The Light shines in the darkness (1:1-5)
Turn with me to John 1. Keep your Bibles open because we are going to walk through this passage step by step.
Read John 1:1-5.
The Word here is Jesus. The first verse parallels Genesis 1 by saying, “In the beginning.” The Word also calls to mind God speaking the world into existence. The Word existed with God prior to the Creation. The first three verses are a statement of the divinity of the Word or Jesus and the fact that he is Creator with God.
Verses 4 and 5 say, “In him was life, and that life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it.” Some translations say, “overcome it.” Jesus is the source of all life. John is referring to more than just biological life. It is more than breathing, eating and sleeping. He is referring to eternal life. Jesus is the source of life that is both qualitative and quantitative. Jesus offers us eternal life with him. There is no better quality of life than to spend eternity with him. Eternity is forever.
Jesus is the true source of life. When the world was created we were designed to live forever, but sin happened. Our ancestors sinned and brought about the consequence of death. Death was not a part of the original plan. Sin caused two kinds of death to enter the world. Biological death entered. That means we get sick and die. The other is much more serious, and that is spiritual death. Spiritual death is separation from God.
Both of these deaths are serious, but we have hope because the light shines in the darkness. And that light is Jesus. God has sustained his creation through the light of his Son. We are told here that the “light shines in the darkness.”
Imagine with me that all the lights were out in this room. Imagine that I had a candle. If I lit the candle, what would happen? There would be light. Now what would happen if one of you had a candle and I lit your candle? There would be more light. Then if the light was passed on, it would grow brighter and brighter. That would be a great experiment, but it is already light in here. Since it is light let’s try the opposite. Cup hands together. In my hands here, I have darkness. I mean that it is really dark inside my hands. I am going to release of the darkness from my hands. Open hands. Now it is a little darker in here now, isn’t it? No. Why isn’t darker? I mean I let the darkness out of my hands.
The answer is rather simple. I guess there be some sort of long scientific explanation. But the reality is that light always dispels darkness. Darkness never dispels light. Think about it this way, we have invented lights to dispel the darkness in buildings and at night. No one has yet to invest “darks” to remove light.
The only way to keep light out of somewhere is to cover up the windows. When we were in Florida four years ago, a hurricane was threatening. We put the hurricane shudders over every door and window in the house. It was still a day before the hurricane was scheduled to arrive. It was a sunny, warm day, but there was no sunlight in the house. We had managed to block all of it out. That is how we are when we refuse to let Jesus shine his light into our lives. We can only do it by totally shutting him out of our lives.
That leads us to the second point here. We can either accept or reject him.
Rejection or Acceptance (1:9-13 [6-13])
Read John 1:6-13.
I want to focus specifically on verse 9 through 13. Verse 9 states that the true light was coming into the world. That true light is of course Jesus. Jesus shines his light into our lives to show where we need to be. He not shows us where we need to be; he also has the power to help live where we need to live.
In order for Jesus to come into the world, he had to enter history at some point in time at a specific geographical location. God had been revealing himself through the nation of Israel throughout the Old Testament. As a result at the right time and in the right place he interjected his Son. He sent him to the spot where his nation resided. The problem arose when the people refused to believe that he was the Son of God.
This is still an issue today. Despite 2000 years of history and the testimonies of millions of people who have had their lives changed, people still doubt. They still fail to recognize him. They still do not accept him as the Son of God.
The problem is that we are stained by sin when we are in the darkness. Light makes that uncomfortable. When we have messy hair or are not “presentable” we would prefer to stay where no one can see us. Likewise, it is easier to stay out of the light when our lives are stained by sin. The problem is that being in the darkness does not change the fact that we are stained.
The Good News is that the light of Jesus shows us the stains. He can also clean us up and make us like new. Believing in his name does this. That is more than believing that his name is Jesus, it means believing in who he is and what he stands for. Even better, according to verse 12, we are given the right to be children of God. This is not something that is done by the will of any person. This comes from the will of God. It is his will that we be saved. Like the eternal life that Jesus offers, this birth is not biological, but it is spiritual.
Sin caused death, both spiritual and physical, to enter the world, now Jesus has offered us the solution to the problem of spiritual death. John here is talking about those who believed while Jesus was here on earth. The thing is that we would be able to trace our spiritual ancestry back to one of those who believed while Jesus was on earth. I am a bit of a family history buff. I have traced my ancestry back. The truth of the matter is that we could trace our biological ancestry back to the beginning. Likewise we could trace our spiritual ancestry back to this time.
That time is when Jesus invaded history and lived here on earth.
The Word moves in (1:14)
Read John 1:14.
The Message says, “The Word became flesh and blood, and moved into the neighborhood.”
What happens when somebody moves into the neighborhood? What would happen if the President moved into the neighborhood? There would certainly be a buzz in the air about that. You would tell your friends and co-workers, “I actually saw the President come out of his house and pick up his newspaper this morning.” There was a time a few months ago I saw the President’s motorcade come through downtown Kansas City. As I sat at my desk I realized that traffic wasn’t moving at all on some of the streets I could see from the 28th floor. I then noticed two guys standing on top of a roof across the street with rifles. A little later on, the presidential limo came down one street and turned up another and then disappeared into an underground parking garage.
John here is saying that he was a first hand witness of Jesus when he moved into the neighborhood. He also saw the glory of Jesus. He actually saw it with his own eyes. This doesn’t refer to an inner conviction or intellectual understanding, it means that John saw Jesus and all he did with his own eyes. He also includes the testimony of other by using the word “we.”
Jesus was not on earth forever. The wording here indicates a temporary residence on earth.
There are two great words in this verse, grace and truth. Let’s explore those a little bit this morning.
Grace is God’s favor given to us even though we do not deserve it. There is absolutely nothing we can do to earn God’s favor. We can’t give enough money, we can work hard enough, we can’t read the Bible enough, and we can’t pray enough. There is not one thing we can do to earn his favor. He gives it to us for free. All we have to do is accept it. This demonstrates our utter helplessness in that there is nothing we can do to reach God. This also shows God’s unlimited kindness in that he moved into our neighborhood. This is where Christianity departs from other religions. All other religions seek to have man reach God, but Christianity is God reaching to us. We don’t have to sit on a rock and meditate to reach God. We don’t have to follow rules and regulations to reach God. We don’t have to do certain acts of devotion to reach God. God has sent his Son to reach us. He is here. All we have to do is believe that he is who he says he is and ask him to take control of our lives. It doesn’t matter where you are or what condition you’re in, God is here. Just believe.
The second word is truth. Jesus said that his word is truth. Jesus doesn’t offer us some philosophical explanation of truth. He lived it out, and he can give us the power to live lives of truth. Truth is real, and the light of Jesus will reveal truth. There is a popular belief out there today that say, “What’s true for you is true for you, and what’s true for me is true for me.” Despite all our intellectual reasoning, truth exists, and it exists in Jesus. He is the source of all truth. Anything other than that is false.
There is a benefit to knowing Jesus.
The benefits (1:15-18)
Read John 1:15-18.
The benefit of being in the light of Jesus is that “from the fullness of his grace we have all received on blessing after another.” One translation says, “And from his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace.” That means grace piled on top of grace. It’s like when you were a kid and your mom took you out for ice cream. You were expecting one scoop, but instead you got two or three scoops. He gives us much more than we expect. In fact, we shouldn’t expect anything, because we don’t deserve anything.
Prior to the coming of Jesus, all the people of God had was the law of Moses. Now the law was not a bad thing. It was part of God’s plan to reveal himself to mankind. It was through Jesus that grace and truth were made known. Jesus did not invent grace and truth, but it was through him that grace and truth became fully known.
I worked with someone once who said they couldn’t believe in God, because no one had ever seen God. Seeing is a powerful thing. We can sit and talk about beauty or our concept of beauty all day long, but it will be meaningless unless we see beauty. Have you ever tried to describe a beautiful sunset to someone? You say, “There was this incredible orange color. There was also this deep shade of purple. The clouds made it all the more beautiful.” It is impossible to describe it. Someone has to see it first hand to appreciate its beauty.
“No one has ever seen God.” Jesus has made him known. People who lived saw him and knew who he was and where he came from. Jesus is God, and people saw him when he lived on earth.
Conclusion
Jesus has given us the opportunity to be children of God. He has offered to pour out blessing after blessing on our lives. He has made God known to us so that we can believe in who he is. He is the Son of God, and he has come to give us life.
We have the opportunity to experience eternal life through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
This morning, the first Sunday of the year 2003, we come to celebrate what Jesus Christ did for us by celebrating his Holy Communion.
Read I Corinthian 11:23-26.
If you desire to take part in the Communion, please stand and come kneel at the altar.
