The Light Has Come

Week 2

The Light of the World

John 1: 9-13; Isaiah 53: 1-11

Good morning Ottawa Family, this week we are continuing our series titled: The Light Has Come. We are looking at the Christmas story as told by John Ch. 1. Last week we looked at the first 5 verses-talking about the origin, power and nature of Christ. This week we turn our attention to vs. John 1: 9-13; Isaiah 53: 1-11-and how the birth of Christ was foretold long before it ever happened, and how, the Messiah was rejected by His own people.

Those of us who have been followers of Christ for more than a few years have heard the Christmas story many times. It can be easy to lull ourselves into a mindset, thinking that we have nothing new to learn about the birth of Christ. It’s for sure that I’ve fallen into this trap a few times around the Christmas and Easter holiday seasons. Let me encourage you-we can always learn new things about God’s word. No matter how many times we’ve heard a particular story-God has a funny way of opening our eyes to something fresh, if we are open to receive it. For me, I may be familiar with the particular text, but I often find myself looking at the text, or the story (as a whole) from a fresh perspective. One of my goals, as your pastor, is to help open your eyes, to help you look at the text of scripture in a new light. So, as we continue on through this series, I would encourage you to pray that the Holy Spirit would illuminate fresh understanding.

Let’s go ahead and pray, then we will get started.

PRAY

I think the best way to go through these passages is to take John Ch. 1 first, then we will look at the book of Isaiah-after we finish up both, then I will tie everything together, and talk about why these things are important to us today. Let’s start by looking at John Ch. 1

John 1: 9-13

9 There was the true Light which, coming into the world, enlightens every man. 10 He was in the world, and the world was made through Him, and the world did not know Him. 11 He came to His own, and those who were His own did not receive Him. 12 But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name, 13 who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.

If you remember, from last week, we talked about what it means when John refers to Jesus as “the light.” Not only is John referring back to the creation of the world, in which God spoke, and then a literal light came into the world, but John is also referring to the fact that Jesus is the light of the world. We read a passage from John Ch. 8: 12, where Jesus refers to Himself as the light of the world. And what does light do? Of course, light dispels darkness, figuratively and literally.

In the latter part of vs. 9, the author says that : the light came into the world, and it enlightens every man.

We can forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light.

Plato

John did not mean that Christ gives this light to everyone in the ultimate sense, where every person will be saved. Rather, he meant that the reason why anyone is born into a world with any love or care or goodness at all is because of Christ and the light He gives to the world, in general. Some have misinterpreted this verse-ignoring the overall context of scripture.

vs. 11 says that Jesus’s came unto His own. Interesting enough, and this is something I did not know-the phrase that John uses here indicates a home or property. It’s the same phrase or idea that is used in a parable, found in Luke, let’s take a look at that

Luke 20: 9-18

9 And He began to tell the people this parable: “A man planted a vineyard and rented it out to vine-growers, and went on a journey for a long time. 10 At the harvest time he sent a slave to the vine-growers, so that they would give him some of the produce of the vineyard; but the vine-growers beat him and sent him away empty-handed. 11 And he proceeded to send another slave; and they beat him also and treated him shamefully and sent him away empty-handed. 12 And he proceeded to send a third; and this one also they wounded and cast out. 13 The owner of the vineyard said, ‘What shall I do? I will send my beloved son; perhaps they will respect him.’ 14 But when the vine-growers saw him, they reasoned with one another, saying, ‘This is the heir; let us kill him so that the inheritance will be ours.’ 15 So they threw him out of the vineyard and killed him. What, then, will the [e]owner of the vineyard do to them? 16 He will come and destroy these vine-growers and will give the vineyard to others.” When they heard it, they said, “May it never be!” 17 But Jesus looked at them and said, “What then is this that is written:

‘The stone which the builders rejected, This became the chief corner stone’? 18 Everyone who falls on that stone will be broken to pieces; but on whomever it falls, it will scatter him like dust.”

In this parable, the owner of the vineyard tries to send his servants to collect the money owed to him. Well, the men working the vineyard decided to reject and kill everyone the owner sent…so the owner sent his own son, thinking that the workers would respect the son…but they didn’t. Even after rejecting the owners servants, the workers had a chance to make things right, but they chose to reject the owner’s son as well. This is the same idea presented in John Ch. 1. The son came home…unto his own, but was rejected. John says that Christ came unto His own, but was rejected. But, it’s not all bad news…John continues in vs. 12, that

12 But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name, 13 who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.

Even though Jesus’s own people rejected Him, God did not shut off the spigot (as it were). We all have the opportunity to put our faith in Christ. But as many as recieved Him means that the power of salvation does not lye in the fact that Jesus is a savior, or even THE savior, the power of salvation lay in the fact that Jesus is YOUR savior.

In vs. 12-13 John begins to list some things that salvation does NOT rely upon, he puts forward a 3 pronged argument:

Who were born, not of blood:

I was very blessed to have been born into a family with a great legacy of Christ followers. My grandma and grandpa were saved in the 1950’s, and pretty much every one in my family has followed the Lord, but guess what? That does not make me righteous before our Heavenly Father-our salvation does not come by blood. In the O.T., if you were born an Israelite, you were automatically grafted into the vine…the new covenant did away with that notion.

Or the will of the flesh:

The will of the flesh is about our human effort-us trying to be good enough. If we are “good people” we can appear righteous before the Lord. The Bible says “there are none that are righteous.”

Or the will of man:

The will of man is similar to the will of the flesh, but is a bit different. The idea here has more to do with our rational minds, as opposed to our “acts of service,” which would be more like the will of the flesh. It does not matter how smart we think we are or how much we study God’s word, or how much we pray-which all of those things are good-as long as we have recieved Christ…as many as recieved Him.

By listing these three thing: blood, will of the flesh, and will of man, John is dispelling every argument in which a person may think they can earn salvation of their own accord.

John 3: 1-3; 14

3 Now there was a man of the Pharisees, named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews; 2 this man came to Jesus by night and said to Him, “Rabbi, we know that You have come from God as a teacher; for no one can do these signs that You do unless God is with him.” 3 Jesus answered and said to him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born [b]again he cannot see the kingdom of God.”

14 As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up; 15 so that whoever believes will in Him have eternal life.

Verse 13 ends with an exclamation point-after listing these 3 things, John finishes by saying that it’s only God whereby we can appear blameless and righteous before our Heavenly Father.

When discussing vs. 12 and 13, Charles Spurgeon likened our new life to the inner workings of a watch. At first, you and I are an old watch-our inner workings are completely wrecked and destroyed. When we received Jesus, it’s like the watchmaker comes in and replaces all of our inward parts-all of the springs and cogs-everything on the inside of the watch.

“The man is like a watch which has a new mainspring, not merely a new face and hands, but new inward machinery, with freshly adjusted works, which act to a different time and tune; and whereas he went wrong before, now he goes right, because he is right within.” (Spurgeon)

Through Christ, we have been given the right to become children of God-not by our own effort-but by the grace of the Father.

So far, the last couple of weeks, as we’ve moved through the 1st chapter of John, we’ve seen that Christ existed before time existed, that He was the Word that spoke creation into being, He is the light of the World, the only means by which the darkness is dispelled, and that you and I have been given the opportunity to receive that Light.

A few moments ago I read a passage from John 3. In that passage Jesus was speaking with Nicodemus-a pharisee who seemed to have genuine curiosity about Christ, but could not get past the traditions of men. Well, as Jesus was explaining to Nicodemus how a person can appear righteous before the Lord, Nicodemus asks Jesus this question:

Nicodemus said to Him, “How can these things be?” 10 Jesus answered and said to him, “Are you the teacher of Israel and do not understand these things?

Jesus asked him this question because Nicodemus would have been very familiar with all of the O.T. prophesies regarding the coming Messiah, yet despite having the head knowledge, Nicodemus did not truly understand. The Jews thought that Christ was going to be a political figure, who would free them from the Romans. Jesus came to do so much more than that-but they couldn’t understand.

One of the reasons that John wrote his gospel the way he did, was to establish, right off the bat, that Jesus was not just a man…yes, he was fully man, but Jesus is also eternal…He is so much more than what the Jews were expecting. They were expecting another Moses, King David, or even someone like John the Baptist…a man, perhaps a special man, but just a man-not someone claiming to forgive sins and equality with God the Father. All of these things were foretold though in the So, as we are looking at the Birth of Christ, it’s important to look at what the O.T. said about Christ.

Let’s move on now to our passage in the book of Isaiah.

It’s important to keep something in mind when we look at the O.T. prophesies of Jesus, these prophesies were given by multiple men, spanning hundreds or even a thousand years. This is what makes the Bible so unique, compared with other religious texts. The Bible has about 40 authors who wrote different sections, it was also authored on three continents: Asia, Europe and Africa and in three different languages: Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek. The Old Testament was primarily written in Hebrew while the New Testament was written in Greek. Despite this, across all of that time, all of those authors, the Bible (as a whole) tells one story: There creation, fall, and the plan of redemption. Most of the Bible was written by long before Jesus arrived on this earth, yet, the whole document points to and tells the story of Jesus. Even some of the harshest skeptics of Christianity tend to struggle with these facts, because there is no easy answer to explain them.

I bring all this up to encourage you, society often looks down on those who follow scripture and believe it is inerrant and infallible…and of course it does take faith to believe that-but it’s certainly not blind faith; we need not be ashamed-there is plenty of real life, empirical evidence to justify that faith. Part of that empirical evidence is the fact that Isaiah 53-written hundreds of years before Christ, yet describes who He is, and why He came.

I normally wouldn’t read 11 straight verses, but I want you to get the full picture, so let’s look at

The Suffering Servant

Isaiah 53: 1-11

53 Who has believed our message and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? 2 He grew up before him like a tender shoot, and like a root out of dry ground. He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him. 3 He was despised and rejected by mankind, a man of suffering, and familiar with pain. Like one from whom people hide their faces he was despised, and we held him in low esteem.

4 Surely he took up our pain and bore our suffering, yet we considered him punished by God, stricken by him, and afflicted. 5 But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed. 6 We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to our own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.

7 He was oppressed and afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth; he was led like a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before its shearers is silent, so he did not open his mouth. 8 By oppression[a] and judgment he was taken away. Yet who of his generation protested? For he was cut off from the land of the living; for the transgression of my people he was punished.[b] 9 He was assigned a grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death, though he had done no violence, nor was any deceit in his mouth.

10 Yet it was the Lord’s will to crush him and cause him to suffer, and though the Lord makes his life an offering for sin, he will see his offspring and prolong his days, and the will of the Lord will prosper in his hand. 11 After he has suffered, he will see the light of life and be satisfied; by his knowledge my righteous servant will justify many, and he will bear their iniquities. 12 Therefore I will give him a portion among the great, and he will divide the spoils with the strong, because he poured out his life unto death, and was numbered with the transgressors. For he bore the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors.

The general picture here is of a suffering servant. Most Bibles will have that heading above Isaiah Ch. 53. Obviously we do not have time to go through the entire 11 verses in detail-Isaiah 53 could be a series unto itself, to be honest-so let’s do an overview, then I will wrap up with applying this weeks message to our lives.

For this series I’ve studied the O.T. prophesies of the coming Messiah quite extensively. It’s easy for us to arm chair quarterback this thing, because we live in a time where we have both, the O.T. and the N.T. and can read them both. In Jesus’s time, most people could not read, so they relied on the scribes and pharisees to read scripture. As a result, most were unaware of what the coming Messiah was supposed to be like. The general idea, was that the Messiah was (like I mentioned before) a conquering hero, not a suffering servant, like depicted in Isaiah 53. This is why, even after spending time with Jesus, the disciples were taken back when Jesus said He would be crucified.

These days, it’s easy for us to view Christ as the suffering servant, because we know what He went through to secure our salvation. I would love to have spoken to Daniel or Isaiah, and have gotten their take on who they thought the Messiah would be, or what He would be like. These men were not fortune tellers, God would give them specific visions at specific times, which they would record-it’s not like they walked around like a lot of the people do today, who claim to be prophets, forecasting elections and political events-it was way, way different.

Let’s take a look at some passages from the N.T. that parallel Isaiah 53.

Verse 1 of Isaiah 53 is quoted in both, John 12:38 and Romans 10:16.

Who has believed our message? And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?

John 12: 37-40

These things Jesus spoke, and He went away and [m]hid Himself from them. 37 But though He had performed so many [n]signs before them, yet they were not believing in Him. 38 This was to fulfill the word of Isaiah the prophet which he spoke: “Lord, who has believed our report? And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?” 39 For this reason they could not believe, for Isaiah said again, 40 “He has blinded their eyes and He hardened their heart, so that they would not see with their eyes and perceive with their heart, and be converted and I heal them.”

Romans 10:16

16 However, they did not all heed the good news; for Isaiah says, “Lord, who has believed our report?” 17 So faith comes from hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ.

Vs. 4 of Isaiah 53

4 Surely our griefs He Himself bore, And our sorrows He carried

Is quoted in:

Matthew 8:17

This was to fulfill what was spoken through Isaiah the prophet: “He Himself took our infirmities and carried away our diseases.”

There are many other examples, from the book of Acts and 1st Peter as well. The point being, that one Christ was killed on the cross and raised again, on our behalf, the N.T. writers understood that the O.T. passages, such as Isaiah 53 were all about Christ-not the conquering king, but the suffering servant.

Conclusion

To finish up today, I want to read you one more parable, this one is from the book of Mathew, like the parable I read earlier, from the book of Luke, this one correlates with the general themes from John 1 and Isaiah 53. This parable is about a king who threw a wedding feast, and is found in Matthew Ch. 22.

Matthew 22: 1-14

Jesus spoke to them again in parables, saying: 2 “The kingdom of heaven is like a king who prepared a wedding banquet for his son. 3 He sent his servants to those who had been invited to the banquet to tell them to come, but they refused to come.

4 “Then he sent some more servants and said, ‘Tell those who have been invited that I have prepared my dinner: My oxen and fattened cattle have been butchered, and everything is ready. Come to the wedding banquet.’

5 “But they paid no attention and went off—one to his field, another to his business. 6 The rest seized his servants, mistreated them and killed them. 7 The king was enraged. He sent his army and destroyed those murderers and burned their city.

8 “Then he said to his servants, ‘The wedding banquet is ready, but those I invited did not deserve to come. 9 So go to the street corners and invite to the banquet anyone you find.’ 10 So the servants went out into the streets and gathered all the people they could find, the bad as well as the good, and the wedding hall was filled with guests.

11 “But when the king came in to see the guests, he noticed a man there who was not wearing wedding clothes. 12 He asked, ‘How did you get in here without wedding clothes, friend?’ The man was speechless.

13 “Then the king told the attendants, ‘Tie him hand and foot, and throw him outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’

14 “For many are invited, but few are chosen.”

This is a great parable told by Jesus himself. A king prepares a wedding feast and invites many guests, but those guests did not want to come; this is what John is talking about when he says: 11 He came to His own, and those who were His own did not receive Him. The guests rejected the invitation. So, the king sent out more invitations. Eventually, people did respond, and came to the wedding. John said: 12 But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name. The king did not cancel the wedding feast after the first guests rejected the offer, he simply widened the guest list. But something happens, someone arrives to the feast dressed improperly. The kings asks this person, How did you get in there without proper wedding clothes…and unfortunately for that person, the king was having none of that. Jesus finishes the story by saying: For many are invited, but few are chosen. When we approach the king, we had best be sure we are dressed properly.

Isaiah 61: 10

I delight greatly in the Lord; my soul rejoices in my God. For he has clothed me with garments of salvation and arrayed me in a robe of his righteousness,

This weeks we’ve talked about the theme of rejection, how Christ was rejected by His own people. In the parable of the wedding feast, Jesus is talking about his theme in real time. We have been blessed to receive an invitation to the wedding feast; let us be careful that we are robed in the righteousness of the Lord when we arrive.

So, how do these ideas presented in John, Isaiah, Luke and Matthew relate to us? I’m pretty sure that all of us here today haven’t rejected the invitation-otherwise, my conclusion would sound different; but there are many ways that we can reject the light of the world-even though we may have received Christ as our savior, we often live very compartmentalized lives. We hand over one area, but may have other areas where we are not robed in righteousness. This doesn’t mean that Christ isn’t our savior, but it does mean that we have not allowed the light to pierce every area of our life. I’ve spoken much about forgiveness, maybe it’s anger, lust, pride and arrogance…any area of our lives that are not fully robed in righteousness. We all have those area, myself included. My challenge to you this week is to spend some time with the Lord, ask Him to shine the light into those areas of your life we have hidden off.

The great thing about the light of Christ is that when we do become aware of an area, where we are not robed in righteousness, the Lord does not condemn us; He is not sitting up there in heaven just waiting for us to mess up, ready to pounce. Christ desires to shine His light into all areas of our lives, not so we can feel guilty, but so that we can live victoriously for Him-so that those around us can see the cleansing power of the Light of the World.

The Bible is not the light of the world, it is the light of the Church. But the world does not read the Bible, the world reads Christians! “You are the light of the world.”

Charles Spurgeon

Also, the light of Christ is an amazing thing in that once we let just a little bit in, we can begin to see more clearly, and it begins to illuminate some of those other areas that may need some attention.

Ephesians 5: 8-14

8 For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live as children of light 9 (for the fruit of the light consists in all goodness, righteousness and truth) 10 and find out what pleases the Lord. 11 Have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness, but rather expose them. 12 It is shameful even to mention what the disobedient do in secret. 13 But everything exposed by the light becomes visible—and everything that is illuminated becomes a light. 14 This is why it is said:

“Wake up, sleeper, rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.”