I hope you're seeing over the
last few weeks that there is a continuation of a theme here.
There's something that's not changing, but a fluid, constant
foundation through which this gospel writer is showing us the
face of God in the person of Jesus Christ. And not just to
reveal what God looks like, but who God is in the essence of
his righteousness, and the establishment of His holiness, of His justice,
and His anger and wrath over sin, the revelation of God as
judge and creator, the revelation of Jesus Christ as both. We see
this continual theme throughout John's gospel as a way of reminder
of the light. And this light oftentimes is
very misunderstood. It's misunderstood because in
our culture, we either mystify things beyond their intention
or we humanize things to such a degree that we remove the sublime
or the divine nature of what we're learning. And so church,
as we look here, remember what you've learned. Remember what
you've been taught by the word thus far in this gospel. For
as I've said, and I will say again, that it is essential for
us to continue to memorize, to read, to understand, to remind
ourselves about what this is teaching us, so that when we
get into the discourses, when we get into the dialogues that
Jesus has with these people, when we get into the debates
that Jesus has with the Jews, that we understand them in light
of this outline. that we understand that everything
else that John writes, everything, not only just in his gospel,
but his epistles, his three letters, and his apocalypse, his revelation,
every bit of that is defined right here in the prologue of
John's gospel. So we cannot go and segregate
even this text and put it into chapters and put it into verse
numbers like we so eloquently do in our day. I'm glad we have
them, for it would be very difficult for me to tell you to go into
the Gospel of Luke or the Book of Acts and say, well, find the
place where Paul was on the ship. Ah, let's see, no, keep going,
no, keep, it'd take us 30 minutes just to locate what we were talking
about. So these addresses are essential and they're beneficial,
but do not allow them, do not allow them to interrupt the teaching.
Do not segment the scripture to such a degree that you take,
now they're talking about this, now they're talking about that,
now they're talking about, that has never been the case for the
Bible. There is no talk about this and
talk about that and talk about that, especially in the New Testament
writings, especially in the gospels. When we come to John's gospel,
it is a very fluid, it is a very focused argument. It is something
that I believe every believer ought to have a strong handle
on. Second then would be the book of Romans to which we will
begin. next week, not this coming week, but the week after, on
midweek. And I say that John's writing
is not the most important in the New Testament, but if you
as a Christian do not have a handle on John, you don't have a handle
on Jesus. Let me say that again. If you as a Christian do not
have a handle on John's writing, you do not have a handle on Christ.
You don't understand Him. You don't see Him the way He
should be seen. I'm not saying you're not born again. I'm just
saying you're missing. You're missing an intimacy that
you really, really, really should see. The reason Paul could write
the way he wrote to the people of Ephesus is because he taught
them the beauty of Jesus. Now, the crazy thing is that
when Paul was teaching, Paul didn't have John's Gospel. Paul
was dead when John's Gospel was written. And so this is the last
one This is the last gospel account of Jesus Christ. This is it. John's the last Lukean apostle.
He's imprisoned in exile at Patmos. And he writes these words. So
imagine now all the culmination of the Pauline writings. All
the culmination of the Markan and the Lukean writings. And
the Matthew writings. And James. And Peter. all of the apostles and everything
that has taken place. Now in the 90s, John is confined
to this place where he can put it all in perspective. So that
when you see John's gospel, you see all the apostles. When you
see John's gospel, you see Christ from every angle taught by Paul. You see everything taught to
the Jews in exile by Peter. You see everything taught to
those Hebrew failings by the Apostle James. You see the instruction
given to Timothy and to Titus and the letter to Philemon. You
see not just the narrative of Jesus did this, then Jesus did
that, then Jesus did this, but you see Jesus talking. You see
Jesus. Shining. Don't lose sight of that church.
This isn't just a journey to say we've got another book of
the Bible under our belt. This is a journey with Christ. This
is a journey just as John walked with Christ, now we get to walk
with Christ through John. How do we know God? Through his
word. How do we love God through His
Word? How does God save people through
His Word? Beloved, hold fast to Christ. See Him perfectly. Do yourself
a spiritual favor by laboring over this gospel over the next
few years. It's not too late. Some of us are going, oh no,
I've just cared less or life has taken a turn. Listen, life
takes us out sometimes. It's not too late. Stay with
it. If you've been out the last few
weeks, go to the church website and listen to the preaching.
Stay caught up with the teaching of this letter of this gospel.
It will be good for your soul. This morning, last week, I just
stopped abruptly in verse eight of this text. He was not the
light, but he came to bear witness about the light. This is talking
about the person of John the Baptist, John the Baptist. This man who was sent from God,
whose name was John, he came as a witness to bear witness
about the light that all might believe through him. He was not
the light but came to bear witness about the light. Let me close
that and then I'll move into verses 9 and 10 this morning.
John the Baptist, of course, was not the light because Jesus
is the light. Jesus is the light and Jesus
is the one that shines. You heard me say in closing last
week that just as Lucifer felt like his glorious beauty and
his brightness was worthy of praise, it's because he failed
to see that it was a reflection of his creator. Beloved, we as
the church shine the light of Christ, but it is Christ who
shines, not us. We are a reflection of His glory.
We are not His glory. But one day we shall be. One
day we shall be just like Him. Not divine, not God, but a people
who are immutable, who are glorified. To such a degree that the aorist
tense of the Greek in Romans chapter 8, when Paul talks about
glorified, he does so in the past tense. Now you and I are
not sitting with Christ. You and I are not glorified this
day. But it's such a certainty. It's such a guarantee that he
uses it in the past tense. Jesus does shine. He does so
through the mouths of natural men, through the hearing of the
Word of God, by the power of the Spirit. Jesus, as a way of
reminder from last week, is the object of faith. The light is
the object of faith who is Jesus Christ. Our faith cannot be placed
in our faith. Our faith cannot be placed in
our church membership. Our faith cannot be placed in
how well we're doing in our morality, how well we dress, how well we
do with our neighbor, how much we love each other, how beautifully
we sing. How often we read our Bible cannot
be the assurance of our eternal life. Jesus Christ is the assurance
of our eternal life. His life is the assurance of
our eternal life. His light is the life of men. We are alive
in Christ because Christ did the work and caused us to live. Do you understand that? Let me
say that again. We are alive in Jesus Christ
because Christ did the work and caused us to live. John is a witness to make testimony
by the Spirit of God. God speaks through John the Baptist
just as God speaks through John the Apostle. Jesus is the object
of our faith. We saw some scripture last week
about where Jesus talks about the light shining and that people
who come to see him and see him for who he is have eternal life. They have rest. They have hope.
They have peace. But oftentimes people do not
hear the testimony of delight, do they? Oftentimes in our world
today, I mean, all of us, if we were honest this morning,
we all have someone in our mind that we know is lost. And we labor over that. We frustrate
ourselves in that way. We agonize sometimes and we pray. How do we pray? Oh God, save
them. Bring them to the knowledge of
faith. Take them out of darkness. Give
them eternal life. Never have we prayed, oh God,
help brother Bobby come to Sunday school. Or help brother Bob,
who is, there's no Bob in here, if there is, I'm sorry. But anyway,
help brother Bob come to the place where he'll be in church
more regularly. He's lost, he's going to hell,
he's gonna stand in judgment, he's condemned already, but if
he'd just get in Sunday school. We don't pray that. We don't
pray that Bob would start acting morally. We don't pray that Bob
would fall in love with his Bible. Matter of fact, John, in the
latter part of his first epistle, would say what? What would he
say? He'd say, when you see your brother
in sin that leads to death, don't pray
for that sin. Pray for the sin that does not
lead to death. What's he mean? For we who are in Christ, when
we sin, that sin does not lead to death. John was very clear
in his first epistle, the beginning part of chapter two. These things
are written that you may not sin, but if you sin, we have
an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ, the righteous,
who has satisfied the judgment of God on your sin. That's what
propitiation means. So that therefore we now have
an advocate. So when we see each other in
sin, we go to each other, we exhort and rebuke and instruct
and train and encourage. Hey, walk away from that. It's
dangerous. It's costly. It's burdensome,
but it doesn't lead to death because Christ died for the consequence
of our sin. Christ paid the penalty of our
sin, beloved, but for the lost man, We don't pray that he'd
walk away from his sin. We don't pray that he changes
his mind and starts living right. We don't pray that he would change
the attitude of his mouth and start to speak no more curses. We don't pray that God would
make him live in such a moral way that he'd be pleasing. We
say, oh God, have mercy on this man that he might have righteousness
in Christ. That's how we pray for the lost.
I pray that it's how you pray for the lost. But people don't want to hear
the testimony of light. We reviewed some of these last
week. We'll talk about some now, and we'll talk about some more
in the next few verses. But a lot of times, in our communities,
in our world today, in the world of libertarian free will, in
the world of man-centered mini-godships, in the world where we are one
nation, under God as many gods. We are a government, a democratic
republic. And because of that, we are each
the government. And we decide, through referendum
and through election, what the government will do for us. And
so it's very different than the day of the apostles. When Rome had a sword and knew
how to use it, they had a cross and knew how to hang it. And
if you even looked like you didn't like what was happening, they
hanged you on one. We don't live in that kind of
place. We live in a place when someone else's self-interest
and our own self-worth and our own self-esteem and our own self-value. What other word can I give there?
You know what I'm talking about. and our own desires take precedent
over the whole. It's about me and my home and
my neighborhood, and maybe my community, my block, or my city,
but, you know, those people in Illinois, they're doing their
own thing. And sometimes that leeches into
our congregationalism. Sometimes it leeches into our
intimacy where we don't know how to respond. We love each
other, we pat each other on the back, we high five, we knuckle
bump, we spit, we do whatever we want to do. And then when
we go home, we tend to concern ourselves with ourselves. What am I getting at? Because
of that, it's not because of America. It's because of humanity. Everywhere in the world, That
is the problem of humanity. That was the problem of Eve and
Adam in the Garden of Eden. Where they had intimacy with
Jesus and they walked with him in the cool of the day. And they
were righteous before him, they were perfect, they knew not evil,
they knew not sin and they had not sinned. Yet they felt like
with the temptation that the devil brought to them, made good
sense. Because it gave them power. It
gave them freedom. from their creator, and this
is hours after creation. They live for years and then
all of a sudden fail. Because there'd be some holy, righteous
people living the earth that were not subject to the fall.
But the light that most people love to hear is the testimony
of someone else. Now there's nothing wrong with
the testimony. Let me think about this for a second. Don't raise your hands, but I
mean, how many of you have ever heard of really moving testimony? about
life challenges and people who have overcome adversity. People
who have come to the place in their life where a big, big problem
happened, or they lost some limbs, or they lost their eyesight,
or they lost their job, or they lost their family, and they've
risen to the top and they've overcome. And that's the type
of thing that we're drawn to. And those are encouraging. I
wish the news was full of things like that. There are a lot of
people who overcome adversity in our world today. But we'd
rather see, the news would rather show us the shootings, the killings,
the murders, the abortions, and the rapes. They'd rather show
us the bad news, the problems, the politics and everything else
to keep us all bound up, wondering and worrying about what's going
to happen tomorrow when God commands us not to worry about tomorrow
for tomorrow will take care of itself. And not to worry about
yesterday because it's gone. But we love these testimonies.
And for some reason, these testimonies around the 19th century became
very, very, very emotionally driven and empowering to the
world that was already looking at itself as individuals, not
as a part of a whole. And in that, we hear someone
say, I was this and then this happened and I was in sin. You
see them in youth conferences a lot. I used to drink and I
used to do drugs. I used to kill people. I mean,
you know, you've seen those guys. And I've murdered like 750 people.
I threw cats in the fans. You know, I killed lightning
bugs. I mean, you know, just horrible
stuff. But then I met Jesus and man, look at my life now. I've
got five houses and nine cars. I've got a beautiful family.
and I speak all over the world. Do you want what I've got? Do
you want what I've got? Yay! Then come on down here and
let me tell you how to get it. That's not the testimony of Christ.
Or even worse, what if he says that it was Christ who gave him
all that stuff? Then what does it say about those who don't
have it? What does Paul say about the testimony of Christ? We refuse
to practice cunning. or to tamper with the word of
God, or to twist scripture, but by boldly proclaiming the truth,
we stand before God and our consciences are clean and bare before you,
and before you, that if our gospel is veiled, it is only veiled
to those who are, what? Blinded. Those who are perishing. For the God of this world blinds
the eyes of unbelievers to keep them from seeing the light of
the glory of God. You see that? That's why salvation comes through
hearing the Word. It comes through hearing the
testimony of God through Scripture. It's not about believing in the
testimony of James. Oh, if God can do that in His
life, then maybe He'll do it in mine. You see what I'm getting
at? You don't need Jesus to get what I got. You should want Jesus
for eternal life. because He is the life. When we are born again, we receive
Christ, who is our highest treasure. Do not believe in your own belief.
Do not hold fast to your confession, but hold fast to the one whom
you confess. Do not look to the fruit of your
faith. Believe in Christ alone. In verse 9, as we get here, now
here comes the trouble. Because everything that I've
taught thus far makes perfect sense. It gets to the place where
we are able to understand God's sovereignty and supremacy in
salvation. We understand that God's work of shining the light
of redemption through Jesus Christ is eternal. Listen to this in context. Verse
6, there was a man sent from God, whose name was John. He
came as a witness to bear witness about the light, that all might
believe through Him. He was not the light, but came
to bear witness about the light. The true light, which enlightens
everyone, or which gives light to everyone, was coming into
the world. Now, let's stop there. Now, if
we didn't have the rest of this, we would really be confused,
but we shouldn't be confused. But let me tell you, do you know
what? A presupposition is, a presupposition is something you suppose beforehand.
That's a simple way of explaining it. And every one of us in this
room have a presupposition to everything. For example, if I
say, let's go eat at Hardee's, some of you go, wow, I like Hardee's.
You're presupposed to enjoy it. Some of us go, not a chance.
Let's go get the hot dogs that roll around for several weeks
into the convenience store. That'd be better. They've been
there, they're like fruitcakes. Same fruitcake, same hot dogs,
year in, year out. We have a presupposition. Some
of us have a presupposition to hearing the word of God. We who
are Baptistic or Reformed or staunchly Protestant, when we
hear scripture, we automatically see election. We automatically
see predestination. We automatically see sovereign
election and sovereignty and supremacy. We see redemption
as the work of God. For those of us who are not in
that Protestant camp, you might say, well, wait a minute. No,
there's a difference. Being Protestant is this. Non-denominationalism
is non-Protestantism. This is to say, we're going to
believe something totally different here. We believe in a man-centered
gospel. We live in a humanistic gospel. And what we've seen throughout
the years is it's a replay of, if you want to learn some history,
Pelagianism. Which says that man is the center
of all things. Man is the best of all things. He's the best
thing that ever was created. He's good intrinsically. Everything's
awesome. Man is awesome. You are awesome.
And if you want to be awesome, tell God how awesome you are.
Show Him how awesome you are. Serve Him, love Him, live for
Him. God will be pleased with you
if you do that kind of stuff. That's not what the Scripture
says. The Scripture says that nothing
we do can please God, but that God in His mercy gives us light,
gives us salvation. And so when we read this text,
depending on what presupposition you have, you may hear this as
what it's trying to say. And this is a soundbite that
could get me in trouble. So I might pause in the middle
and say, this is a soundbite, and do it again. I'll just read
it, here we go. The true light, which is most important in this
sentence, that's the point, this parenthetical which gives light
to everyone, was coming to the world. So what John is saying
is the true light was coming into the world. John the Baptist
was not the light, but the true light was coming to the world.
But this parenthesis, this comma, this interjection, which gives
light to everyone. That's problematic, depending
on what presupposition you have. Depending on where you sit. Depending
on how you're thinking right now. Because a lot of people
say, wow, every human being has the light of the gospel. Is that so? Is that true, beloved? Well, if that's true, and I'll
give away some for next week, look at verse 10, well, that's
this week. He was in the world and the world was made through him,
yet the world did not know him. So if the light of the gospel
shines on every man and the world is every man, then the world
does not know him, then what kind of sarcastic schizophrenia
is John dealing with here? This is not funny. Is it? It's confusing. Let's read it
in the context. It does not mean that the light
of the gospel is given to every human being that ever lived.
And if your translation puts the subject in the context of
the true light, gives light to everyone who comes into the world,
it's heretical. And if you need a new Bible,
I will give you one free of charge. But if your Bible says that the
light is given to everyone who comes into the world, it is absolutely
wrong. Not only is it wrong, it is founded
on cults and cult theology and on some serious stuff that's
absolutely wrong. Because the Greek doesn't say
that there and the English doesn't say that in context. And I don't
usually get that emphatic about translation stuff, but friends,
that right there can cause a big problem in your doctrine, in
your theology. That can cause a problem. That
can cause you a crisis of faith. What in the world is happening?
Well, let's take it in part, verse 9 specifically. We may
get through to verse 10 this morning. But verse 9 specifically
says the true light. So let's take that. So here we
have the witness of the light. We have this light shining in
the darkness. The darkness will not overcome
it. You remember that. And the light that shines in the darkness
that will not overcome it is Jesus Christ who made all things,
who is God, who is eternal. He's always existed. Now all
of a sudden, there's a man on earth who was created by the
light to bear witness about the light, but he was not the light,
but he was to teach about God's testimony of the light, who now
is coming into the world. That's the point that we're getting
here. So this light now is coming into the world, and He is the
true light. You might think, Okay, we got
that. But do we have it? Let's see. The message is that Jesus Christ,
the light of life, was coming into the world. He who was there
already in the beginning, eternally, was now coming into the world.
You see the point. You see the contrast. The contrast
that the eternal light is now coming into the world. And we
see this contrast about This Creator is now coming into the
world. You see it? And you're like,
well, where do you get, that's just a stretch. No, verse 14
clears it up pretty quick. The Word became flesh and dwelt
among us. The Word, who is the light, became flesh and dwelt
among us. The Word is God, who is Jesus the Son, who is the
light, who is the life of men. And this light is shining in
the darkness, and it will not overcome it. And this light is
coming into the world. And that's the point of John
the Baptist. He was supposed to say, the light
of God is coming. He's coming. He's coming. Now, who was John the Baptist?
He was the son of Elizabeth and Zechariah. whom Elizabeth named,
by the way, I misspoke that last week. No, his name shall be John,
when the midwife said he should be named Zechariah. Thank you
all for correcting me. And his parents were Jews. Jesus
was born of a virgin, of course, Mary, who was betrothed to Joseph,
and they were Jews. And all of the oracles of God
throughout all of antiquity were Jewish oracles. God gave His
word to who? He gave His promise to Abram.
He gave His word to Adam. But He gave His promise to Abram.
His gospel was given to a man who hated God and did not know
God and was living in the darkness, looking for the only light he
could find. And the only light he could find was hung in the
sky and the reflection of the sun, which was the moon. And
the ziggurat there in Assyria this very day in the land of
Ur and the Chaldeans stands these relics of old, where Abram and
all of his family and all of his generations before him worship
the light of the moon. And in the midst of that moon
worship, God, the only one true God, who is the true light, called
Abram out and said, go. And Abram went. And he promised
Abram, who then became Abraham, that through him the world, listen
to this, would be blessed. But somewhere between Jacob and Malachi, Israel lost it. You know why? Because man loves to be God. Man loves to take even what God
has given clearly and simply and reconstruct it. You give
man a brand new truck, he spends thousands of dollars making it
better. Give a man a new lawnmower, he increases the horsepower.
He changes the blades. He puts on different tires and
make grip the grass a little bit better. Fishing rods, we can't just have
a pole with a hook and a line. No, we've got to have the nicest
thing, the most slick graphite. We've got to put the nicest silicon-based
line in there. I don't even know how you fish
anymore. It's been 20-something years since I went fishing. But I mean, we just
want to rework the good to make it better. We feel like that
when we take what God has given us best, we can make it better.
And Israel did the same thing. And Israel had the mindset in
this first century as they were captive to Rome. They had a free
society, but they were under the stranglehold of the Roman
Empire. They no longer had access to their courts. They no longer
could do and worship God the way they were supposed to worship
God. And they had misunderstood the purpose of it all to begin
with. The reason sacrifices were there is to remind the people
of Israel the cost of sin. Never was any blood from any
animal sufficient to satisfy God's justice, ever. And Paul
teaches that, and he teaches that in the writing of Hebrews,
and all of the Leviticus teaches that. It teaches that the reason
that blood was shed is to remind the people of Israel that the
wages of sin is death, and that there is no remission of sin
without the shedding of blood. and there is nothing but the
mercy of God that saves us. Jesus Christ then became the
final and ultimate sacrifice, for all the other sacrifices
pointed to Him. When the Jews hear of Jesus,
they're excited, and then they're scared. Because they're looking for a
Messiah that'll keep them as a people intact. Never in a billion
years did they ever think that Jesus would come and encompass
the world in His reach. The world meaning everyone but
Israel. The true light is Jesus Christ. Jesus is the true. He's not fake. He's not partial. He's not the
witness. He is the light. John was just
a tale about the light. Jesus is the true light. That means that He's genuine.
Jesus is the genuine article. Jesus is the God of heaven. If
we know the gospel of John and we go to 1 John chapter 1, this
is the message that we have received from Him. Who? Jesus Christ. That in God there is no darkness,
for God is light. That's the message. that they
proclaim. That's what John says. This is
the message that Jesus has brought, that in Him there is no darkness
because God is light. And in that light, not only is
it reflective, not only is it to make people aware, but it's
to make us aware of who God is and God's value and His intrinsic
worthiness is displayed in His holiness. You see that? We sang it this morning. Holy,
holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty. What other name do we put in
there? Jesus. We can put Jesus, we can put
the Father, we can put the Spirit. One God, one being, three persons. But I can't put James's name
in there. And I can't put John's name in there, and I can't put,
I'll use only Levi, I can't put Levi's name in there. Can't put
your name in there. I can't say holy, holy, holy
is grace truth. Because we know who we are. The light is the holiness of
God. Jesus at talking to Nicodemus
expresses this as we'll see in John 3. But this is the seeing
of God, truly understanding and seeing the exposure or the revelation
of the nature of God, which is perfection. Light equals holiness. You see that? So Jesus is not
just a light to shine for everybody to see. He's a light to shine
for everybody to see and then know. Know about God. When I talked about that the
Word reveals, remember that? A few weeks ago, the Word reveals. I'm speaking to you. I'm revealing
what I'm thinking. When God speaks, when the living
Word speaks, we get to know God. If we read each other's letters,
you can read letters from history and you can learn the heart of
people by reading what they wrote to an extent. The person of God,
His worthiness is expressed in His holiness. God is perfect. God is light. And not only does
the light show God's righteousness, but the light also shines on
the, what? Darkness. Because see, the light is what
is truly good. The light is truly good. Want
to say that again? Jesus Christ is good. God is
good. Jesus is holy. Jesus is righteous. Jesus is worthy. Nothing else
is truly good. Nothing else truly reveals the
nature of God except the Light, who is Christ. We have seen His
glory. Glory as the only Son of the
Father, full of grace and truth. No one has ever seen God. No
one has ever seen God, verse 18. The only God who is at His
Father's side, He makes Him known. He who is at His Father's side
makes Him known. The one true God. The light is
the revelation of God. And it is good. And He is good. Nothing shows God's glory except
the light of Christ. Nothing reveals God except the
light of Christ. How do you see the light of Christ,
beloved? I know you think I'm laboring this point too much.
I promise I'm not. How do we see it? through the lens of scripture. Why is it so difficult to just
go to the Bible and read it? Have you ever thought about that?
I mean, just by a show of hands, how many of you really find it troublesome
sometimes to read the Bible? It's difficult. Now, those of
you who are not, it's difficult. You know why? You know what wouldn't
be difficult? Turn it on the radio, listen
to some praise music. That's easy. I'm not saying it's bad,
do it. That's not difficult. I've never
struggled. Why should I turn it on? Oh, I just want to hear
some good track. Or singing some nice hymns. I mean, that's never
really been difficult. Pull them up, put the book out, sit at
that back and just sing. It's never really been difficult
to call up and share life with other
people. Hey, how you doing? Good to see
you. Hey, neighbor, how are you? It's never really been difficult
even to probably turn the radio on or turn the TV on and try
to find a sermon or to go on the internet and listen to a
message. Man, when we sit down to the scripture, there's a supernatural
war going on. Because chances are, singing
while we garden, singing around the hymn book, enjoying some
fellowship with our neighbor, all good things, won't transform
our lives like the scripture. And so the enemy of God works
very, very craftily to keep us out of the text. And then we
think, well, at least I'm doing this, when we should be doing
this. And then when we do get to it,
it's like a war. You ever tried to pray and read the Bible? You
think that comes easy for me? Brother Jesse, is that easy?
Where are you at? It's not easy. It's work. It's hard, hard work
to sit down and focus and pray and focus and pray. Everything
comes into your mind. Everything comes. The phone rings,
the internet, the house floods. I mean, everything comes along
and tries to take away the time and the Word. You know why? Because
it will make you new, beloved. It will strengthen you, because
it is the light of God. And when we're looking at the
face of God, when we come away from that experience, our face
is like Moses, and the reflection of the glory of God is shining.
Now, I'm not talking about physically. Spiritually. And it's difficult. But there
are partial lights. There are false lights. And that's
what our flesh draws to. We want the partial light. The
partial good, the false good, the partial truth. What's a partial
truth? There's plenty. Especially when
we start talking about what God wants for us. God wants us to
be happy. I concede that that's true, but
happiness will only come through Christ. What about helping people? That's
a good, but it's partial. It's temporal. The Word of God
is the most important thing in the life of the church. It is
more important. Listen to me. It is more important
than fellowship because fellowship without it is worthless. You
mean we can't get together if we're not studying? No, but if
you don't have enough Bible in us, if we don't have enough scripture
as our mainstay, when we get together, guess what we talk
about? Everything but Christ. Certainly not you, Pastor. Bring
a Glock up. I'll tell you a thing about it. Start talking about something
that we love, we'll go right to it. And there's nothing wrong
with talking about those things. I'm just making the point that
the Word of God reflects the light of God. It shows us the
truth. There are other Gospels. There
are the Gospels that say, faith alone plus this. There are the
Gospels that say, you know, you've got to trust in Christ and you've
got to do these things. There's the gospels that say, well, God
wants you to have all these things, and if you do this, then you'll
have this. You can have faith alone in Jesus, but then you'll
get all this stuff too. That's a false gospel. Which
Paul says is no gospel. It's not good news. There are
different ways to God. There are different understandings
and interpretations that people like to take several little passages.
Have you ever read a paper or seen some preaching where the
guy goes through like 20 different verses to make his point, not
even in the same letter? I mean, we're going to go over
here in the book of, I don't know, let's pick one out. We're
going to go to, oh goodness, let's just go somewhere crazy.
We're going to go to Habakkuk and teach something that we learn
in Romans. And then we're going to go to
Daniel to prove the point. Why? Is the syntax of the language
of Scripture not enough in its context? Now if it relates and
you want to show the relationship, great. But that's not necessary. It's not necessary and it gives
different ways and different interpretations. Beloved, be
careful. Because sometimes we love things,
we have an affection for things that are false lights. I'll give
you an example. A lot of us love the idea of
Jesus. In our culture, everybody loves
the idea of Jesus. Not Christ, but the idea of Jesus. And the
Jesus to most people is what? The Jesus to most people in this
world is someone who bought them something. I mean, you ever had that family
member that you really didn't know, but every time they showed up,
they gave you a gift? Don't you have fondness for them? But if
they walked up to you ten years later, like, oh, I don't really
remember you. Remember I gave you that? Oh, yeah, Uncle so-and-so. People's idea of Jesus in our
culture, and they claim to be Christians, is that they have
a fondness for Jesus because He gave them something. Even
when it's eternal life. Oh, yeah, yeah, Jesus gave me
eternal life. Man, I love Jesus. But Jesus says he is life. Sometimes we think that the gift
is separate from the giver. When it comes to the gospel,
Jesus is the gift. He's not the giver of life. He
is life. So eternal life is not to get away from judgment and
to stand in a great glorious place to worship with people
that we love forever and ever and ever and then come back and
be resurrected and live on a great perfect earth so we can have
our own way. Salvation brings with it an absolute
affection for Jesus as the eternal life. And our lives, our flesh
is forever in the tug of war in that. To which we come back
to the end of every moment and we say, thank God for the grace
that comes only through Jesus Christ. For if it were not for
what He did, we would be condemned. I trust in Christ. False and
partial revealings. People that say they heard from
God, they've seen from God, they've done this, they've done that.
Friends, the context of scripture, I said several weeks ago, something
that sounded very arrogant when I went back and listened to it,
but I was being a little sort of tongue in cheek. The reason
I know that I'm right about what I teach is because I can read
English is what I said. The point in that is that we
just read the simple text and it tells us everything we need.
And there are several places, a handful of places in scripture
that are very troublesome with their syntax. syntax. Very troublesome in the text.
But for the most part, everything is very clear if we just read
it. That's why being together as the church under the teaching
of the word of God is imperative. Number one, because it's the
example of the first church, it's the example of scripture,
it's the express command of the apostles. And then also, it is
a safety net for when I go crazy and you go crazy and we all have
these great ideas, we can come back and go, whoa, boy. We can
use our nice new fishing rods and reel each other in very nicely.
There's a protection there. The only dumb idea is the one
that you have in isolation. The only dumb interpretation
is the one we keep to ourselves. Because if it's right, it expressly
encourages and edifies the church. If it's wrong, then we can just
be lovingly gentle and correct it, and then the church is edified. This true light is true. But
what is this light doing? It's coming into the world. It's
coming into the world. And this is to reinforce that
God the Son, the Light, the Living Word, the Logos of all eternity
was coming into the world to be as part of the world, yet
distinct from creation. He was becoming like those who
He created. The world in John's writing is
both negative and positive. Every time you see world, It's
negative because it's talking about the totality of human peoples,
all nations, all tongues, all tribes. Never does the word world
and John's writing mean every single human being. Do you understand
that? It means all sinful peoples. It means all encompassing nations. People say, well, God is not
just. What Paul would argue in Romans 7, 8, 9 or 8, 9, 10, God
was not just because he forsaked Israel. And Paul says, well,
I'm Israel, I'm saved. The scripture promises that every
nation, every tongue and every tribe, God will save some out
of all peoples. So when we see world, we need
to understand that. And the negative and the positive sense is that
we are not of this world, though we might
be in it. The world must be invaded by the light, lest none of the
world are redeemed. In order to shine, in order to shine in
the light, the light has to do something. It has to what? It
has to reveal something. So the light of Christ, which
is holiness in that sense, this light shines, and not only does
it shine and God is revealed to us and we see His holiness,
but when the holiness of God shines into the hearts of men,
what happens? The hearts of men see their deadness. The hearts of men see their wickedness. The hearts of men see the darkness. And the power's turned out? And
we hear a bump in the house, we get a flashlight. And we go
and we feel better when we see that it's a squirrel outside
on the porch and not a burglar. Or we see that there's the wind
blowing and tapping on the window. And it's not somebody trying
to come in and do us harm. Or what if it is? And they woke
up to the house and they're sneaking around, they're trying to do
dirty things, and all the lights come on. What happens? They don't
just start dancing and say, I'm in your midnight dance-a-gram. We're having a sale at the Food
Fresh. I mean, you know, this is not what happens. They run.
They run because they don't want their wicked deeds and the darkness
of what they're doing to be exposed. That's why so many crimes happen
at night, because you can get away with it, you can hide, you
can do things without being seen. The light of Jesus Christ shines
and it reveals God and it exposes darkness and it brings to light
the things that are done in darkness. The prophet Isaiah, God speaks
through him and he says, we have all become like one who is unclean.
With all of our righteous deeds, we are like a polluted rag. We
are all fading like a leaf and our iniquities like the wind
take us away. Our righteousness is like a filthy
rag. And when Jesus talks to Nicodemus in John chapter 3,
He calls Nicodemus' Judaism darkness, filthy rags. And when Jesus shines,
those who said, yes, Jesus is the light, are saying, everything
that I am is darkness. See how un-American that sounds?
We're redeemed, beloved. We are the saints of God. We
are justified before Him. And by faith, we will be glorified
soon. We are not scraping to earn God's
favor. He has given it to us through
Christ. My friend, every one of us still sin. And every small and minute sin
in this life is worthy of eternal judgment. the light shines and exposes.
But now to the very last idea here, that parenthetical. Does the light of the gospel,
does Jesus Christ shine light to every man? Let's try to simplify
this in congruency with all of scripture. Christ coming to be
a human, His message and the witness he proclaimed thereby
shines the light of Christ. So let's look at it in several
things. Number one is that Christ comes into the world, the light
is coming into the world, and because Christ is coming to the
world, the light is in the world. So the light is able to be, what?
Witnessed. Many people witnessed the light
during the days of Jesus' ministry, and they saw him, and they heard
him teach. And so in some sense, this gospel
light, or this light, who is Christ, shined on them, and many
of them did what? Not gonna receive that. Then
He proved He was the light by performing miracles and raising
a man from the dead. Lazarus, John 11. And they went, I'm not gonna
confess that I know He's Jesus, the Messiah, the Christ. The
word Messiah and Christ are the exact same word, by the way. The light shines in some sense
on every man, people would say is general revelation, but that's
not the point here because the light does not shine in every
man. When we hear the gospel or when
we teach the gospel, we can go out and share the gospel of Jesus
and the word of God, and we can share it to the ears of every
man. But it doesn't mean that the light, though it may be shining,
it's going to shine in every man, does it? But when it does, God has promised that every people,
every nation, every tongue, every tribe will see the light of Christ. I don't know about you, but to
me, supremacy not only endorses, but empowers evangelism. You
know why? Because God doesn't need my skills. He doesn't need my argumentation.
He doesn't need my tactics or my intelligence. God needs my
mouth and not my brain. And I have to be careful because
He doesn't need mine, because He has them all. God uses His Word through our
mouths to bring His people to life. So share your faith. What do
you got to lose? Nothing. Nothing. You lose nothing. And when someone comes to faith, we celebrate. And when someone
doesn't come to faith, we go back to the beginning of the
sermon. We pray that God would shine the light in their hearts. When man's darkness is exposed
through the light, That man either hates God more and more and more
because he doesn't like being shined on, or God brings him
to life and claims him for his own. No man, when seen falling short
of the glory of God, desires to see his dirt. And if he's born again, he will
love God because Christ Jesus will be his hope for cleansing. Christ Jesus will be his hope
for redemption. But if he's not born again, he'll hate God. Only when God
births a man through Him does His sin-exposing light move that
man to joy. I've got a question for you this
morning. When the light of the gospel shines on your sin, does
it cause you to celebrate? I pray that it causes you to
celebrate. Because you've already seen Because you've already seen
the glorious redemption that is in Jesus Christ. Do you celebrate
with joy? Do you believe on Christ? Or
do you keep running and hiding and trying to change your life
so that you will look better to me or to each other or to
God? Beloved, you and I cannot look
better to God because Jesus Christ is light. He is perfect. He is holy. And if he is not
what stands between us and the father, there is no hope. Believe in Christ. Who is our
righteousness and trust in him? With all power belonging to God,
let's pray. We thank You, Lord, for the Word,
for the time in the Word. Father, many of us are tired
in our bodies right now, this morning. But we are thankful
that You are powerful and mighty to overcome our weakness. And
though our flesh is weak, Lord, by Your grace, our spirit is
willing. So hide this Word in us, that we might not sin against
You, that we would walk in a manner worthy of the gospel of grace
that we would celebrate with joy, with hope, and with peace,
the fact that you've saved us. And Lord, let us be drawn to
pray for one another. Help us to be encouraged by each
other's company. And we pray these things in Jesus'
name. Amen. Let's sing, church.