Trinity Baptist Church

I Have Seen the Light

Jesus, The Light of the World

John 1:1-14
 

During World War II, an aircraft carrier was in the North Atlantic. It was during a very high point in the war, and the carrier was engaged in a battle. There was a lull in the battle, and there were many ships in the area. The American forces were in a precarious position, and there was a moment of respite. Six pilots took off in their planes and left the carrier to see if they could search out enemy submarines that could be attacked. While they were all up in the air, the enemy attacked by air and the order was given for a total blackout. The carrier had to shut off every light, which left the six pilots flying around without any ability to locate their ship in the dark of a black night.

 

They radioed in, and the first pilot said, "Give us some light, and we'll land. We'll make it, even if we have to fly through the artillery." The radio operator said, "I can't; I'm not permitted to give any light, because it is a total blackout." The second pilot said, "Just give us one light." But the radio operator said, "I can't." Each successive pilot tried to get the operator to break his orders, which he didn't, and the record says, "The operator could do no more. He reached over, turned the switch, and broke radio contact. Six red-blooded aviators in the prime of manhood went down in the cold North Atlantic and out into eternity."

 

It’s hard to place a value on the importance of light.  And while that’s true in a physical sense, it is even more important in a spiritual sense.

That’s why we are spending some time this Christmas looking to God’s Word to see what He tells us about the Light of Jesus Christ and His presence and impact on us.

 

We began by looking at the ministry of John the Baptist.  He was sent by God to prepare the world to receive the Light, and he talked about being rewired for the Kingdom of God.

 

Then last week, we studied about the star that led the Magi to Jesus, the very first witness to share about the Lord.

 

Today I want us to turn our attention to Jesus Himself. 

 

Listen to what John says of Him in John 1:1-9

 

We are so familiar with the Christmas Scriptures that we sometimes miss the common thread that runs through them. 

 

He is referenced in the prophecy of Isaiah in 9:2 where we are told that people who walked in darkness would see a “great light”.  He is the light that shined upon those who dwell in the land of the shadow of death. 

 

As Zacharias praised the Lord and prophesied of the birth of his own son, John the Baptist, he said of Jesus, that he was coming, “To give light to those who sit in darkness and the shadow of death.

Later, at the dedication of Jesus when He was 8 days old, Simeon said He was “a light to bring revelation to the Gentiles.”

 

John the Baptist said of Him that Light has come into the world. 

 

We sing “Silent Night, Holy Night, but it’s really not about the night; it’s about the Light.  Verse 2 makes that clear when it says, “Darkness flies; All is light!”

 

The third verse of “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing!” reminds us to “Hail the Heaven-born Prince of Peace!  Hail the SUN of Righteousness.  Light and life to all He brings.  Arisen with healing in His wings.”

 

And John tells us Light has come into the world!  Then he continues by saying, “but men loved darkness rather than Light. And what the world does not seem to grasp is that we are in the same condition as those six brave, young American pilots in World War II. 

 

We are in a desperate situation in a hostile environment without a way to see and the good news of Christmas is the Jesus is the Light!

 

Why is that so significant?  First, think about

 

 

Notice the little phrase in verse 10 that says, “He was IN the world”.

 

And even though He was in the world, He maintained His purity.  No wonder He is called the Light of the world because there is nothing in the natural world as pure as light.

 

Did you realize you can’t pollute or contaminate light?  Light can never be defiled or corrupted.

Listen:  no matter what passes through the light, no matter what the light falls upon, no matter what the light comes in contact with, it doesn’t stick. 

 

Light always exposes, but it is never contaminated. That is unlike any other commodity in the world.  Water doesn’t do that.  Air doesn’t do that. You can talk about being pure as the “driven” snow, but before too long, that snow looks like it was drove hard and put up wet!

 

But not so with light.  That’s why it is such a beautiful description of the Lord.  He was in the world!  He sat with sinners; He ate with sinners; He visited with the tax collectors.  He drank the water drawn by the village slut. He hung around with lepers and sick folk and prostitutes.  But He was never contaminated by sin.  Jesus could touch sinners, but sin never touched Him. Jesus is absolutely pure.

 

Then think, not only about the purity of the light, but

 

 

verse 1

 

Now what is that verse telling us?  It is telling us that Jesus is God.  And one thing we know about God is that He never changes. In fact,   He said, “I am the Lord and I don’t change.”  In like manner, the New Testament tells us “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever.”

 

 

 

And when you think about it, it makes perfect sense to say that God doesn’t change.  How could He?  He can’t get any better, and He’s sure not going to get worse!

 

Now notice what this verse tells us.  In verse 1  we are told that Jesus is God.  Then in verse 9 we are told that Jesus is the True Light and as such He is perfectly constant.  James said in 1:17, “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and comes down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow of turning.”

 

I love the way the Living Bible handles that verse:  “But whatever is good and perfect comes to us from God, the Creator of all light, and he shines forever without change or shadow.”

 

Now think about this:  Jesus is God and we know God never changes.  And as the Light of the world, Jesus is constant.  Did you know the one constant in the physical universe is the speed of light?  

 

A man named Albert Einstein came up with what he called the Theory of Relativity and it is an incredible piece of information.  In fact, very few people besides Einstein and me even understand it. 

 

But Einstein’s Theory of Relativity contains a great Scriptural truth.  Let me show you what I mean. 

 

Einstein’s theory says E=MC²

 

Now E stands for energy

M stands for Mass and

C is the speed of Light.

 

So Einstein figured out that the amount of energy produced is equal to the mass of any given object multiplied by the speed of light squared. 

 

Are you with me so far?  Who said Christians have to through their brain away to believe the Bible.  I wish some of those egghead evolutionists were here this morning.  I dare them to try to keep up!

 

So we have E, that is energy in ergs, M, mass is grams and C, that is the velocity or speed of light in centimeters per second. 

 

And the simple point of all of that is a very small amount of mass is able to produce tremendous amounts of energy in the light of day.  If you question that, just try babysitting a three-year od for a little while.   

 

Actually, closer to the formula is a process known as nuclear fission with the most famous examples being the Little Boy and Fat Man bombs that were used in Hiroshima and Nagasaki during World War II.

 

Now Einstein said the reason he was able to develop the theory and prove its validity was because one thing and one thing alone is constant in the world and that is the speed of light. 

 

Mass varies and energy varies and they are contingent upon the constancy of the speed of light.  Now light travels at 186,282 miles per second.  That is constant.  It never gets tired and slows down.  It doesn’t get excited and speed up.  Nothing impacts the speed of light.  It is always the same and everything else is relative to that speed.

 

Let me see if I can illustrate that for you.  Let’s suppose you get in your car and you are traveling west on Highway 70 out here going toward Lone Grove at a speed of 50 mph.  At the same time,, I leave Lone Grove traveling toward Ardmore on Highway 70 at a speed of 50 mph.  At the point where we pass each other, our relative speed is 100 mph.  That is relative speed.

 

Now if I’m going east at 50 mph and you’re going east at 60 mph, at the time you pull up beside me and pass, you’re relative speed to me is 10 mph.  Everything is relative to the speed we are traveling unless we are traveling on a ray of light.

 

If I grab a light ray traveling 186,282 miles per second, ) and by the way that is fast!  That is traveling around the world 7 times in one second fast), but if I grab that light ray traveling at the speed of light and you grab one going the same speed in the opposite direction and we pass one another, what happens? 

 

The speed doubles!  No, because light is constant and not relative.  Remember, light doesn’t change.  What happens?  What changes?  Not speed, but time. 

 

Here’s what happens:  The closer you get to the speed of light, the more time slows down and if you and I could achieve the speed of light and pass each other, time would stand still, and that’s not all that hard to understand because that’s where God lives and it is called eternity.

 

Now God is light and Jesus is light and we are changed to be like Him and we will spend eternity in a place that needs no light because there is no night there and  as the Revelation says, “The city had no need of the sun or of the moon to shine in it, for the glory of God illuminated it. The Lamb is its light and He is constant.

 

Then think about

 

 

Verses 3-5

 

Notice the end of verse 5.  The darkness did not comprehend it.  What does that mean? 

 

Three translations of that phrase include:

 

Throughout history, there has been a battle between darkness and light; but the darkness has no power against the Light.

 

Before the creation of the world, we find Lucifer, the Son of the Morning, the light bearer, falling from heaven because he sinned against the light of God.  Now he is identified as Satan, the prince of darkness. 

 

There is a devilish darkness in this world that is at battle with the Light of God.  And the ultimate question is, “Who will win?”

 

The answer is very simple because the darkness has no power against the light.  Think about it like this.  When you go into a dark room, how do you get the darkness out?

Do you vacuum it out or sweep it out, or maybe get a shovel and gather it up and take it outside? 

 

No, you simply turn on the light.  And when you turn on the light, the darkness leaves.  Where does it go?  It goes under the bed or in the closet.  It goes anywhere there is no light because darkness has no power against the light.  It cannot extinguish it.  It cannot put it out.  It cannot overcome it.   It is totally powerless against the light. 

 

You say, “Well that’s a simple thought!’  I say it is a simply glorious thought!  Darkness can’t out the light!

 

Think about the sun.  The most powerful energy source we know about is the sun.  There is more energy produced in one second on the sun that man has used in the history of civilization.  400 million tons of hydrogen are destroyed every second in a nuclear explosion on the surface of the sun.  That is like exploding 400 million tons of nuclear bombs every second. It is amazing!

 

On the brightest moonlit night, the light of the moon is only 1/800,000^th of a sunshiny day.  To look at the face fo the sun is to put your eyes out!

 

And just think, the brightness of the sun is but a faint illustration of the glory and power and brilliance of God! 

 

It is victorious!  Every so often someone will talk about how the sun didn’t shine today.  What foolishness!  The sun is always shining!  You may block out the light but you can’t put out it out!  And we ought to thank God for the victory of the light!

 

Verse 4

 

Notice the connection between light and life. Light and life are inextricably interwoven. You cannot have life unless you have light.  Go to the deep recesses of Carlsbad Cavern and it will prove my point.    When God brought light, He brought life.  There is a reason the first thing He created was not grass and animals.  He first put the Sun in the sky, then be brought the rest.  You cannot have life unless you have light.

 

Now when I was in about the 4^th grade, my teacher taught me about a process called photosynthesis.  That is a compound word (my English teachers taught me about those).  The first word is photo which means light and the second word is synthesis which means to put together. 

 

Photosynthesis is the process by which growing things are put together with light.  Now light causes plants to produce something called chlorophyll and chlorophyll is extremely important in photosynthesis.  Simply put, that means light is fundamental to the development of plant life and other living, growing things.  And we, in turn, are dependent upon the plant life to provide the oxygen we need to survive and it is all designed and maintained by the God of Light and life. 

 

Take away the sin and what happens?  You say it would be cold and dark.  That’s true, but more importantly, you would be dead.  That is an illustration of life without Christ.  Without Jesus, life is cold, dark and dead. 

And verse 4 tells us when Jesus came, life came!  HE said, “I have come so you can have life, abundant life!”

 

When God brought life to chaos, He said, “Let there be light.” When Adam sinned, what happened?  When Adam sinned, he was enjoying life in the presence of God.  But when He sinned the Lord went out.  And when the Lord went out, the light went out and when the light went  out, the life went out. 

 

When the Lord went out, we were depraved.

When the Light went out, we were darkened, and

When the Life went out, we were dead.

 

But when the Lord comes in, He turns the light on and life, real life begins. 

 

Finally, think about

 

 

 Verse 14

 

What is glory?  The glory of God is simply the outshining of His grace and Truth.  Everything that makes God glorious is captured in Jesus.  John says, “We beheld His glory”.  Did you ever wonder what it was like to try to take it all in?  Watching Jesus do the miracles, seeing Him on the Mount of Transfiguration?  What it must have been like to behold His glory?

 

Now when I think of the glory of God, I think of color.  The Bible provides a lot of colorful descriptions of Heaven, and when I think of glory, those come to mind.

Now, in the Bible, the number seven represents perfection.  The spectrum of light is comprised of seven colors; this reminds us of the perfection of Jesus.

 

Put all of these seven colors together and the result is pure white; this speaks of the holiness and glory of our Lord.

 

Now in the natural world, objects do not have color in and of themselves.  Did you know that?  We talk about this or that being this or that color.  That’s not exactly right.  Go outside at night, and look at the objects in the cover of darkness.  What color are they then?  There is no color there because there is no light there. 

 

You say, “Well, it’s just dark. You can’t see the colors.  No. There is no color there because it is dark.  The beautiful flowers that we look at and admire are not really the colors that we see.  They just pick up the colors in the light and reflect them. 

 

Ii other words, the color is not in the flower; the color is in the light and there is no color without light.  You don’t turn on the light so you can see the colors.  The color isn’t there in the absence of light.

 

Now think about the spiritual implications of that.  Without light, there is no color.  Jesus is the one that adds the color and beauty to your life.  As the glory of God, He makes everything glorious! He’s the One who gives joy!  He’s the one Who provides peace!  He’s the One Who can take your life and make something beautiful out of it. 

 

Now I want to ask you something.  Just suppose you could put yourself in the cockpit of one of those six planes during WWII.  It’s now your voice that is pleading, “Give us some light, one light, any light!”

 

What is the most beautiful, most glorious thing you could ever see at that moment?

 

One Light.

 

Now here’s the tragedy.  The Light is on and burning brightly, but some will refuse to acknowledge it.

 

Verses 9-12

 

It is the Eternal Light of Eternity that was birthed into Bethlehem’s stable that first Christmas night!  The whole world sings and celebrates His coming.  What about you?

 

Have you seen the Light?

 

Let’s pray.