Jesus Shines Into Your Darkness

It’s Not Supposed To Be This Way...

Life can be routine and even mundane at times. We get up. We go to work. We come home. Eat dinner and go to bed, all to get up and do it again tomorrow. We get married. We have children. They graduate high school. We become empty nesters lauding over our grandchildren. Life can be routine.

It’s not that we are oblivious to death. We’ve come to terms with the idea that the only guaranteed things in life are death and taxes. It’s when death comes to early that we stand up and shout, it’s not supposed to be this way. And you would be right to stand up and shout it from the depths of your lungs.

The Bible does not describe death as natural as taxes. The Bible says that death is our enemy, a disgusting tyrant that should have no place in our life, and yet, no one on earth, no living being, from trees to fleas to human beings escapes its grasp. Everything dies, and it dies in old age and it youth.

Death is not part of God’s natural order of creation. It’s a cancer that has invaded it. There was a time when the earth did not know death, and it flourished with light and life, and there was harmony between God, man, and creation. Something happened that allowed death to come and darkness to reign over all the earth.

In Genesis 3, God reveals to us that sin and death entered the world because of Adam and Eve’s disobedience. They ate of the Tree of the Knowledge of God and Evil, and therefore broke God’s moral standard. Its as if they committed treason against him. God told Adam that if you eat of this tree you will surely die (Genesis 2:17). God cursed the earth with death, both physical and spiritual.

Now the world that once was filled with light and life, went dark. The fruit of darkness is shame and separation. The moment Adam and eve sin, they separate from each other by putting fig leaves on to hide their bodies from each other. Then they hide in the woods from God when he comes to speak with them. When Adam hears God call his name and knows he has to answer for his sin, he throws his wife under the bus hoping God will deal with her and not him. God now has to kick them out of the Garden of Eden, where man is now separated from God, physically and spiritually We know things are bad because in Genesis 4, the first recorded death on the planet is the murder of one brother by another brother. The world became dark when the curse of sin entered into it.

Why do we hurt each other? Why do we get sick? Why does not not discriminate between the young and the old? Why do we suffer at the hands of evil men?

It is because we live in darkness. We live in a world that has been corrupted by sin and death. We live in a world where Satan has some leash for the time being. We live in the fallout of rebellion, and since all of us are children of Adam and Eve, all of us suffer darkness and therefore all of us suffer at the hands of our enemy, death.

But God has not left us without hope. John will show you this morning that,

Jesus is the light that conquers the darkness by overcoming death and giving eternal life to those who will receive Him.

How is this true?

Jesus brought light and life to the dark chaos of creation. (John 1:1-5)

John reveals that Jesus was a special man. He was fully human, and yet fully God, one with the Father in heaven.

John 1:1–3 ESV

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made.

The Word that John is referring to is Jesus. He reveals this later in

John 1:14 ESV

And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.

and

John 1:17 ESV

For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.

John makes it clear that Jesus was no ordinary man. Jesus was not created by God. Jesus is the same God who created the heavens and the earth.

John deliberately takes us back to Genesis 1, where God spoke, and his Word brought everything into being. Furthermore, John says that Jesus was the one creating everything, and in verses 2-3, sustaining everything.

John wants you to know that Jesus is extraordinary. He is not just another wise teacher or sage. He was not just a philosopher of men or Jewish radical. He is the second person of the Triune God, who created all things in heaven and earth, and he rules over everything now and forever. The apostle Paul says of Jesus,

Colossians 1:16–17 ESV

For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together.

Too many Americans have the same attitude about Jesus as Ricky Bobby did in Talladega Nights:

“Dear Eight Pound, Six Ounce, Newborn Baby Jesus, donít even know a word yet, just a little infant, so cuddly, but still omnipotent." Ricky Bobby

That is absurd. Jesus is God who existed at creation to bring light and life to the dark void of the pre-creation chaos. The Spirit hovered over the water, the Father spoke, the Son created light and gave life to all things. In the beginning, God said let there be light, and Jesus brought forth light. God said, “let their be life.” And Jesus gave life to the plants and animals, birds of the sky and the fish in the sea, and to God’s image bearers, Adam and Eve. Jesus is the light and life because he is God.

Now, John alludes to the reality that something went wrong in the beginning of creation. God is having to step down out of heaven and bring light into his darkened creation.

John 1:4–5 ESV

In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

Darkness rules the earth. In the Gospel of John, light and darkness are a metaphor for life and death, good and evil. John is saying that the world in which we live is ruled by sin and death, which is why we have to attend funerals of people we love dearly.

If we look back at the beginning of creation, everything Jesus created was good. Meaning, everything was perfect. God was satisfied with all of his creation. What Adam and Eve experienced in the first two chapters of Genesis was perfect harmony between God and man, perfect unity between man and creation, and rest from any worry.

We get glimpses of this every now and then. You see it when you are on your bike riding on a two lane open road. It’s 72 degrees with a slight breeze. Hints of pollen and pine slip past you nose as you the wind brushes against your face. Your eyes are filled with autumn colors falling from the trees onto green grass sliding onto the road. All is well…until its gone, until something interrupts our peace, like the death of a young vibrant women who had her life ahead of her.

God promised in the Garden that a Messiah would be sent to restore all creation and bring light to the world. John, in verses 6-8, says God sent John the Baptist to testify that the time had come for the Messiah to bring light and life to our world. This is the Word, John speaks of, that became flesh dwelt among us. It is Jesus.

Jesus brings light and life to the dark chaos of a world of sin and death. (John 1:9-10)

John says Jesus is the true light that brings the light of life into the dark chaos of sin and death. In essence, the same God who had the power to bring light and life to the dark chaos of creation, is the One who will bring light and life to the dark chaos of sin and death. Jesus is the true light and gives life to all people who ask for it.

How does Jesus do provide light and life to the chaotic darkness of your sin and death?

In John chapter 3, Jesus is having a conversation with Nicodemus. He is explaining to him how one enters the kingdom of heaven. Towards the end of that conversation Jesus says,

John 3:16–17 ESV

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.

The problem all of us face is the world stands condemned. God’s condemnation if the fruit of sin and darkness. The Bible is clear about the natural state of every human being born under Adam’s curse.

Romans 3:23 ESV

for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,

Your sin condemns you and you do not have the ability to fix it before God. Paul says all of us are dead in our sins, meaning we are morally bankrupt. Even our good deeds are corrupt before God’s holy standard. So, Paul says, the wages of your sin is death, both physical and spiritual. All of us will die and face God’s judgment (Hebrews 9:27). Left to yourself, you will perish under God’s wrath. However, he did not leave you to yourself. Paul also tells us

Romans 6:23 ESV

For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

and

Romans 5:8 ESV

but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

The cross is how Jesus brings light and life to your darkness. Jesus stepped down into darkness to live the life you could not live, die the death you deserve to die, in order to give you His eternal life and light. At the cross Jesu takes your darkness, your sin, and atones for it with his blood. He pays the sacrifice needed for you to be made right with God. Then, he takes your condemnation on himself, and in turn gives you his righteousness, so that the wrath of God is taken off of you and put on him. Gives you His life and God adopts you as His son or daughter, giving you his kingdom. At the cross Jesus transfer you out of the kingdom of darkness and forever plants you the kingdom fo God. You are no longer a child of darkness and wrath, but a child of light and life and God’s love. You can bank on this as true because God accepted Jesus’ sacrifice and raised him up on the third day. Jesus now sits at the right hand of God offering you a way out of the darkness.

Jesus’s death on the cross and resurrection from the grave offers you light and life from the chaos of darkness and sin.

Today you must choose to either stay in the darkness or enter into the light.

Those who reject Jesus remain in the darkness and death.

John 1:11 ESV

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

You are right to say it’s not supposed to be this. You are right to be disgusted with the tyranny of death. You don’t have to remain in it. If you do, you will suffer the consequences of both physical death and God’s condemnation. There is no need to remain in the darkness.

Those who receive Jesus are born again into light and life.

Jesus gives you hope. John says,

John 1:12–13 ESV

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.

Jesus offers you the chance to be born again into His life. Today, he offers you the chance to be forgiven and to leave the kingdom of darkness and to enter the kingdom of light and eternal life, to become sons and daughters of the Most High God, who promises to defeat death once and for all. Death will be thrown into the lake of fire with Satan in the end. God will restore all of the universe and bring heaven down so that He can dwell with his people as he intended in the Garden of Eden.

It doesn’t have to be this way...

Jesus sure of it.