JOHN 1:6-13 - Light For Everyone

Introduction

On November 15th, 2018, a 26-year old missionary, John Allen Chau, paddled his collapsible kayak onto the beach of North Sentinel Island, a tiny 20-square mile island on the eastern side of the Bay of Bengal. It was the end of a long and complicated journey driven by his single-minded purpose: To bring the message of salvation in Jesus Christ to the Sentinelese people, an isolated Stone Age tribe that had gone without significant contact with the outside world for hundreds (if not thousands) of years.

People warned him not to go—it was too dangerous, they said. The islanders had killed fishermen whose boats would drift too close to shore; what would they do to this tall, athletic American if he stepped onto the beach? In fact, the Indian government had patrols in the water around the island prohibiting any vessel from approaching any closer than 5 kilometers—to protect intruders as much as the Sentinelese.

He heard the warnings, he knew the risks, but John simply couldn’t stay away. He wrote in his diary, “Lord, is this island Satan's last stronghold, where none have heard or even had the chance to hear your name?", "The eternal lives of this tribe is at hand", and "I think it's worthwhile to declare Jesus to these people. Please do not be angry at them or at God if I get killed ... Don't retrieve my body." (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Allen_Chau)

Two days after his first contact with the Sentinelese, the fishermen that he had paid to take him close to shore saw John’s lifeless body being dragged along the beach and buried in the sand.

As shocking and tragic as it is, John Allen Chau’s story is an echo of our Lord’s arrival here on this darkened world. John Allen Chau went to North Sentinel Island with a message of light and salvation and was killed, and the Son of God came to this world out of His great love for it. And this world hated Him for it, and put Him to death on a Cross. And as He suffered His dying agony, He pleaded with God not to be angry at them for killing Him.

Our text this morning tells of another John who came to bear witness of the Light of Christ to a world that eventually killed him:

John 1:6–7 LSB

There was a man having been sent from God, whose name was John. He came as a witness, to bear witness about the Light, so that all might believe through him.

So this morning I want to plead with you from the Scriptures to see what John Allen Chau saw; to see what John the Baptist saw; to see what countless saints have seen; what the great cloud of witnesses that surround you this morning all testify:

There is no better GOAL for your LIFE than to SPEND yourself in WITNESS to Christ’s LIGHT

John wrote his Gospel for one purpose:

John 20:31 LSB

but these have been written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing you may have life in His name.

This Light that has come into the world—this is what we celebrate at Christmas—and God calls His children to be witnesses to that light. John’s Gospel is crammed with witnesses to Christ. Jesus said that he and His Father bore witness about Himself

John 8:18 LSB

“I am He who bears witness about Myself, and the Father who sent Me bears witness about Me.”

Jesus said His works bear witness to Him:

John 10:25 LSB

Jesus answered them, “I told you, and you do not believe; the works that I do in My Father’s name, these bear witness of Me.

The Scriptures bear witness to Christ:

John 5:39 LSB

“You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; it is these that bear witness about Me;

The disciples bear witness to Christ:

John 15:27 LSB

and you will bear witness also, because you have been with Me from the beginning.

The Holy Spirit bears witness to Christ:

John 15:26 LSB

“When the Advocate comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father, He will bear witness about Me,

There is no better goal for your life than to spend yourself in witness to Christ’s light in this dark world. See here in our text this morning

I. Your ROLE as a WITNESS to the Light (John 1:6-8)

John 1:6–7 LSB

There was a man having been sent from God, whose name was John. He came as a witness, to bear witness about the Light, so that all might believe through him.

What does a witness do? A witness tells of what he has seen. In his first epistle, the Apostle John makes it clear that this was the point of his witness:

1 John 1:1–2 LSB

What was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we beheld and touched with our hands, concerning the Word of Life—and the life was manifested, and we have seen and bear witness and proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and was manifested to us—

Consider first

The CONTENT of your witness (v. 7; cp. 1 Cor. 15:3-4)

What are you witnessing about as a witness for Christ? First of all, your witness is about Jesus. As one commentator puts it:

Christian witness is first and foremost about Christ: how he was born of the virgin Mary, lived a perfect life, performed numerous miracles declaring his deity, and especially how Jesus died on the cross to deliver us from our sins and rose from the grave to give us eternal life (Doriani, D. M., Ryken, P. G., & Phillips, R. D. (2008). The Incarnation in the Gospels (D. M. Doriani, P. G. Ryken, & R. D. Phillips, Eds.; p. 165). P&R Publishing.)

The Apostle Paul summarized the content of his witness about Christ very simply in 1 Corinthians 15:3-4

1 Corinthians 15:3–4 LSB

For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures,

Your witness of Christ is that He is God Himself come in the flesh, He lived among us and died to bear the penalty of our sins, and three days later He rose from the dead, making Him the King over all peoples and nations, and that anyone who believes in Him will be granted forgiveness of sins and a New Birth in Him for eternal life.

When John the Baptist came as a witness, he came to witness to who Jesus is. John not only demonstrates the content of our witness, but also

The MANNER of our witness (v. 8; cp. John 5:35)

Look with me in Verse 8:

John 1:8 LSB

He was not the Light, but he came to bear witness about the Light.

John was not himself the Light; John came to bear witness about the light found in Christ. Jesus says about John the Baptist a few chapters later:

John 5:35 LSB

“He was the lamp that was burning and shining and you were willing to rejoice for a while in his light.

Now, I don’t know about you, but one of the most difficult things I encounter in my home is finding a flashlight with a working battery. Otherwise the flashlight is just a useless stick. In the same way, John’s Gospel says, John’s witness of Christ to the world did not come from any light within himself, but only as he was empowered by God Himself.

Remember when John had been thrown in prison and sent his disciples to ask Jesus if He really was the Messiah? “Are you the One Who is to come, or shall we look for someone else?” (Matthew 11:3) In his own strength and by his own understanding, John had no confidence to witness to Christ.

In the same way, beloved, your light for Christ as a lamp needs continual power from God. Your fellowship with Christ and the Holy Spirit’s presence in you as you worship God the Father is the power for His light to shine through you. The darkness around you will swallow up your light if it is coming from the weak, failing battery of your own self-will or religious habits.

But when you are filling your life with the light of the presence of Christ in His Word and through His people; when you are finding in Him your treasure and your joy and are delighting in His work in your life, then you will display the grace and power of the Gospel in your life and shine in the darkness of whatever persecution or hardship you suffer.

Consider here in our text some of the glorious truths that will fuel that light of Christ in you, Christian—consider here what God’s Word says about

II. The TRUTH about your LIFE in the Light (John 1:9, 12)

Verse 9 tells us that Christ is “the true Light, which, coming into the world, enlightens everyone”. The Good News of Jesus Christ tells you the truth about yourself, about God, about salvation—who you were apart from Him (hopelessly lost and condemned to Hell), and who you are now (a child of God):

John 1:12 LSB

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,

When you come to know that—when it really settles in on you that you are a child of God—that truth of your life in Him is a light that the darkness of this world cannot extinguish.

Consider the truth of your life in God, Christian. First of all, it means that

You have a FATHER Who LOVES you (cp. Ps. 103:13)

Centuries before John wrote these verses, the psalmist wrote in Psalm 103:13

Psalm 103:13 LSB

As a father has compassion on his children, So Yahweh has compassion on those who fear Him.

The truth that shines on you in Christ, Christian, is that God really does love you. He really does have compassion on you; He really is delighted with you. You may have had a father here on earth who was loving and compassionate, but there is no earthly father’s love that can prepare you for the love that your Heavenly Father has for you because of Christ.

You may have had a father who was distant, or absent, or who abdicated his responsibilities to care for you and love you and protect you growing up. But the Father that you have in God through Christ is a Father Who loves you more than you will ever comprehend, and the Scriptures promise that He is going to spend all the countless ages of eternity showing you how much He loves you!

Ephesians 2:7 LSB

so that in the ages to come He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward [you] in Christ Jesus.

The truth of your life in the light means that you have a Father Who loves you—and like any loving father,

He SEES to your NEEDS (Matt. 6:31-32)

Christian, as a child of God you can hold fast to the truth of His gracious care for you—nothing will befall you in this world that has not first passed through His loving hands! He knows your every weakness, He understands your needs, and He has promised to care for you completely and fully and utterly for all of the days that you walk through the darkness of this broken world:

Matthew 6:31–34 LSB

“Do not worry then, saying, ‘What will we eat?’ or ‘What will we drink?’ or ‘What will we wear for clothing?’ For all these things the Gentiles eagerly seek; for your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. So do not worry about tomorrow; for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.

When the truth that you are a beloved child of God through Christ really takes hold in your life, you rest in the great promise that you have a loving Father—He sees to your needs, and like any loving Father

He SEES to your FUTURE (cp. Rom. 8:17-18; 2 Cor. 4:17)

Being a child of God means that you have a glorious inheritance to look forward to. As the Apostle Paul puts it in Romans 8:17-18 that we are children of God—

Romans 8:17–18 LSB

and if children, also heirs, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him so that we may also be glorified with Him. For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed to us.

Christian, when this world weighs you down with hardships and disappointments, when your health gives way and your relationships strain, when you are harassed day and night by the Devil’s lies and accusations, let this magnificent truth sustain you—that no calamity or loss or suffering or violence or heartbreak or sorrow you can bear in this world can even be compared to the inheritance of glory that is waiting for you by His side in eternity! In fact, those sufferings are the very way that He prepares you to be able to bear the weight of glory He has in store for you!

2 Corinthians 4:17 LSB

For our momentary, light affliction is working out for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison!

The truth about your life in the light is what sustains you in your role as a witness to the light of Christ. There is no better goal for your life than to spend yourself in witness to that Light—because just like John the Baptist did, and just like John Allen Chau did, you will face

III. The HATRED of the DARKNESS for the Light (John 1:10-13)

John 1:10 LSB

He was in the world, and the world was made through Him, and the world did not know Him.

When Christ came to earth in the darkness of that first night in Bethlehem, the world He entered took no notice whatsoever of His coming. And when the world did take notice, it was in the form of King Herod drenching Bethlehem with the blood of children as he tried to wipe out the threat to his power from “the one who was born King of the Jews” (Matthew 2:2). Decades later, Herod’s son succeeded in stamping out the light that John the Baptist shone on him. As you spend yourself in witness to Christ’s light, beloved, you do so knowing that

Great moral WICKEDNESS does not RECOGNIZE Him (v. 10)

The world loves to celebrate Christmas—as long as the reason that Christ came into the world is left out. Why do you think there is such a tussle over Nativity scenes being displayed on public property? Why else is there such a fascination with "Jolly Old St. Nick” but no mention of the actual St. Nicholas of Myra, the fourth Century bishop who defended the deity of Christ?

Give us the helpless Baby in the manger, give us a “right jolly old elf,” give us The Great Christmas Light Fight, but do not give us a Savior from our darkness! Because as soon as we admit that that Baby in the manger is God Himself in human flesh we have to admit that He is Who the Scriptures say He is—a Savior.

And it all falls apart from there; if He came as a Savior, then it means that we must be saved, which means we are helpless sinners. And if there is one thing that this world does not want to be called. it is “helpless sinners”. We want our darkness as a cover for our evil deeds and evil thoughts; we twist around the meaning of “wicked” until it stands for “misunderstood hero” and not “evil hater of God and His Law”; we wear our perversions and our brokenness as badges of honor and insist on being validated and celebrated in order to drown out the misery and hopelessness that dwells in the dark core of our souls. And all of that would crumble if we admitted the truth of Who Christ is!

“He was in the world, and the world was made through Him, and the world did not know Him”. The darkness of great moral wickedness does not recognize Christ the Savior, and in Verse 11 we are told that

Great moral SUPERIORITY does not RECEIVE Him (v. 11)

John 1:11 LSB

He came to what was His own, and those who were His own did not receive Him.

When the Light came to earth, He came to the people who were the keepers of the ancient promises of His arrival. But when He came, His arrival was not noticed by His own people, but by the people who had centuries earlier held His people captive! The Magi who came because they saw His star rising were not descendants of Abraham—but when they told the ruler of the Jews in Jerusalem (Herod), his response was to lash out to destroy the Light that had come.

Throughout His life, Jesus would face His fiercest opposition from His own kinsmen, the Jewish people. The ones who fasted twice a week, the ones who presented their sacrifices in the Temple without fail, the ones who gathered in the synagogues to read Torah and wait for the promise of the arrival of Messiah. And when He went to one of those synagogues and told them He was the Messiah, they tried to throw Him off a cliff! (Luke 4:28-29)!

There is real Darkness in this world that hates the light of Christ and hates those who witness to that Light. The world will shout you down when you declare this Light, your own flesh will betray you with its passions and lusts and fears and apathy, the Devil will scheme and slander to compromise and gut your will to fight.

To be called to spend yourself in witness to the Light of Christ means that you will walk the same road as the other witnesses to this Light

Hebrews 11:33–38 LSB

who through faith conquered kingdoms, performed righteousness, obtained promises, shut the mouths of lions, quenched the power of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, were made strong from weakness, became mighty in war, put foreign armies to flight. Women received back their dead by resurrection; and others were tortured, not accepting their release, so that they might obtain a better resurrection; and others experienced mockings and floggings, yes, also chains and imprisonment. They were stoned, they were sawn in two, they were tempted, they were put to death with the sword. They went about in sheepskins, in goatskins, being destitute, afflicted, mistreated (of whom the world was not worthy), wandering in desolate places and mountains and caves and holes in the ground.

Spending yourself in witness to the light of Christ may mean great victory—obtaining promises, escaping death, being mighty in war, having your life delivered from mortal danger. But spending yourself in witness to the light of Christ in this darkened world may mean imprisonment, temptation, pennilessness, loneliness or dying on a remote island beach in the Indian Ocean at the hands of isolated islanders.

In the aftermath of John Allen Chau’s death, a chorus of voices rose up around that tragedy; many mocking him as an “Arrogant, self-centered, naive, deluded … guy who was trying to promote a false god to an ancient tribe and got killed for it”. Others—even many Christians—said that he had been “radicalized” by fanatic zealots into an unnecessary and avoidable death. But most of all his death was mourned as a tragic waste of a life.

But John Allen Chau didn’t waste his life. I will tell you what a wasted life is. It is spending your life—your one and only, God -given life—and using it to chase your own comforts and pursue your own fortune and build your comfortable home and raise your great kids and work your lucrative job and die in your bed at a ripe old age and have nothing to show for it in eternity. To stand before Almighty God at the Day of Judgment and show God your pickleball trophies as your crowning achievement of your old age.

So let me appeal especially to you young men and women who have your life ahead of you right now. Do not waste your life on the American Dream! There is no greater goal for your life than to spend yourself in witness to the Light of Christ—the message you have been given of the death, burial and resurrection of the Son of God for the forgiveness of sins is more precious than any college degree you can earn or company you can build or career you can pursue. But take all of those things—degrees, companies, careers, families, homes—and spend them for the sake of this witness!

Be ready to go to war at every moment with the darkness that wants to quench the Light of this Gospel—drive yourself so deep into God’s Word, fill yourself so full of life in Christ, bind yourself so firmly to His people gathered for worship that this Light will shine through your witness into the hostility of that darkness, so that even if you are slandered for the sake of that Light, even if you are persecuted, even if you suffer in this witness “you will not be put to shame but glorify God in this name” (1 Peter 4:16).

Spend yourself in this witness with the unshakeable confidence of who you are in Christ—you are a beloved child of a Heavenly Father who sees to your needs, Who knows your future, Who has already written your story and will never leave you nor forsake you in it. Because whatever happens to you, this Light will never fail.

The Light of this Gospel dawned two thousand years ago in that manger in Bethlehem, and it has been rising ever since. No darkness can overtake it, no hatred can quench it, no terror or power or misery can slow it down. It is not by the will of man or the power of flesh that this Light brings salvation; it is the power of God that transforms spiritual death to life. The Gospel will do its work in this dark world. When you spend yourself in witness to this light you can know that it must surely succeed.

The precious, never-dying souls of the North Sentinelese still have not heard the Gospel. Nor have 12.3 million Tajik people in Afghanistan. Or the 8.2 million Kanuri people of Nigeria. Or the 15.6 million Khmer of Cambodia. Or the 40.3 million Hausa people of Niger. There are two billion people on this planet who are living in utter darkness apart from the light of the Gospel today. Where will God have you go? You may not know right now, but (as one missiologist put it), if you put your name on the table, you can let God put it on the map.

This light cannot fail, this Savior cannot fail you. Spend yourself in witness to this Light. For the sake of those who have not heard; for the sake of the King Who has been given those nations—go, and spend yourself for Jesus Christ!

BENEDICTION

Ephesians 3:20–21 LSB

Now to Him who is able to do far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or understand, according to the power that works within us, to Him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations forever and ever. Amen.

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