Word, Light, Life Series

3. Life John 1:4

John 1:4 says, In him was life, and that life was the light of men.

John was amazed at how many people (both Jews and Gentiles) turned away from the light. This was a supreme tragedy and irony. People rubbed shoulders with God, and yet so many of them were too blind to see. 10 "He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. 11 He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him." John 1:10-11

Then comes the good news ... "Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God—children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God." John 1:12-13

John didn’t tell the details of Jesus’ birth on earth. The story of the Angel Gabriel appearing to Mary and of the angels and the Shepherd and the Star and the Wise Men … those are all amazing stories. But what John focuses on is even more incredible. John starts his Gospel by telling the eternal SIGNIFICANCE of Jesus’ entrance into the world. In just 18 verses, John manages to explain who Jesus is AND what His coming means to you and me.

The WORD came to bring LIGHT and LIFE into the world. Anyone who receives Him will have an entirely new LIFE here on earth and in the world to come.

CONCLUSION:

Imagine having Jesus Christ as one of your cousins. John, who was related to Jesus, wrote this Gospel to show we can all become related to Jesus … as children of God. He is the Word, Light, and Life. That’s the DNA that ties us together. All these qualities come to live within us if we RECEIVE him as our savior.