ADORE: The Light of the World

Open your Bibles with me, if you will to John 1.

We were here last week, as we started our advent series, called ADORE.

Last week, we talked about adoring Jesus as the Creator that entered His creation.

Jesus didn’t just create everything that is, He also entered into His creation to redeem us from our sin.

You’ll remember, last week, that we also looked at Genesis 1, and we talked about Jesus as the eternal Word that spoke light into the darkness.

This morning, as we continue together, John tells us that Jesus, the one who created light, is HIMSELF the Light that stepped into our darkness.

Advent is about waiting in anticipation for that Light-the Light the darkness cannot overcome.

Darkness, of course, is not substance. Darkness is the absence of light.

In places that we experience darkness, there is at least some light. When you look out in front of you and can see the outline of a chair, when you see the motion of a hand being waved in front of your face, when you can differentiate an area that seems darker than where you are, it is because some light is present.

But where there is not light, it’s absence is obvious.

In Genesis 1:3, The eternal Word of God spoke into a world of absolute darkness and physical light was born.

But while we still experience physical darkness in the cycles of the earth as God made it to be, that is not the darkness that we should be worried about.

No, there is a far greater, a far deeper, a far more terrible darkness that we face. It is a spiritual darkness, and it truly is is overwhelming.

Sin, confusion, lostness, shame, and spiritual blindness fill the world around us, trapping mankind in an inescapable darkness we can do nothing about.

THIS darkness is what happens in human hearts in the absence of Jesus. Without Jesus, what we pursue leads us deeper and deeper into darkness.

This time of year, we string lights into trees, onto houses, and lamp posts. Light seems to be the theme of the festivities, as though the whole world were crying for it, for light to shine into our darkness and free us from it.

But Christmas is more than just some sentimental escape or some wistful merriment before the drudge of deep winter.

Christmas is the invasion of the Divine Light into human darkness.

O come, let us adore Him! O come, let us adore Him! O come, let us adore Him, Christ the Lord!

Why? Why should we adore the Light of the World? John, Paul, and Peter show us four reasons.

Let’s start in John 1, and as we are moving around this morning, I would invite you all to stay seated.

John 1:1–5 CSB

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. All things were created through him, and apart from him not one thing was created that has been created. In him was life, and that life was the light of men. That light shines in the darkness, and yet the darkness did not overcome it.

PRAY:

John tells us that we should

Adore Jesus because He is the Eternal Light.

Last week, we were talking about how John 1:1 quotes Genesis 1:1

After the service, Aaron and I were revelling together in how incredible that reference is.

In Genesis 1:1, the word used for God is Elohim, which is a name for God that emphasizes Him as the Mighty and Powerful One.

And in Genesis 1, His name is PLURAL! In other Words, God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit were all present

And if you didn’t believe it just from His plural name in verse 1,

In verse 2 the Holy Spirit is hovering over the waters

In verse 3 God the Father speaks, and Jesus, the Word of God made flesh becomes the agent of creation.

But in the very beginning, we see God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit are all present at the beginning.

And the reason I’m taking time to re-emphasize and more deeply communicate what we discussed last week is that it can’t be over communicated.

In John 1:1-2, we are reminded that Jesus doesn’t begin in Bethlehem-Before the beginning of everything began, Jesus already IS!

John writes that the Word was with God and the Word, that is Jesus, was God.

He makes it clear for us-Jesus is completely distinct from God the Father, and yet He is also fully DIVINE!

How can we not see that Jesus is the Eternal Light- Before there was light in Genesis 1:3, Jesus was the Light in eternity.

Everything that is, everything that exists only exists because Jesus made it.

“All things were created through Him and apart from Him not one thing was created that has been created.

If you are here, it is because He made you.

First Jesus made physical light-and now He brings His Spiritual Light into our darkness.

Human life has no source apart from Him.

“In Him was life and the life was the light of men.”

What does that mean? It means that Jesus, the eternal light, is your source of life. If you don’t have Jesus, you don’t know what it means to truly live.

Look at verse 5:

That light shines in the darkness and yet the darkness did not overcome it.

The word for shines here is in the present tense-it is ongoing, it is unstoppable and continuing.

The darkness is unable to comprehend it or to overcome it. This light cannot be extinguished or stomped out. Darkness cannot overpower, swallow, or destroy it.

That which previously seemed to swallow and extinguish everything is not only held captive, but is washed away by the glory of the Eternal Light.

We don’t worship a fragile glimmer; we adore the unconquerable LIGHT that is Jesus.

O come, let us Adore Him! Worship Christ as the eternal divine Light who existed before all things and created all that is.

Let’s continue, verse 6:

John 1:6–13 CSB

There was a man sent from God whose name was John. He came as a witness to testify about the light, so that all might believe through him. He was not the light, but he came to testify about the light. The true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world. He was in the world, and the world was created through him, and yet the world did not recognize him. He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him. But to all who did receive him, he gave them the right to be children of God, to those who believe in his name, who were born, not of natural descent, or of the will of the flesh, or of the will of man, but of God.

WE Adore Jesus because He is the Eternal Light, but also,

Adore Jesus because He is the Revealing Light.

John transitions here from who Jesus is to what Jesus does- Jesus reveals and exposes.

John the Baptist appears in verses 6-9 with a purpose:

John the Baptist isn’t the Light. John came to be a witness to the Light.

Jesus is the TRUE LIGHT. He is the genuine, supreme, and final revelation of God.

John’s purpose was to point Israel to the One that they were waiting for.

Israel had been waiting for a prophet to come in the spirit of Elijah, which was John the Baptist.

They knew that after that prophet, they could anticipate that the Messiah was coming.

Advent is about expectation- But we aren’t looking for a prophet; we are looking for the Light Himself!

We can rejoice Because He is with us. O Come, Let us Adore Him!

Let it be that we expect to see Jesus this season.

Let us see Him in our own lives as we live before Him.

Let us see Him at work in the world around us.

“He was in the world, and the world was created through Him, and yet the world did not recognize Him. He came to His own, and His own people did not receive Him.”

There was great tragedy in that first Christmas. The Light of the World had come to His own people-and their response was to reject Him.

This is the greatest threat of the darkness, that those who live in it will no longer long for the light.

It is the blinding of sin that resists Jesus, that prefers the darkness as if darkness could win.

John 3:19 CSB

This is the judgment: The light has come into the world, and people loved darkness rather than the light because their deeds were evil.

The Eternal light came into the World and He reveals not only who God is, but who we are without Him.

Won’t you turn into the Light and embrace Him as He reveals in you all that He came to free you from.

Verse 13 tells us “But to all who did receive him, he gave them the right to be children of God, to those who believe in his name, who were born, not of natural descent, or of the will of the flesh, or of the will of man, but of God.”

The remedy to your blindness is not your human effort to be better-it is rebirth into the family of God.

Child of God is not an ethnic title. It is nothing given to you biologically. No man can will it, assign it, or sell it to you.

The Light of Jesus gives us sight, faith, and adoption.

And only He can give it to you.

O come, let us adore Him! Worship Christ for revealing God, exposing our need, and giving new life to those who trust Him!

Turn with me to Colossians 1:13

Colossians 1:13–14 CSB

He has rescued us from the domain of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of the Son he loves. In him we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.

Let us Adore the Eternal Light, the Revealing Light, but also

Adore Jesus because He is the Liberating Light.

At the end of World War II, the Jews who had survived the brutal suffering-filled and deadly reality of the concentration camps cheered and celebrated the arrival of Allied tanks and soldiers-not only because of their effect on fleeing Nazis, but because a new regime, a new power was in charge and everything had changed.

At Christmas, we celebrate, not just a retreat of darkness, but the coming of the rightful King.

In the Light of Jesus, we find more than the crossing of a line between light and dark. We find that we are carried over the border from the kingdom of death into the kingdom of life.

The language here reminds me of the book of Exodus-In Egypt God freed His people from the tyrannical rule of Pharoah. Here, we see that Jesus came to free His people from the tyrannical rule of sin.

Darkness is not merely obscurity. It isn’t a hiding place shielding you from rebuke and judgment. It is bondage, authority, and rulership, enslaving you to chains that only Jesus can break.

The kingdom of darkness was our kingdom. It is one of our own making. We made ourselves gods, seeking our own wills and delving into sin, not realizing that in our rebellion agains God, we were enslaving ourselves to the death that sin brings.

But Jesus stepped into the land of the rebellion. At Christmas, the King came to capture the rebels by grace.

In Jesus, we move from slavery to sonship. We move from sinful rebellion to citizens of His eternal Kingdom.

“In Him we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.”

The Light of Jesus doesn’t just illuminate and expose-it liberates us.

your freedom has been purchase.

Your debts have been canceled. The gates of the death camp have been flung open.

O Come, Let Us Adore Him! WE adore Jesus because His light does more that shine on us-it sets us free!

One more. Turn quickly with me to 1 Peter 2:9

1 Peter 2:9 CSB

But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his possession, so that you may proclaim the praises of the one who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.

We adore the eternal light, the revealing light, the liberating light. But we also

Adore Jesus because He make us light.

Friends, Advent isn’t only about His coming-it is also about our calling.

Peter writes that we are… “a chosen race…a royal priesthood…a holy nation…set apart…a people for His possession.”

In Christ our identity flows from the Light who saved us.

We are a people formed and filled by Light.

You have been made in His image and reborn into His Kingdom.

If you are in Christ, His light shines in You.

In Christ, there is no darkness.

We are Called to no longer live in the darkness.

You are “called out of darkness into His marvelous light.”

Your new identity as a child of Light demands a new lifestyle.

You cannot live in light and darkness simultaneously.

You might live in a world filled with darkness, but if you are in Christ, you are filled with His light!

Darkness may be all around you, but if you are in Christ, it can no longer be in you!

You have been made new and filled with His Light, that You might carry Him into the darkness, to those who haven’t heard.

We are sent by Jesus to proclaim His Excellencies.

We carry His light, shining into a dark and dying world, showing them the Light of His salvation!

Christmas is proclamation-THE LIGHT HAS COME.

YOU NO LONGER HAVE TO LIVE IN DARKNESS!

And in that declaration, that joyous shout of the Light that fills us, we also proclaim our adoration of Him.

WE adore the Light by reflecting the Light.

You see, the Light that fills us, that shines from us as we proclaim His goodness to others, that light isn’t us.

It is Him.

He is the difference. He is the Light of the World: Eternal, Revealing, Liberating and filling.

O Come, Let us Adore Him! Let the Light of the World be Adored.

In Genesis, God said “let there be light.,” and light enters the world.

In John, God says again, “let there be light,” and Jesus steps into our world.

In you, God says again, “let there be light,” and sends us out into His world as His witnesses.

Christ is the eternal light-adore Him

Christ is the revealing light-receive Him

Christ is the liberating light-trust Him

Christ is the transforming light-reflect Him.

Won’t you walk with Jesus this morning?

I’ll be right here after the service. Come talk with me and let’s consider together how you might respond to His call this morning.

It is time to Adore Him and walk in His marvelous Light.

PRAY!