John goes on to say that the light or the word was God. Now if you had your Starbucks this morning, you’re thinking how can this word or this light be both God and be with God. How can God be with God? Well, the only explanation is the biblical teaching is what is now called the Trinity, is that God is three persons in one Godhead. And you’re thinking, well, I don’t really understand that. And of course you don’t, because we can’t. And on that score alone, some people reject the biblical view and say, because I can’t understand it, I can’t understand it. But if God is an infinite being, do you not think that there will be things about Him we do not understand? I mean, Surely if we could understand God, I mean really fully understand God, He would be like us, and therefore He wouldn’t be God. Of course there will be things about God’s being, about God’s character, about God’s ways that we will not be able to comprehend, at least in this lifetime, and maybe not even in the next. Because God is so infinitely beyond our comprehension. It doesn’t mean we can’t know Him truly, but we can’t know Him exhaustively. And so there will always be an element of mystery when we’re talking about who God is. This being, this person called the Word or called the Light is in His essence also God. But as we learn from other passages that we don’t have time to look at, the Bible, John doesn’t teach that there are two gods or three gods or many gods. It teaches that there is one God, but this one God subsists, the theological term, in three persons. Yes, it is beyond our comprehension, but it’s a fact of revelation. So we also learn of this eternal person who is God, that he is the Creator.

John goes on and he says this, verse 3, all things were made through him and without him nothing was made that was made. And of course, creation implies the very notion also of God had because God is the creator, right? Whatever God you may have, God is the origin ultimately of all things. But it says nothing was made that was made Except by him so this person who’s called the word or the light is also the creator of all things Which means that he brought you into being and you exist by his power He’s also self-existent it says in verse 4, in him was life, and the life was the light of men notice what it doesn’t say it doesn’t say That life was simply from him But it says that life is in Him. And that’s very important. Now it’s true, as we will see in a moment, that Jesus gives life, but it’s not just because it comes through Him as a medium, if you will, but rather He has eternal life in Him. His own proper life is eternal life, not natural life like ours, which can perish.

So he exists in and of himself. He is the fountain of life. Also he is called the light. In him was life and the life was the light of men. And the light shines in the darkness and the darkness did not comprehend it. That’s what my version says. Your ears may say, does not overcome it or something of that nature. So Jesus is referred to here as the light. And what is the function of light? The function of light is really twofold. When we think of light, and as the Bible teaches on light, light is the source of health, of growth, of all things that we think of, you know, positive things, blessings and prosperity. If there was no sunlight, everything would die, right? So light brings warmth, light brings growth, light brings health. And so Jesus, or the word who is Jesus, is the source of these blessings.

The Light Reveals God

But also light reveals. It exposes. So the light of Jesus is the light by which we see who God really is.

And that is really the main point that John is getting to in this whole passage.

That’s why he begins in the very beginning when he says that in the beginning was the and the word was with God and the word was God because only God can reveal God.

As I’ve said before, we don’t know God because we have figured Him out. We don’t know God because we’ve prayed a lot and studied a lot and fasted a lot.

We know God because God has chosen to reveal Himself to us. No one can find God if God chooses to hide Himself. He cannot be found. We do not have the ability to do it. And God has chosen of His goodness and His love and His grace.

He has chosen to humble Himself in such a way in the person of Jesus that we might be able to look at Him, if you will, to behold Him, to see what God is really like.

Not by looking at nature, although that’s glorious and you can see God and many things about God and nature, not by looking at the human mind, which also reflects certain things about God, but better, beholding God incarnate, God embodied, if you will, in the person of Jesus Christ. And so Jesus is called here the light because it is through Jesus that God is revealed to us. Notice what John says here a little bit later in this passage in verse 15. He says, John, meaning the John the Baptist, he bore witness of him, meaning of the light, and he cried out saying, This was he of whom I said, he who comes after me is preferred before me, for he was before me. And of his fullness we’ve all received in grace for grace. For the law was given through Moses, but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. Notice verse 18, no one has seen God at any time, but the only begotten Son, and some of your versions say only begotten God, but the only the only begotten Son who is in the bosom of the Father, he has declared him, or he has revealed him. The primary mission, if you will, of Jesus, Jesus or should we say the primary purpose of the incarnation was to reveal to mankind what God was really like not primarily to save but first to reveal why because because salvation is dependent R.I.P. on our response to the light. The light comes, then how men or women respond to that light then determines their destiny. John says that people did not, in verse 5, that the world did not comprehend or the darkness did not overcome it. Some verses say comprehend it. I think it means that the darkness in the world, the darkness that the light was entering was not able to resist the power of the light. In other words, it was not able to extinguish the light. If the room was totally dark and I lit a match, you’d see the match and you’d see a lot of light. The darkness does not extinguish the light. So light enters the darkness and then reveals. It exposes. So the light comes and the light shines and lines, and then as we look at the light, we have to respond.

Two Responses to the Light

And so John tells us there are two responses to the light. Notice what he says here. He says in verse 9, that was the true light, meaning not John’s not the true light. No, John is a light, but he’s a lesser light. He’s a lamp. And his light is dependent on the source of light, which is the true light. So it gives light to every man coming into the world. He was in the world and the world was made through him and the world did not know him. That’s what it means when it says that he entered in the darkness. He entered into a realm in which people did not know him. If you don’t know the light, then you’re in darkness. He came to his own and his own did not receive him. Now in verse 11 I think his own means Israel. He came to his own people who were special people in the old covenant. They didn’t receive him. But as many as received him, to them he gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in his name, who were born not of blood nor the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God. So the light comes in and the darkness is not able to extinguish the light. So the light shines and as the light is shining there are two responses to the light. One response is to not receive the light. That is to say as the light shines it is to turn away from the light. Now have you ever been in your car and you’re driving up from work and you’re going down the highway in the sun setting and it’s so bright, you’re like this. You’re trying to drive and trying to use your visor. You’re turning away from the light because it’s too bright. So in the spiritual and the moral realm, the light comes, Jesus comes, and Jesus shows

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of truth and love and mercy and justice and holiness and all these wonderful characteristics about God and this light shines and when someone gazes at the light they can either stare at the light or they can avert their gaze from the light. They can turn away from the light. But it’s not that they don’t have light. And so the light comes and John says some did not receive him, meaning they turned away from the light. They shield themselves from the light. They chose not to look at the light because, as we learn later in John, because they wanted to stay in darkness. And here’s what Jesus said himself a little bit later in this same book of John. He said, God didn’t send his son into the world to condemn the world. Why did he send his son? Meaning the light. But that the world through him might be saved. He who believes in Him is not condemned, but He who does not believe is condemned already, because He’s not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. But this is the key point. And this is the condemnation, that the light has come into the world. And men loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil. You know, when we all stand before the Lord someday, a lot of us are going to want to say, I didn’t know. But I think what we’re going to find when we’re in that light, that we did know. We did know. When I became a Christian, and then I looked back on my time before being a Christian, I realized that I did know. Even when I was rejecting Jesus Christ, I did know. Even when I was denying that I was really guilty of sin, I did know.

I did know. But I was choosing to avert my gaze from the light. In other words, I was choosing to, I loved the darkness more than the light. And that was a choice that I was making. Now John tells us that when Jesus came to the world, he lights every man. And we tend to think some people have no and some people don’t know. I think, I think we know. And I was talking with someone the other day about a conversation they had with their father who was getting old. And they talked to their dad about the Lord, and basically their dad said, I’m not going to receive that. And it reminded me of the conversation I had years ago with my own father when he was in the hospital. And I was with him and I was sharing the gospel with him. And he said, you know, I’ve lived my life as an atheist and I’m going to die an atheist.

And but you know, not only did he know at the point of me sharing the gospel with him, he knew, he knew years ago. Anybody who Jesus is, is reminded at least once a year at Christmas about Jesus.

But anybody in this culture, and I think the West and even many parts of the world, I mean you can go just about anywhere and say the name Jesus and people will have at least heard the name Jesus. And anybody that wants to know what Jesus is about, they can investigate that. They can pursue that. They can look into that. They can find out who is this Jesus person, if they want to know. So John says, the light comes and the light is greater than the darkness, meaning the darkness can’t extinguish the light, but there are two responses to the light. Choose not to turn to the light, they turn away, they do not receive the light, the light’s still shining, they just don’t receive it. It’s still there, They just are looking away from it. But then there are others who do receive the light. And he says in verse 12 of chapter 1, But as many as received him, meaning the light, as many as received the true light, to them he gave the right to become the children of God, to those who believe in his name, who were born not of blood, nor the wool of flesh, of the will of man, but of God. Let me point out a couple things about this verse before

Receiving Jesus

we close. One is this, is that receiving the light or receiving the word, meaning receiving Jesus, is equated in the same verse with believing in his name, believing in his name. This believing is a not just an act of our intellect, it is an act of our will. It is embracing Jesus Christ for who He is. Well, who is He? He’s God and He’s the Savior. The very word Jesus really means God saves, literally, or God is Savior. That’s what His name means. So That Jesus is God and Jesus is the Savior. Well, if He’s the Savior, you’re the Savior. What that means is, you don’t come to Jesus, you don’t think of Jesus as the Savior if you don’t realize you need to be saved. Right? It doesn’t work that way. He’s not just a fixer, not just an improver, not just a life coach, not just a counselor. He does all kinds of fixing in your life, but he saves first and he saves us from what?

Anybody know? He saves us from our sin. Our sin. Now, as I said last week, we don’t talk a lot about sin in the church today, because it’s considered impolitic. That’s a fancy word for not polite. But the gospel doesn’t make any sense apart from the whole discussion of our moral accountability before God. The fact of the matter is, every one of us is morally accountable to God, and every one of us has violated His law, His standards. We’ve all done it, and you know what? You know you’ve done it, and I know I’ve done it. We know this. We do. all we want, but in our heart of hearts, we know this. And so what happens is those who are willing to acknowledge that moral accountability and acknowledge their failing of meeting God’s standard,

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Okay, that is, well, a lot of ways: deny God exists, deny that he’s gonna ever hold anybody accountable for sin. deny deny deny Okay, the other is to devise a solution of your own and This is like works religion and there’s a lot of that going on even in Christianity Where the solution to the moral dilemma is I will be better. I will go to church I will take a sacrament. I will do this. I will do that and therefore That takes care of my moral failings This is called works righteousness or self righteousness those are the two things that men do by nature and in a whole world religions are built on this premise of Solving the moral dilemma between God and man the biblical solution the third the third possible response is not to deny, not to devise, but simply to acknowledge, to come to the light and say, God, I have sinned, I have. You know it and I know it. But Jesus has come and Jesus has died for my sins and Jesus has risen from the dead, demonstrating his victory over my sin and over death. You see, the good news of the gospel isn’t to be better. Clean up your act, go to church, all the get religion, you know. That’s not the gospel. The glad tidings is that the moral dilemma that we have is solved by God himself. God himself provides the solution to the problem in the person of his son Jesus Christ. God himself in the person of his son, God himself comes and God himself takes the punishment that you and I deserve. The cross which is central to the cross of Jesus Christ to the gospel. The cross means is that at a point in history, my sins were punished so that I don’t have to be punished. That’s really, it’s that simple. My sins, you think, well how can somebody dying two thousand years ago and you know some obscure Jewish guy dying two thousand years ago have anything to do with me because the scripture says that God takes your sins, God reckons your sins and places them on his son and punishes those sins and then God takes the the righteousness of his son and Jesus was sinless and perfect because he was God and then God reckons that to you. He gives that to you. It’s a free gift. Now I would love to I opened my iPhone today and check out my bank account and see $10 million in there.

Wouldn’t you like that? It’d be really cool if somebody would just reckon that to my account.

But that’s pretty much what God did for us with Jesus. We all have an account with God. And that account was, we were really all kind of paying bank fees if you know what I mean. Our account wasn’t looking good. Then Jesus dies for us and God takes his obedience to the law, his righteousness, and transfers it into my account. You say, well why does he do that? Because he loves me. Because he’s merciful. Because he’s gracious. Because he’s kind. why doesn’t he do it for everybody? Because John says some received him and some didn’t. Some people actually didn’t want the transfer. They said, no, I’ll pay for it myself. I got it covered. And you really think about it, you, well, that’s crazy. Who would want, who would do that? I did it. I did it for years. I didn’t think I needed a transfer, But I did. And we all do. And so the way you get the transfer, on my phone it’s easy, just hit transfer.

I can transfer between our accounts, you know, me and my kids and all of us, we can transfer. Not easy. The way you get the transfer though is you have to receive him. You have to believe. And this is, as I said earlier, it’s not just an intellectual assent, it’s a volitional choice. It is choosing to come to the light. It’s choosing to embrace the light. It’s choosing to walk in the light. And those that walk in the light have eternal life. It says they are born again. It doesn. It doesn’t matter How old you are? I see some grey hair out there. Oh, I see some grey hair up here. It doesn’t matter how old you are. My mom came to Jesus. She was born again when she was 81 years old. Don, You know, I’ve lived this way all my life. You know, I’m 75. What’s 75 to eternity? What’s being 80 to eternity? The question isn’t your past life, the question is your future life. Where are you going in the future? And I don’t know about you, but the older I get, the more I think about where I’m going. Not the less I. I think about it. The more I ponder, where am I going to be? And what do I need to do while I’m here? Because my days are numbered. That’s the question, where are you going to be? And if you have not, by an act of your will, called upon Jesus Christ to save you, then I implore you to do it today, this very day. And it doesn’t matter how long you’ve lived without Him, and it doesn’t matter ultimately what you have done in the past. What is important is that you embrace Him today. The light is shining. As I read from one, I was reading a sermon yesterday, the pastor said, wherever the gospel is preached, Jesus is there. And it’s true. The Lord is here and He’s inviting you to come to Him. He’s shining light on you through His word and through His Spirit, and He’s inviting you to receive Him. The darkness cannot stop the shining. You cannot stop the light. Now you can turn away or you can turn toward it, but you HADN’T stop it. So I invite you today, this very moment, to turn to the light to embrace Jesus Christ as your Savior. Jesus Christ was born to this end, first to reveal to you the true God, but also that you could come to this true God , through his work on the cross, which means that he dealt with the issue of your sin. He paid for your sin and he rose from the dead to prove that he did so. So this is not a question of what you’ve done in the past. This is a question of this moment for you. What will you do today? What will you do now with the light that is shining to you? Will you embrace the light? Or will you turn from the light? Let’s stand and pray. Let’s all bower heads have a moment of, even though you’re in a public place, you can have a have a moment of privacy with God because he knows and he knows your heart and he knows where you stand with him. He loves you, and He’s brought you here this morning so that you would hear one more time His invitation. He brought you here this morning that one more time you have an opportunity to embrace Jesus Christ to come to the light. And He’s given you this opportunity because He loves you and because he’s so gracious and merciful. Don’t turn away from the light. Darkness is bad. Darkness fosters evil and pain. But the light brings health, healing, wholeness, life.

There’s no magic prayer in the Bible. The Bible says whoever calls upon the name of Jesus will be born again.

Closing Prayer

Dear Lord I thank you for your great love for us that you came. And I don’t understand how the infinite God could become a man, but you did.

And we thank you, Lord Jesus, the Word and the Light for revealing to us the Father that we might see his loving heart. And Lord Jesus, I thank you for your presence here today, For the light you’re shining into hearts here this morning. And I pray for every one of us to embrace the light, to not choose darkness.

And I especially pray, Lord, for those that may be here today that have never truly called upon you, you, never really asked you, never really believed, and embraced you in a person. I ask Lord that they might do that this morning through the power of your spirit.