The True Light

Text

John 1:6–13 ESV

There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. He came as a witness, to bear witness about the light, that all might believe through him. He was not the light, but came to bear witness about the light. The true light, which gives light to everyone, was coming into the world. He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him. He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him. But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.

Introduction

One of our favorite things to do every Christmas is to go look at Christmas lights at Newport News Park.

We have done it every year that we have lived here, meaning this coming year will be our 14th.

I get so excited every year when I see them starting to everything up in December.

It is an annual sign that Christmas is coming.

But do you know what the saddest part of Christmas lights drive is?

When it ends!

You are going through the whole display and it is all so pretty and festive.

Then, the next thing you know, you are spit out on to Fort Eustis, left to face the cold, dark world alone.

But this is the nature of Christmas lights.

They are plugged in around Thanksgiving.

They make us feel so happy and warm and fuzzy.

And then, they are just gone.

The show ends. The season ends. The cheer ends.

The lights turn off.

Now—while this is true of lesser lights, like the ones we hang on our homes and our trees—this is not true of the Light we are talking about this morning.

Today we are talking about the True Light.

The Eternal Light.

The One that shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it.

Context and Outline

This morning we are back in John 1 in our The Word Made Flesh series.

We have spent our Advent season in John’s prologue, seeing how Christ is the Word and the Word is God.

All things were made through Him—He is God’s powerful agent in creation.

He is the source of all natural and spiritual life.

And more than that—the life was the light of men.

Main Idea: The Word—Jesus Christ—is the True Light

v. 6-13 give us the opportunity to study this reality with more detail this morning.

Here is our outline today as we go about this work:

1. The Witness of the True Light (v. 6-8)

2. The Rejection of the True Light (v. 9-11)

3. The Reception of the True Light (v. 12-13)

The Witness of the True Light (v. 6-8)

We start this morning with v. 6-8.

1. The Witness of the True Light (v. 6-8)

John the Baptist (v. 6)

Our text this morning doesn’t start with the True Light and the way He is rejected or received.

It actually begins with someone else— “A man sent by God, whose name was John.”

The “John” being spoken about in v. 6 is John the Baptist.

John is the forerunner to Jesus’ ministry.

He arrived on the scene of 1st century Judea wearing clothing that was reminiscent of Elijah the Prophet.

He called for repentance and warned of God’s coming judgment.

He baptized with water—a purification rite typically reserved for Gentiles converting to Judaism.

By calling Jewish people to be baptized in this way, he was essentially saying, “The Israelites have become like a Gentile, pagan nation.”

John’s ministry was like a bridge between the Old Covenant and the New Covenant.

A bridge that prepared the way for the Lord, as Isaiah 40 foreshadowed:

Isaiah 40:3 ESV

A voice cries: “In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord; make straight in the desert a highway for our God.

In bringing up John the Baptist in v. 6, John is making a transition.

We are moving from talking about the pre-incarnate glory of Christ in the first 5 verses to the beginning of Jesus’ ministry.

And when you speak of the beginning of Jesus’ ministry, you have to start with John the Baptist blazing the trail.

Purpose and Nature of JTB’s Ministry (v. 7-8)

If verse 6 identifies John, verses 7-8 explain to us the purpose and the nature of John’s ministry.

The PURPOSE can be seen in v. 7.

John came to bear witness about the light, that all might believe through him.

Which light is John bearing witness about?

The light of the Word—the light in v. 5 that the darkness cannot overcome.

The Word, who has life in Himself—eternal life.

John has come to bear witness about this Light, so that all who hear his testimony might believe.

This is what the end of v. 7 means:

It is through John’s witness that people anticipate the Messiah’s coming and ultimately place faith in Him for the salvation of their soul.

And then in v. 8, we can see the NATURE of his ministry.

It is a ministry of deflection.

John the Baptist was not the Light.

He came to bear witness about the Light.

John’s ministry was much like the nature of the moon.

The moon does not produce any light of its own.

When we see the moon glowing over our heads at night, it is because it is reflecting the light of the sun.

So when you look at a full moon, what you are really seeing is light that travelled 150 million kilometers to the moon from the sun.

That light is then bouncing off gray rocks and travelling another 380,000 kilometers to your eyeballs.

This is a picture of the nature of John the Baptist’s ministry.

John never claimed to the the Light.

John 1:19–20 ESV

And this is the testimony of John, when the Jews sent priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him, “Who are you?” He confessed, and did not deny, but confessed, “I am not the Christ.”

Instead, the nature of John’s ministry was to say, “Don’t look at me—look at Jesus!”

John 1:29 ESV

The next day he saw Jesus coming toward him, and said, “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!

John 3:30 ESV

He must increase, but I must decrease.”

Application: Every Christian Should Be Like John the Baptist

Ultimately, John’s ministry can only be called a success.

He deflected attention off of himself and on to Christ.

The world was dark and it needed John—a man with a megaphone telling them that the True Light was coming.

“God would not allow His beloved Son to come here unrecognized and unheralded. As soon as He was born into this world, He sent the angels to the Bethlehem shepherds to proclaim Him, and just before His public ministry began, John appeared bidding Israel to receive Him.”

DA Carson

But at the end of the day, John’s ministry is the ministry of all of us—the ministry of every Christian.

Any preacher that steps into a pulpit should have John’s purpose in mind:

This is not about me. I am just here to put people’s attention on Jesus, the True Light.

Any Christian that goes to work, hoping to live the Christian life faithfully and share the Gospel as God gives the opportunity, should have John’s purpose in mind:

I am not the Light. I am just here to get people to look at Jesus, the True Light.

Any Christian goes on a mission trip to serve the Lord should have John’s purpose in mind:

I am not the Light. Christ is the true Light and my job is just to urge others to behold Him!

In whatever place God has put you...

...With whatever skills God has given you...

...With the a testimony to the Gospel on your lips...

...Your job is simply to reflect the Light of the Son to the world of darkness.

Our evangelism...

Our outreach...

Our good works...

...They are never about us.

All we do, we do by the mercy of Christ for the magnification of Christ.

We just want people to look at Jesus and believe in Him through our testimony.

This must be the simple heart cry of our church if we are going to walk in the good works God has prepared for us as His Workmanship.

The simple cry of our heart must be that people would look to Jesus, the True Light, and they would savingly believe in Him THROUGH our witness.

We have no business being involved in such glorious things, but God has made these glorious things our business by His mercy.

Let us steward the privilege by witnessing to the True Light faithfully.

The Rejection of the True Light (v. 9-11)

This leads to our second teaching point this morning.

John witnessed to the True Light, but the True Light was not necessarily received with open arms.

2. The Rejection of the True Light (v. 9-11)

The True Light (v. 9)

Let’s look at v. 9.

John the Apostle shifts the attention off of John the Baptist and he is back to focusing on the True Light.

He says that the True Light, which gives light to everyone, was coming into the world.

This is a statement about the Incarnation.

This is a statement about God becoming man and putting on human flesh.

Now—how is Jesus, born in Bethlehem, the True Light?

Well, Christ is the True Light because He is non-deceiving Light.

In 2 Corinthians 11, Paul says that Satan disguises himself as an angel of light in order to deceive.

God does not do this.

Christ does not do this.

He is the Light of the World and He presents Himself in full divine integrity, as He truly is.

Secondly, Christ is the True Light because He is the real Light.

Before Jesus came, He was foretold by the entirety of Old Covenant worship and the Old Testament Scriptures.

The prophets all spoke of Him.

The kings of David’s line were all leading up to Him.

The Law revealed the desperate need for Him.

The Temple and all of its intricacy foreshadowed Him.

And the worship according to the Scriptures all pointed beyond itself to Him.

These were all types and shadows signaling that the Messiah is coming.

But once Jesus came, He was not pointing beyond Himself to anyone else.

He is the True Light.

Not a type.

Not a shadow.

Not a breadcrumb leading you to the feast.

He is the Real Thing. He is the True Light.

Thirdly, Christ is the True Light because He the original Light.

He doesn’t borrow Light from anyone else.

He is the True Light and as we learned in v. 4, “in Him was life, and the life was the light of men.”

And lastly, Christ is the True Light because He is the preeminent Light.

The True Light is greater than all lesser lights.

There is truly no one like Him.

Jesus Himself said that John the Baptist was the greatest man born of a woman.

And yet, John is just gray rock.

John is just the Moon, reflecting the Light.

As the True Light, Jesus is THE Light.

More powerful and purposeful and primary than all others.

And this Light gives Light to everyone.

Meaning, this Light shines on every man.

The world was dark.

The world was depraved and dead in their trespasses.

And then Christ was born.

The True Light crossed the boundary into this world and pierced through the darkness.

And now that the Light has come into the world, it divides the human race.

The True Light gives Light to everyone, but not everyone receives it.

Many reject it—-which brings us to verses 10 and 11.

The World Did Not Know Him (v. 10)

V. 10 tells us about a more universal rejection, while v. 11 speaks about Jesus’ rejection by the Jewish people.

Let’s start by looking at the first.

We know from the beginning of John’s gospel, that Christ is the One through whom the world was created.

John 1:3 ESV

All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made.

Christ is the powerful Agent of creation.

But the spiritual tragedy of v. 10 is that Christ, the Creator, came into the world as the True Light, but the world did not know Him.

They did not recognize Him.

He spoke the world into existence.

And yet when God revealed Himself to the world, they couldn’t make His face.

One of my favorite books I read this year was called A Light on the Hill, by Caleb Morrell.

It is about Capitol Hill Baptist Church in Washington DC. I highly recommend it.

Right after I finished the book, I was at the Southern Baptist Convention in Dallas, TX and I was at a booth talking to this guy.

When I got done, he invited me to an event he was helping host that night for pastors.

He told me his name was Caleb.

I looked down at his name tag and behold—It was Caleb Morrell—the author of this great book.

Here I was talking to the Author of this wonderful work I was enjoying and I didn’t even realize it.

This is how the dark world was when Jesus came.

The Author of Creation was looking them in the face and they didn’t even realize it.

His People Did Not Receive Him (v. 11)

Now for the Creation to not recognize the Creator is pretty bad, but v. 11 is even worse.

John 1:11 ESV

He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him.

Verse 11 is speaking to Jesus coming to the Jewish people.

They were His own.

Jesus was born of Mary.

In the book of Luke, Luke tracks Jesus’ genealogy through Mary’s line.

If you read it, you will see that Mary was a daughter of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Judah.

She is a daughter of Boaz, Obed, Jesse and David.

Mary was a Jewish girl who gave birth to a Jewish boy.

And Mary’s people—the line she was born from, were a blessed people.

They had all those things we mentioned earlier that pointed to and foretold of Christ.

They had the Law, the Prophets, the Temple and the Scriptures.

They had the ceremonies and feasts and sacrifices.

And yet, they rejected the One who brought fulfillment to all of these things.

This is a deeper level of rejection than what we saw in v. 10.

It is one thing not to recognize someone.

It is another to not receive them.

Imagine I am at Outback Steakhouse eating an extra crispy Bloomin Onion.

Imagine one of our church members walks in with an eye patch because they had surgery and I don’t recognize them. They see me, but I don’t see them. We don’t speak.

Now imagine one of our church members walking in, seeing me, walking up to me and saying, “Hey Pastor!” And then I look at that church member, kind of shake my head in disgust, and go back to what I was doing.

Which situation is more offensive?

Clearly the second.

This is the way the Jewish nation responded to the Lord Jesus Christ.

The world did not recognize Him, but they did not receive Him.

They looked at Him, shook their head, and went back to what they were doing.

The horror of their rejection is illustrated by Christ in the Parable of the Wicked Tenants in Matthew 21.

There is a master of a house who plants a vineyard and leases it to tenants and then he goes to another country.

In the parable, the master of the house is God and the vineyard is the kingdom of Israel and the tenants are the leaders of Israel.

When harvest time comes, he sends servants to get his fruit and the tenants kills the servants over and over.

This is speaking of how Israel rejected God by killing His prophets again and again.

In the parable, the owner of the vineyard decides to send His Son, thinking the tenants will respect him. But they kill him too.

This is referring to how Israel crucified the Son of God by the hands of the Romans.

Christ is the Cornerstone and the builders of Israel rejected Him.

It isn’t just that they didn’t know who He was.

It was that they look at Him in the face and said, “No thanks. Be gone.”

This rejection of Christ the Son was a slap in the face to God the Father.

This is why the vineyard is taken from the wicked tenants in the parable.

Application: The Darkness of the World is Still Here

And here is what you and I know—the dark world still does not receive Christ or even recognize Him.

Things have not changed.

The Bible doesn’t promise us that things will get progressively better in the world until Christ comes.

Instead, we get a picture of things getting worse in the world.

Until Christ returns, the world is filled with tribulation, deserving of God’s active judgments and still trapped in Satan’s devices.

Matthew 24:7–8 ESV

For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, and there will be famines and earthquakes in various places. All these are but the beginning of the birth pains.

These things will be a regular part of the age until Christ comes back and we can say that we have seen this with our own eyes.

The good news is that things get better in the church because as the world devolves, the Church is being sanctified.

Life may not be easier, but those living it should become holier.

But as the holy church of God goes into all the world shouting the Good News of Jesus with beautiful feet, the darkness of the world still rejects the Light.

They find the eternal matters that we take so seriously to be nothing more than a joke:

1 Corinthians 1:18 ESV

For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.

We say that The True Light and His Cross are the power of God unto salvation, but they call it folly.

A waste of time.

A parade of non-sense.

And what this means for us, who like John the Baptist are seeking to bear witness to the True Light, is that we must understand the spiritual battle that is taking place.

Ephesians 6:12 ESV

For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.

There is a real, genuine spiritual darkness that lurks behind the world’s lostness and their ultimate rejection of Christ.

And there is nothing we can do about that in our own strength and power.

Therefore, we come to the throne of God by the grace of Christ and we plead for power from on high.

We pray for open doors for the Gospel where Christ will be received.

We pray for the True Light to shine into dark hearts and to bring about spiritual rebirth.

We pray for God to remember His promise that the darkness will not overcome the Light.

We pray for God to do what we cannot do—save souls.

The goal of prayer is the ear of God.

Charles Spurgeon

Our goal is that God’s ear would hear our prayers as we bear witness to the Light because we know that He is the only One who can truly chase away the darkness.

The world is still rejecting—not recognizing, not receiving.

We better keep praying.

The Reception of the True Light (v. 12-13)

This now brings us to our final point this morning:

3. The Reception of the True Light (v. 12-13)

We have seen how the True Light was rejected.

But praise God—not everyone rejects Him.

God always has His remnant.

God always has His believing bunch.

His bruised reeds and smoking flaxes who may be battered, but they have not spurned the True Light.

They have received Him and they have believed in His name.

Believing and Receiving (v. 12)

Now as we look at v. 12-13, keep in mind that we get to see two sides of the salvation coin.

On one hand, in v. 12 we get to see the human side of salvation.

On the other hand, in v. 13, we get to God’s work in salvation.

In v. 12, we see the human side—in order for a soul to be saved, they must receive the True Light and believe in His name.

To receive Him and to believe in His name are two ways of describing the same thing.

Those who do not reject Christ, will bow their allegiance to Him, will profess to believe His claims and will confess His name’s power to save.

They will take the full weight of their souls and they will throw it upon Jesus, forsaking all hopes elsewhere.

And when they do, by faith they will be given the right to become children of God.

They become God’s covenant people by faith in God’s Son—the True Light.

Becoming the Children of God (v. 12-13)

Before we go to v. 13, I want to linger for a moment on the phrase “he gave the right to become the children of God.”

What we read at the end of v. 12 is directly connected to what we saw in v. 11

God’s Old Covenant people—the nation of Israel—did not receive the Messiah.

He knocked, they looked through the curtains, saw who it was and they did not answer.

Instead, they took Him to trial in a kangaroo court and had Him crucified by Gentile men.

As a result, the tenants lost the vineyard.

In the New Covenant, the keeper of the vineyard is now the Church, made up of both Jews and Gentiles.

Made up of those who have received The True Light.

Old Testament Israel was called God’s firstborn son.

Exodus 4:22 ESV

Then you shall say to Pharaoh, ‘Thus says the Lord, Israel is my firstborn son,

But the firstborn son rejected the Messiah.

And so now, what has happened?

God has a new people, who have not rejected the Messiah, but have received Him, and those children are given the right to stand where the firstborn Son—Israel—should have stood.

So you can see the devastating effects of rejecting Christ and the delightful effects of receiving Him.

On one hand, Israel refused to receive the Messiah as He was revealed, therefore they have lost their standing with God.

On the other hand, any Jew OR Gentile who receives the Messiah by faith, have gained a standing with God.

Not as a client.

Not as a helper.

Not even primarily as a servant.

Instead, as a child.

They have fully received the True Light, therefore God is truly their Father.

They have believed in the name of Christ, therefore they are truly children of God.

Of the Will of God (v. 13)

But again—this is just salvation from a human perspective in v. 12.

We receive and believe and we are given the right to become children of God.

To know God as Father.

But lest we think that believing and receiving is the result of anything other than a work of God, John writes v. 13.

Verse 13 tells us about how the salvation that comes to those who believe and receive is by the will of God.

It is not by blood.

You don’t get this salvation because you were born into it.

It is not by the hereditary line of your father or your mother.

It is not because of your nationality.

It is not because of the blood in your veins.

It is not by the will of the flesh.

Awkward as it might be to talk about, we are all here because at some point, our parents found one another attractive enough to make a human together.

I’ll leave it at that.

Babies are born from two people feeling their passions and acting on them.

But those who become children of God in v. 12 do not come about in this way.

It is not by the will of man.

The will of man is naturally opposed to God.

Man is naturally in the darkness, not the True Light.

Man will never receive and believe on the name of the True Light in his own power and strength.

He will never do it of his own volition.

The heart of man is desperately sick beyond our ability to comprehend it.

That is the reality the Scripture reveals to us.

If salvation was left to the will of men, no men would be saved.

So then, salvation is not by any of these, but instead, It is of God.

New birth comes from Him.

It is of His Spirit.

John 3:5–6 ESV

Jesus answered, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.

It is not something we cause, but that He causes:

1 Peter 1:3 ESV

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead,

Naturally, people love the darkness and their evil deeds and the flee from the Light.

John 3:19–20 ESV

And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed.

The only way that anyone will come to the Light is if the eyes of their heart are enlightened (Ephesians 1:18) to see that Christ is True Light, indeed.

Therefore, the only way that someone comes to the True Light is if God wills it.

Not if their blood declares it.

Not if their passions desire it.

Not if they really try for it.

It is of God and God must will it.

So understanding this, if anyone does the business of v. 12—they believe and receive—it is because God has willed it.

It is because God brought it about through new birth.

This is always the order of things: New Birth comes and only then is there belief and the willingness to receive Christ in the sinner’s heart.

Application: Glory to God in New Birth

This is why Jesus was born.

Mild He lays His glory by

Born that men no more may die

Born to raise the sons of earth

Born to give them 2nd birth

Hark the Herald Angels Sing

Therefore, any time we see new birth in the church, be it in the heart of a child or an adult, the only proper response it for us to give glory to the God who willed it.

When the sinner comes to an awareness of their lostness...

When they come to the end of themselves...

When they come to God’s law and call it good and admit they are guilty...

When they come to Christ and confess Him as Savior...

...The credit can only and always go to one place—the throne of the God of salvation.

If the sinner’s salvation was a result of their choice to believe, first and foremost, then John’s words make no sense in v. 13.

It would not be by the will of God, but of the will of man.

But if we understand that a sinner’s belief is a result of a new birth given by God, then we will understand John’s words with no issues.

The sinner’s belief is not a result of his will, but of God’s will.

What should be rendered to a God who saves souls and changes lives and eternities like this?

He should receive total and frequent praise.

Think of all the good you have seen the Word of God do in men and women...

Think of all the good you have seen the Gospel do in the lives of your brothers and sisters in the church...

Think of all the lives you have firsthand seen changed by being born again...

...All of this is from the True Light, through the True Light and to the True Light.

All of this requires us to glorify and magnify Jesus as the Savior of souls and the only Redeemer of God’s children.

Ultimately, it should have the effect of firing your evangelism with affection and boldness.

The affection comes from your awe that God gives new birth by His will and saves sinners by the True Light of His Son.

You should go out into the world as someone who marvels at the God who saves.

The boldness comes from you knowing that whether or not people believe is not in your hands. That is God’s work.

You should go out into the world knowing that your job is simply to tell the old, old story about the Savior who came from glory.

New birth is in the hands of God.

Conclusion

The Light has come.

John testified about it.

Many rejected Him.

Some received Him and He gave them the right to become children of God.

This Light is a dividing line that has split the human race right down the middle.

You either reject the Light or you receive it.

Which side of that line are you this morning?

If God called your number and you faced Him today to account for your life, which side of that line are you on?

For unbelievers here today...

...will you receive the True Light and believe in the name of Jesus for the salvation of your soul?

Will you forsake your sin and your worldview and your desires and turn to Christ and give Him your life?

Would you throw up your hands and say, “I’ve had enough of a life lived for me. I want a life lived for God in the True Light?”

The True Light has come for you.

Would you believe through the testimony of this very sermon today?

For my Christian brothers and sisters in the room today...

...will you take the True Light to the world and bear witness?

Will you be the moon to His Sun?

Will you reflect the glory of the True Light to all the world by preaching His Gospel?

You must.

We must.

For there is no other hope for the world.

There is no other name that salvation is found in.

Let us have the heart of John and go to the world saying, “It is not about us. But the True Light shines. Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!”