True Light
Notes
Transcript
What does the Text teach us about God/Jesus
What does the Text teach us about God/Jesus
The first truth we see about Jesus this morning from our text is He is the true light.
I like what JC Ryle said about this phrase.
Jesus Christ is to the soul of man what the sun is to the world. He is the centre and source of all spiritual light, warmth, life, health, growth, beauty, and fertility.
~ JC Ryle
This leads to a question, if Jesus is the TRUE light is there a false light? Let’s look at 2 Corinthians chapter 11
13 For such men are false apostles, deceitful workmen, disguising themselves as apostles of Christ.
14 And no wonder, for even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light.
15 So it is no surprise if his servants, also, disguise themselves as servants of righteousness. Their end will correspond to their deeds.
What is worship?
Noun - excessive admiration of or devotion to a person (or thing)
Verb - to feel passion, devotion, or tenderness for
25 because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.
There really is one two options this morning, Are you going to worship the creator of the universe the only one worthy of worship or are you going to worship creation. Stop and mediate on this truth for minute.
The second truth about God we see this morning is His sovereignty. Look at verse 6
6 There was a man sent from God, whose name was John.
God intentionally sent John. Look with me at Luke chapter 1
5 In the days of Herod, king of Judea, there was a priest named Zechariah, of the division of Abijah. And he had a wife from the daughters of Aaron, and her name was Elizabeth.
6 And they were both righteous before God, walking blamelessly in all the commandments and statutes of the Lord.
7 But they had no child, because Elizabeth was barren, and both were advanced in years.
What does our text say about man?
First, we tend to make much of the messenger don’t we? Look at verse 8
8 He was not the light, but came to bear witness about the light.
We see John the son of Zebedee, our author, tell us directly that John the baptist was not the light. And later in our study of John we see John the baptist tell us he is not the Messiah and what happens to John’s ministry when Jesus begins His? It diminishes right? Some of John’s disciples leave him to follow Jesus and then later on Jesus’ disciples are baptizing more people than he is and what does John the baptist say? He must become greater and I must become less. Wow what a work of the Holy Spirit! Because as human beings we don’t want to be made less of do we? We want to become more important right? Our flesh likes to be made much of. But The Holy Spirit in us can empower us so that our life is more about pointing people to Jesus and making life more about Him than ourselves. But it has to be the work of The Spirit.
What hope does this passage give us?
The hope I see is we can know the true light!
What are we called to do in response to this passage?
First you called to see the True Light. How do we determine if we are seeing the True light or Satan masquerading as light? The Word, prayer, The Holy Spirit, and wise counsel form others.
The other truth we are called to is to be a witness to the Light. How can you bare witness to the light? How can you show others the light? Is The Lord bringing some one to mind right now that you need to witness too? Don’t delay, no one is guaranteed tomorrow.
I want to challenge you to get in this text this week and seek The Lord. Ask how He wants you to respond to this text. Amen?