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Light of the World John 1:1–5 INTRODUCTION Imagine for a Moment That You Had to Live Your Entire Life in Darkness. Try to Pict

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Light of the World John 1:1–5 INTRODUCTION Imagine for a Moment That You Had to Live Your Entire Life in Darkness. Try to Pict Light of the World John 1:1–5 INTRODUCTION Imagine for a moment that you had to live your entire life in darkness. Try to picture what your existence would be like if there were no sunshine - if there was no bright and warm glow from the sun. Imagine if there was no clear way of seeing what is and what isn’t. Sounds depressing, does it not? Perhaps some of you are thinking that I’m describing a Michigan winter! Imagine it to be far worse though. Not just gloomy and grey, but dark and devoid of light. Not only would your vitamin D levels plummet, but plants would cease to grow because without sunlight the process of photosynthesis doesn’t happen. If darkness were to overcome the world, from a physical standpoint, life would cease to exist. From a spiritual standpoint, the Bible has quite a bit to say about darkness. In fact, by my count there are at least 174 references to darkness. Let give you several examples… • The Lord causes darkness as one of the plagues over Egypt (Exodus 10) • Job described God as setting darkness upon his path (Job 19:8) • David described his enemies as so draining him that it’s as if he is made to sit in darkness like those who are dead (Psalm 143:3) • John tells us that whoever hates his brother is someone walking in darkness (1 John 2:11) • In reference to salvation, Peter tells us that God has called some out of darkness and into a marvelous light (1 Peter 2:9) • “And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their words were evil” (John 3:19) So darkness is more than the absence of light. It’s not merely physical, but spiritual. Darkness represents evil, unbelief, and judgment. And the world we live in is one of pervasive darkness. It’s what C.S. Lewis called the “shadowlands.” What do I mean by that? Scripture uses the metaphors of both light and darkness quite frequently. The light, referring to God and his glory. The darkness referring to spiritual blindness. And it doesn’t take long for us to look around and see that our world is brimming with injustice, racial inequality, war, poverty, abuse — darkness. Oddly enough, the Disciple John says that some people — speaking of those who have rejected Him — love the darkness. It’s not that the light of God is completely absent from creation. Rather, the reality of his glory has been dimmed by the effects of sin. So we now live in a world where our vision is darkened. We have trouble perceiving what is true and good. We live in a world where our wills are darkened. We choose to do the things we don’t want to do. We live in a world where our hearts are darkened. We don’t love like we should. We live in a world where our inclinations are darkened. We find ourselves gravitating towards what is selfish. We live in a darkened world, in desperate need of light. But the good news of Christmas, the good news of the Christian faith, is that the light has come. If you would, turn with me to John 1:1-5, where we are reminded afresh the significance of Christ’s coming. READ JOHN 1:1–5…. Today, and over the next three sermons we are celebrating advent. We’re celebrating the truth that Christ is the light, who entered a world of darkness. It’s a time of deep reflection as we behold the mystery that God became a man. You see, throughout history, God made himself knowing in one way or another. But with the incarnation — God taking on flesh — we have the greatest revelation of God one could ever see or experience. It’s almost as if someone walked into a dark room and turned the lights on. My goal during these messages is to help you believe. In fact, John tells us in chapter 20, verse 30 that this is the reason he wrote his gospel – so that you would believe. And it would be a grave mistake for you to think that if you’re already a believer, then John’s gospel has nothing for you. Because that’s only true if you think he’s referring to a moment in time and not a continual believing. In John 15:6, “If anyone does not abide in me he is thrown away like a branch and withers; and the branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned.” To abide is to keep trusting, keep keep relying, keep believing the life giving gospel. My hope today is that you would believe and keep believing that Jesus is the Light of the World. And darkness will not overcome the light. Christ came to overcome a world of darkness. That’s my main point today and I get it from verse 5. In verse 5 John tells us that Jesus is a light shining in the darkness. Darkness has and will try to overcome Jesus but will not. When Jesus was born, darkness tried to kill him (Herod’s decree). But no, darkness will not overcome light. Jesus was later tempted in the wilderness to bow down to darkness. But no, darkness will not overcome light. Jesus was betrayed, killed, and crucified. But no, darkness will not overcome light. He is the risen savior. Jesus is the Light of the World, he is the Word, and as it so nicely puts in verse 14, “he became flesh and dwelt among us.” And in conjunction with verse 1 we know that Jesus is the incarnate word. As we prepare for Christmas we dwell and meditate on the incarnation. Don’t miss the magnificence of this - God became a man! Trans: So darkness is simply put that which is evil and opposed to light. It is judgment but also it is sin and unbelief. And it’s attempting to overtake that which is not darkness. But God says through John, No! It will not overcome the Light. And how do we know? We have three reasons. The first is that… The Light of the World is God (vv. 1-2) John makes clear that Jesus is eternal. You see, what makes the intro to John’s Gospel different than say, Matthew or Luke, is that he reaches farther back. Whereas Matthew and Luke begin with the birth of Jesus, John reaches back to eternity. These first two verses ….“In the beginning was the word…” they sound awfully familiar, don’t they? They sound like Genesis 1. Beginning does not mean that the Word had a beginning. The word implies pre-existence; eternal and infinite. There was never a time when Christ did not exist. He existed before the world began, before there was time. In fact, this was the testimony of Jesus himself: “Now, Father, glorify me in your presence with that glory I had with you before the world existed” (John 17:5). What does John mean by the term “Word” used in these opening verses? “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” Well, I think it’s clear that John intends more than simply the language we use to communicate. But in a sense, it depends on who you’re talking to. If a Greek were to hear the term Word or Logos (Greek), they might have thought about the philosophical discussions of that time which tried to explain the order in the world. You see, the Greeks observed the intricacies of the world, the orderly balance, and attributed this all to someone or to an impersonal force. In fact, what made it difficult is that they didn’t believe in one God. Therefore, it was with a stroke of divine genius that John seized upon this word, because it was a meaningful one. He’s saying this: “Listen, the very thing that has most occupied your philosophical thought and about which you have all been writing for centuries—the Logos of God, this word, this controlling power of the universe—this has come to earth as a man and we have seen him.” But to the Jew, the “Word” communicated something else. His Jewish audience would have connected “Word” with divine thought and action. It was divine thought in that it paralleled the wisdom of God and the word given by the prophets. It was divine action in that God’s Word accomplishes the purpose for which He sends it (Isa 55:11). In other words, the Jews knew this: when God speaks, things happen. In Genesis 1 the world is dark, formless, and void. And by the Word of God he flipped the light switch. He created. It wouldn’t have been hard for them to understand the term “Word” as God’s creative activity. But what they were probably not ready for, was the truth that the “Word” is a person. They were not ready for John’s ultimate aim, to show that the Word became flesh—God Incarnate. Before he could get to that point in verse 14, he had to show the deity of the Word. That’s what he does in vv. 1-5. But John says, in the second clause of verse 1, that Jesus was with God. In other words, he’s saying that Jesus is a distinct person. That preposition “with” indicates fellowship or communion.
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