Untitled Sermon

- Testify: The Light that Blinds

Ok, so last week remember we took a little time to talk about John the Baptist out the Gospel of John the Apostle, it’s not the same John- John the Apostle though he began as a student of John the Baptizer, He ended up as one of Jesus’s 12 disciples. The important piece to last week being that John the Baptist was a witness, a testifier, to the Christ, as all believers ought to strive to be, today…we are a witness, and more than those that just live it, but we learned last week that if saved…we will tell it! Now some of that comes with personality and how God wired us…but when Christ gives us new life, it becomes who we are…and we will tell it, we will testify to it, we will be witnesses to all that He has done in and through us, Amen!!

Remember when the solar eclipse came a year or so ago…and everyone was staring at the sun…they even had to warn people not to do it without glasses on because it could blind you…or even looking straight at the sun…it’s blinding you can’t do it.

what about when youre driving at night and the oncoming traffic has still got their high beams on…it’s blinding isn’t it?

Or what about that morning drive heading due east right straight into the morning sun…and you don’t have your sunglasses, It’s when you wish someone else was driving, Amen? Jesus take the wheel right-Blinding Light!!

Or what about your kids or your grandkids when they are just getting up on their feet…climbing stairs or just walking outside…it’s terrifying to watch someone else do this…but what is imperative…to them learning to walk…someone actually holding their hand, to make sure they don’t fall on their face right? Not only that showing us with every step next to them, how to walk, and encouraging us, right?

Now Please stand…

9- John just got done telling us in 8 that the Baptizer was not the light, but came to be a witness to Him. In other words, don’t look at me…there is something way brighter coming your way!!

In fact if God himself doesn’t give you the special glasses to see, you will Here in nine, He gives reference to Christ as the TRUE LIGHT, and that this true light came into the world(he’s talking about the incarnation, or Jesus God coming as a man), and that by doing so…gives light to every man.

OK, so here we need to sit for a second. In order to get to where the text is going, we need to talk about a few side trails we need to avoid. The text is merely stating that by His coming as a man, every man has now been enlightened, shown the way. one theologian aptly put it like this, some towards conviction and faith in Christ, and some have been enlightened towards conviction and judgement, the rejection of Him who came to save.

Turn over to

We have seen in the past few weeks, that those that reject the Light, the Life, the Creator,…there is just to much both physically and spiritually as far as proof…and the Bible tells us they are without excuse. And No one, besides those who have the blood of the lamb, over the doorposts of their heart(passover), will be saved from judgement. But there is a dilemna…look at 10

10- John is telling us the bigger picture of the world that Christ came in, the same world that He made, and was made through Him( you see how he is building a framework, from the previous verses that we have been covering over the past few weeks? And then John drops the bomb…AND THE WORLD DID NOT KNOW HIM. (look at verse 10)

Think deeply on that statement…How could we not know Him? John is saying that when Jesus the Christ, The Holy One, the one that would change everything going forward…when the most important point in History came, where we went from BC to AD…the world didn’t know it, most grieving, the world didn’t know HIM…we know why, because we looked prior to Christmas, His humble preference for His entrance. But this is more than that…

this is inclusive of His whole earthly life…the most influential man in History… no one even comes close. And we missed it…the world missed it. God in the flesh, Perfection in living skin, with hair, eyes, hands, feet, and for the most part…nobody noticed.

11- This is even worse, His own people, those that had studied the Scriptures for more than a thousand years. Those given a prophetic template of who, what, when and where, why and how? And yet they did not receive Him…they rejected, turned their backs on, spit on, beat, whipped, hung, His one and only Son…the brightest, most beautiful being…and they were in such darkness they missed Him.

We know some of the stories of His life…and if not, we are going to be looking at them in depth as we walk through John, but remember the wise men, they came from half way around the world, and all the Pharisees and Saducees of the King, wouldn’t go down 5 miles from Jerusalem to Bethlehem, to even see if this might potentially be their Messiah that the Scriptures foretold of. What’s up with that? Herod tried to have Him even killed, remember? -“and His own did not receive Him.”

We’re not even talking about what we haven’t covered yet, though the text most certainly applies, and is inclusive to His whole life and ministry. Were there some that did accept Him…yes, of course, and John quickly answers that, but for the most part, at the end of the day, for most, He ended up as a criminal, hung on a roman cross, by His own people and by the world. For those that believed…well look at verse 12

12- I believe this text is talking about two groups of people, and at the same time one group…As far as two groups, you have those that received Him while He was in the flesh, received Him as the Christ, received Him as the Son of God, the image of the invisible God, walked with Him, talked with Him, heard His preaching, saw Him face to face, ate, drank and had dined with Him. John, who wrote this gospel, being one of them. “He could have said “As many of us that received Him”, that was his conviction…what does it say next?

TO THEM, He gave the right,(who? Jesus) gave the right to become sons of God…even to those(and here is then second group-you and me) even to those that believe in His name. John was old when He wrote this gospel, He knew that the Christ wasn’t just meant for His generation but for all those that followed…that grace would fall on all those down through the ages that would believe in the one and only sacrificial lamb, the Son of God, the Word of God, the Light, The Way, the Truth, the Life, Jesus Christ. Amen?

13- This verse is a stalwart of a verse in regards to the gospel…Why? Because it tells us who did and does the work in our Salvation- the short answer is God. But I need to walk this out for you and why it is so important to what John is trying to show us today.

This is referring to the rebirth, or what we call being born again. Remember Jesus telling Nicodemus, “You must be born again’. Imagine never hearing that terminology, but hearing it for the first time? What are you talking about? How is someone born twice? Can they go back in their mothers womb? We would be just as mystified, just as lost as they were…

But here it gets even more perplexing, because, look at the text with me…what we see are three ways that are insufficient for salvation, and one that is sufficient…look at them with me.

The first one is the blood…that you can’t be born again in Christ, you can’t become children of God by blood…most scholars believe this is speaking to family or tribe status. In other words, God is not a respector of persons(of any man) your not getting into heaven by your daddy or who your family is…we hear this from time to time…God doesn’t have grandchildren. This phrase right here eludes to just that.

Though who your parents are or were, might bring with it a greater responsibility or witness to the truth, it does not qualify us in any way for How or whether or not we are saved. It doesn’t matter the privilidge, the money, the race, or people group…if anything He comes for the broken, the desperate, the poor in Spirit…

And we can also pull an illustration from that…we don’t have a choice in the natural sense which family and circumstances, which city or town, or genetics that we get…we don’t get a choice whether we are male or female…it’s how we are born.

Rebirth, we are going to learn is the same way…it may look like our decision from this side of heaven…whosoever will, but once we come into heaven’s gates, we will more fully recognize the truth, of just How much he held our little hands.

How we were blind and deaf, How he knew us before we were born, How he slated and determined those He would grace forever. How He at the predetermined time and place, opened our heart to the gospel-by faith alone, through Grace alone, in Christ alone, shown to us through Scripture alone, for the Glory of God alone.

The next is the will of the flesh- Boice describes the best definition for this and I believe He is correct-and he gets to it, by looking at all the definitions of the flesh in the new testament… most refer the emotions. “He says that you can be moved to tears in a meeting, but that alone will not transform you into one of God’s Children.

Salvation, Rebirth, is not void of emotions…if anything there is a heightening, a fire of emotional zeal and passion for the things of God…but our faith is not one that is based solely on “the flesh”…

If you have been around church for any time, you have witnessed those who have come and gone, when they were here, there was an emotional experience, and to us it may have seemed legit…but they have gone from among us…they are no longer in church, they no longer care for the things of God, or the ways of God…they are not in the Word, they are not in prayer…and they are not in His church. -You cannot get in by the will of the flesh…or the will of man.

This next phrase seems to be focused on the higher willpower of man…we might say, our determination. I have achieved a lot, and I’m sure you have to, by my own determination, by my own strength and will power to succeed or persevere…not so with Christianity.

Now can you be a member of a church, and even attend that church with your spouse… even be a deacon or part of a ministry by your own will…you bet. But you can’t become a child of God by it…you can’t be born again of your own will…that’s what the text says.

The Bible tells us that we are spiritually dead when it comes to our salvation. Imagine a seesaw…as we elevate man, God becomes dethroned, but as we elevate God, we become helpless, and reverent, and distant…why am I telling you this?

Because I think the big idea of the text is the “Holiness” or another word the “Separateness of God” in other words the true distance between God and man…It’s too far to see, to attempt to cross, His righteousness is too steep, and our depravity, our sin is darker than we could ever imagine.

The true Light, is such a Blinding Light, so bright that no one could possibly fathom looking upon Him-like the sun, brighter than that. Why can’t we…because of His perfection and in contrast, the worlds darkness…our depravity(our sin). In other words look at verse 4…that without God intervening we would be lost.

Let’s read verses 10 and 11 again…

Remember the Passover… Notice it didn’t have anything to do with how good of folks they were(They just had to believe God enough to cover their doors with the lamb. Not only that, notice that God chose them first, they were His children, before He was their God…and look how He held their hand through it as they came out of Egypt (the world), think about their coming out of Egypt(justification) passing through the water(baptism) enduring the desert(sanctification)…the point is God had to act on our behalf, while we were still dead in our trespasses.

And that’s exactly what happened…But God, But of God. End of 13. If you are a child of God today, know that it had nothing to do with you…in other words, God didn’t look through the spanse of time and see you and go…wow, she’s something special, or look at that dapper of a man, he’s got it all together!!. And it’s not like work, where the harder we work, the more we are rewarded-that’s what we mean by works. That somehow you can earn your way to heaven…

No, if you a brother or sister in Christ, let us rejoice, let us worship this God, who took us from the dung heap, the manure of our own righteousness…like filthy rags, Scripture tells us, and solely by His grace, shed his mercy on us, took us by the hand and showed us His Son, and washing our sins away.

I think the incompletion here, our need from the passage so to speak…is that we needed God to personally show us Himself.

Look at how he did that…He did it through the prophetic witness of the Old Testament, He did it through the witness of John the Baptist

He’s doing it through the Gospel of John and His Word through the Inspiration of the Holy Spirit to regenerate our hearts to make us open, our eyes where they could see, our ears where they could hear, our hearts where they could feel the truth of God being spoken into our lives. God knew that in ourselves, no matter our determination or will, we would remain in the dark, blinded by the True light.

But you know the biggest proof that we have of God’s love for us? His way of holding our hand, making sure that we aren’t in the dark?…is Himself, the Incarnation, God becoming Man through the perfect life of His Son Jesus Christ, full of Grace and Truth, verse 14

14-(Read). That our Lord and Savior, that’s Jesus Christ…full of Grace and Truth. That’s where we are going next week…Grace and Truth and Knowledge and Wisdom, and Holiness, and Peace(order) and Justice, and Jealousy(that’s right) and Wrath, and Mercy, and Love, Joy, Peace, Patience, Kindness, Goodness, Faithfulness, Self-Control-all perfectly.

The perfect man, in every deed and action, thought and word, in everything spoken and unspoken…God in the flesh. Can you imagine? That He would stoop down from higher than the angels and become a mere mortal…that some would be saved.

YOU, ME, lost in our shame and sin…good as gone, dead, at the very bottom, lifeless…and He came and breathed life back into us. Redeemed us…God with us, Emmanuel, Jesus.

As we give our invitation, and we stand and pray…

If you don’t know this love, or today for the first time are seeing this love and you want to ask Christ into your life…not as some decision or will of yours, but because you know that God has shown you His Light, His Grace, His Truth into your life and you know, you know that Jesus is God, that He is the Savior of the World-If you know, if you can see finally that He has always been holding your hand…with every head bowed, every eye closed, would you raise your hand with me?

Maybe you already know this, maybe you’ve known this for a long time, but you haven’t followed in obedience to the Scriptures regarding baptism, and giving a witness to the world of Jesus as your Lord? Would you raise your hand?

This week was a huge reminder to me at just how important this witness is and how it’s not meant to end with you or me, but like John, we must carry the torch to the next generation…what are you talking about preacher? Well we have a lot of folks in the community that are sick with the flu, we are taking extra precautions to wash, or use that sanitizer for our hands when we are out in public. I got an infection under the skin that I had to go get antibiotics for…you look at the news and everybody seems to be a little anxious about the coronavirus that is popping up around the world. We’ve had a few deaths of folks we know over the last few weeks…and you know…it’s just another reminder of the both the fragility and the brevity of life. Most of the time, I think we take it all for granted, because of the leaps that medicine has made in the last century or so. But I read of these historic preachers…they are kinda my heroes. And I read about how many children they lost, or about them losing a spouse, like it was pretty common…

I think that today we are kinda isolated from the reality of how frail life can be…the older we get, when family and friends around us pass, it’s like God reminding us more and more frequent that we need to get our spiritual houses in order. As far as the brevity, and I’m saying this mainly to the younger group…I know that that includes me too…but it amazes me, befuddles, confounds me at how fast it has gone by…and the older I get the more perplexing this truth is…we are truly like grass, here today and gone tomorrow… my point is this…if we don’t tell them, who will? I mean if our faith isn’t doing anybody any good but us… then maybe it is no faith at all.