and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it." And now the text for the sermon this morning. 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 gives light to everyone, was coming into the world. He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him. He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him. But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God who are born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. Let us ask the Lord's blessing now on his word. Oh, Lord God, we know that the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to you and will not submit to you or to your word. We know that those who are in the flesh cannot please you. And so we pray that by your word, you may. As it is accompanied by your Holy Spirit, change us to not be of the flesh, but of the spirit, to not be of the world. But of heaven, and so we pray, Lord, work within our hearts. Grant to us faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, we pray. Amen. Children, when you grow up, you're going to find that you get placed in your lap all sorts of new and wonderful responsibilities. And one of those responsibilities you may not be aware of yet is that when you turn 18, you have the privilege and responsibility and obligation, you're really not given a choice, that if you are called on to serve as a juror, you have to go in. Twice I've been called in for jury duty, but only once have I participated in a trial. It lasted for a few days. It had to do with an insurance claim from an older couple who'd been in a car accident and injured, and they had not healed sufficiently, so they were suing the insurance company trying to get a boatload of money. They and their attorney came before us, came before the jury and presented a case. They brought witnesses, you know, doctors and various different kinds of people and evidence trying to prove that what the insurance company had provided in terms of money and healthcare reimbursement and all that was really insufficient given the injuries that they had received. And I, as a juror, was asked to believe that testimony. I didn't believe it, and neither did any of the other jurors, so they didn't get any of that money. But imagine that this morning, we have all assembled together here into a courtroom. We're in a large room, and a witness stands before us. What matters when this happens is you're going to listen to the witness, and you're going to try to discern, is what he's saying true? Is what he's saying true? Should I believe the evidence that is put before me? And this court case is more significant than any other in the history of the world. John the Baptist is the one who comes, who is called to be the first witness. And when he comes and he proclaims his testimony, it will result in an everlasting split between those who believe and those who don't. The true light comes into the world, and that coming leads to the division of mankind. The scriptures themselves foretold. People are going to believe. Some people are not going to believe. When the light comes, when the Lord Jesus, the God who lives in heaven above, comes in flesh, people will reject him. And what is the most important thing that you could do this morning, that you should do, that you must do, is believe. Believe. Accept and receive the light that has come into the world. So first we'll see the witness of the light, verses six through eight. Starting in verse six, John is no longer, John the gospel writer, is no longer stating timeless truths about God, Instead, he's showing us how the truth of Christ's coming is grounded and anchored in human history. It's something that actually happened, and there will never be, never be another John the Baptist. Only one man could be that herald and serve that role as the first witness. He served a special and unique position in redemptive history. All you have to do, don't turn there now, is read the first few verses of Luke chapter 3. You'll see all of the specific details of the circumstances of the coming of the light into the world. Who was the emperor? Who was the governor? Who was the tetrarch? Who the high priests were? All of this happened in history. You see, that's what the scriptures are. That's why they were recorded for us. We didn't live back when Christ came into the world. This is the testimony, this is the witness that we have, the Bible. We read here, simply, there was a man sent from God whose name was John, whose name was John. We don't get a whole lot of details here. It doesn't even say that he's John the Baptist. In fact, nowhere in this gospel does it refer to him as John the Baptist. But we do know something very important from this passage about John. John was sent by God. John did not come of his own accord. He didn't just think, ah, I've got an idea. I'm gonna wear uncomfortable clothes and go out in the desert. John didn't come up with that idea. God had visited him and sent him. Now many men had been sent by God in the history of God's people, but the coming of John the Baptist is significant. You see, it had been 400 years 400 years since God had sent anyone, any messengers, any prophets, anyone who would speak for him to his people. Whether a message of judgment or of grace, God was silent. Malachi, as we read earlier, had prophesied about a messenger that the Lord would send to prepare the way before the coming of the Lord himself. So the Lord's mouth was, as it were, closed for 400 years until this very moment that we read of in this passage. Now God intends to speak again. Verse seven says, John came as a witness He came as a witness. If you were to read through the Gospel and apply a highlighter, now, I don't write in any of my books, but if you took a highlighter to the Gospel of John and highlighted every time the word witness showed up, you'd begin to see how important the concept of witnessing is. As I already said, there will never be another John the Baptist and We cannot witness the same way that John did. We are not eyewitnesses, you see. We're not eyewitnesses to Emmanuel, to the word made flesh. We know the Lord Jesus. If we have faith in him, then we do truly know him, yet we have not seen him. Our faith is grounded in history. It's grounded in facts. It's grounded in the truth. God told his people through Moses that for a case to be established, there must be a plurality of witnesses, at least two or three. You know, they didn't have cell phones back then to record something happening, to use that as evidence. There had to be witnesses. What we have here then is a courtroom setting. The word witness, testify, or testimony occurs 55 times in this gospel. One third of their occurrences in the entire New Testament is in the Gospel of John. The whole Gospel, really all the Gospels, you could say the whole Bible, is presenting a case. John is the first witness to come to the witness stand. Later will come the witness of the Father, of the Son, of the Spirit, Also, the witness of the works of Christ. If you don't believe my words, he said, well, at least believe based on the signs that I'm doing. Then there is the witness of the scriptures, right? Jesus will say, well, if you don't believe me, believe Moses, because he wrote of me. Abraham saw my day, and he was glad. Then, of course, there will be the witness of the disciples. Throughout the gospel, a case is being made. Witnesses are brought forth. All of them are testifying to one thing. Jesus is the Christ. Jesus is the Son of God. He is the Word made flesh. The whole Bible, the whole Bible is about that message. There were false testimonies, too. Some came around and said, well, Jesus has a demon. He has a demon. Others said he did his miracles, right, by the power of the devil. That's how he's doing this. He's in league with Satan. Now, often we refer to evangelism as witnessing. Witnessing means bringing people to the testimony of John the Baptist and the scriptures. It's not that we are sharing our own subjective experiences. For John the Baptist, obedience to God's word meant living in the desert, eating locusts, proclaiming a message that many people didn't want to hear. He did this because God is true and not because God made his life more comfortable. God didn't make John the Baptist's life comfortable. We live in a world that squirms in its chair when you use the word truth. You have your truths, I have my truths. Truths are what we decide we want to believe. So how do you convince someone that God is true and that the true God ought to be worshipped, well, perhaps you would say that God makes you feel good. Or that the inward experience that you had gives meaning to your life. If only others could have the experiences that you had, then, you know, they'd have meaningful lives too and want to believe in Jesus too. Well, this is, perhaps you've noticed, beginning to sound like some methods of evangelism. You cannot offend anyone this way, can you? You know, Jesus makes my life better. The gospel has been reduced to subjective feelings and has been lost. Now, it's not wrong to say Jesus has made my life better. It's not wrong to say, I have peace with God, and that gives me a supreme amount of joy. All of that is true. J. Gresson Machen wrote in his book, Christianity and Liberalism, Christianity is based then upon an account of something that happened, and the Christian worker is primarily a witness. But if so, it is rather important that the Christian worker should tell the truth, When a man takes his seat upon the witness stand, it makes little difference what the cut of his coat is or whether his sentences are nicely termed. The important thing is that he tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. The Bible contains the inspired witness account of the apostles. That's what the New Testament is. A revelation to you that Jesus Christ really has come in the flesh. And though you and I were not there to see it, they were. They were. And this historical document is true, the church's witness today is a derivative witnessing. Founded on the apostles testimony. a proclamation of what they have recorded. John the Baptist was sent by God. He was not the light, but he came to bear witness about the light. So the question is, will you believe his testimony? You know, I'm not going to read the whole chapter this morning. You can read it later. He comes and he says, this is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. You know, there were people that heard that testimony and thought, okay, I liked him when I came to repent of my sins, and he washed me with water, that was great, but now he's saying, this is the Lamb of God who takes away sin, him? I gotta follow this guy? I know his parents. He's nothing special. The question is, are you going to believe the witness of John the Baptist. Second, the rejection of the light, verses 9 through 11. Verse 9, the true light which enlightens everyone was coming into the world. This theme of the light of the Son of God, of the Lord himself coming into the world, is something that permeates this gospel. John chapter 3 says, the light has come into the world. John 6, men speak of Jesus as the prophet who is to come into the world. John 9 records Jesus saying, for judgment I came into this world. John 11, Martha confesses that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, who is coming into the world. Jesus says, John 12, I have come into the world as light, John 18, Jesus tells Pilate for this purpose, I have come into the world to bear witness to the truth. That's a weird way of speaking, isn't it? To come into the world. You know, why does the gospel use that terminology? Why does the Bible speak that way? See, you and I haven't come into the world in the same way that Jesus did. You and I have not. Do not have an eternal past. Jesus, the eternal son of God, has always existed. There was not a day in which he did not exist. He is uncreated. And all things were made through him. Jesus. The eternal Son of God came into the world, and that man who walked in this world made the world he was walking in. The preexistent Son of God was entering human life as a man. The light has come to shine in the darkness. And here we read of the true light, the true light. This is not to be understood in contrast to false light. With the coming of the word, we have the coming of the ultimate light. There is no other light, is really what this is saying. Say, the manna provided by God to his people in the wilderness. Sure, that was real food. But with the coming of Christ, the true bread from heaven has come, meaning really there's no other bread that even begins to compare. That's the light that has come into the world now. We're no longer dealing with shadows. We're dealing with God's ultimate and final revelation to mankind, the word made flesh, the light come from heaven. Coming into the world, the true light gives light to every man. That means this light is shining indiscriminately on everyone. Many people hear the word, they hear the gospel, they have a revelation, the witness is read and proclaimed. The witness of John, the witness of the scriptures, the light shines on everyone. What will happen when the true light comes into the world? What will happen when the casting of the rays of his truth are abundantly proclaimed? Well, the result is the division of mankind. The division of mankind. This, as we read, is the word that was with God in the beginning, and there was nothing made that was made that was not made by him. He made everything, and he came into the world, and the world did not know him. He came even to his own people. His own people did not recognize him. were by and large, they rejected him. And to add, you know, that's that's just particularly bad that it had been revealed to Israel. Century after century, they had the scriptures saying he's going to come, you know, and they rejected him. The Jews had been given an extraordinary privilege. They were made the people of God. Paul writes, to them belong the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the worship, and the promises. And yet, as is a theme, sadly, so frequent throughout the Old Testament, Israel rejects their God. Jeremiah 7, writing on the eve of the Babylonian captivity, says, from the day that your fathers came out of the land of Egypt to this day, I have persistently sent all my servants, the prophets, to them day after day. Yet they did not listen to me or incline their ear, but stiffened their neck. They did worse than their fathers. This is the sad testimony of a rebellious people who, when their own God had sent prophets to them, when their own God had come in the flesh, they rejected him. They rejected the light and opted for the darkness. We cannot presume on God's grace. Don't take the revelation of God for granted. You perhaps may have a Bible in your hands, so ask God to give you understanding from it. You have a church that assembles for worship, so beg the spirit that you might truly worship God. History is littered with the ruins of once vibrant, God-honoring churches. May God grant grace to us. May God grant grace to our children, to our church, that we might know him, that we might receive him, that we might believe in him, receive the light, the truth, and be faithful to him. The light is still shining. 2 Corinthians chapter four, and even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled only to those who are perishing. See, the gospel comes, the light shines, and it divides mankind. Some believe, and some will not. In the case of those who do not believe, the God of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers. Do you believe in the Lord Jesus Christ? If you don't, then Satan has a hold on you. The God of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. If you do not believe, ask God to show you why you need to. Ask God to change your heart. The light is shining, but men are blind. They reject the light. In fact, we're all born blind. Every one of us in this building this day was born blind. So how then can anyone perceive the light? Verses 12 and 13, we see the reception of the light. Verse 12 says, but to all those who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God. So here we see the absolute necessity of faith, of believing as the alone instrument of receiving Jesus Christ. You have to believe. You have to believe that He exists. You have to believe that He did what He did in order to pay for your sin so that you might be saved from judgment and granted forgiveness. You have to believe and you have to rest and trust that through faith in Jesus, you will be saved. That's what true saving faith is all about. You receive Jesus Christ, you receive and rest in his righteousness, and then you partake of the right of adoption. Faith is summarized here as receiving him and believing in his name. To believe in his name, you must believe in what his name represents. The name Jesus comes from the Greek transliteration of the Hebrew name Yeshua. Yeshua or Joshua, pronounced differently, which means Yahweh saves or God saves. The name Jesus itself proclaims God saves. He is the incarnation of the salvation that God provides to you. Understanding our own darkness and the depravity of our hearts, we must understand our own sin, our own disobedience and rebellion against God if we're to be saved, because we will not need Jesus until we realize truly how sinful, how bad, how lost we really are. Do you understand the darkness of your own mind and heart? Do you have a sense of just how evil, how evil your sinful deeds and desires and thoughts have been? Understanding that, we may repent of our sin and turn to Christ for forgiveness. That's what the light is all about. The light of God's goodness, salvation, and love has come into the world. And this privilege of access to the Father is granted by the Son alone. In John chapter 14, Jesus says, I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. We read about how Jesus came into the world, and he told his disciples, well, I'm going back to my father. And his disciples were confused. Where are you going? Can we follow you? Not now, but later, you will follow me. And they said, how can we follow you? We don't know the way. That's when Jesus says, I am the way, the truth, and the life. What's so amazing here is that God has granted the right of adoption to utter strangers, even to those who were his enemies. His enemies. Previously, this right was limited only to the people of Israel. But God's intention was always broader. We read in Isaiah 49. I will make you, he's speaking of the word made flesh. I will make you as a light for the nations. That my salvation may reach to the end of the earth. Jesus is the light who has come into the world for the salvation, not just of Israel, but for the whole world, all the nations, anyone may come to Christ. Jesus is setting up his kingdom, his household throughout the world. He is the only son from the father. Jesus was never adopted. He's always been God's son. We, on the other hand, receive this privilege of adoption through faith, by God's grace. Faith is, as it were, the opening of the door into the family room of God's house. Christ is our elder brother. But what is it that allows us into the house at all? It is, the light is shining, but how can anyone receive this light? How can those born blind even see the light? The answer comes in the next verse, because those who receive him were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. This is a description of the new birth, second birth, the birth from above. Becoming a child of God is not something you do. You can't give birth to yourself. Why do you think the metaphor was chosen? You can't give birth to yourself. God does it. There's no human ability to bring about this birth from God, not of blood. Birth not of blood. This is something that every Israelite needed to hear. Having the right parents does not make you a child of God. Does not make you a child of God. The Jews thought Abraham is our father, so we're set. We're good. And those sinful, pathetic Gentiles, well, you know, they got nothing. Too bad they weren't born into Israel. Not so. Not so. Children. You were born into the covenant here. You have a great privilege, great privilege to hear the gospel, hear the word proclaimed to you Sunday by Sunday. You have the benefits of here being in the church and in Christian families, but you must receive Jesus for yourself. You don't receive him on the basis of your parents. Your parents' faith, their membership in the church, is not really a help for your salvation. You must believe. All must receive Jesus. We are only children of Abraham, truly, if we share Abraham's faith, if we've been regenerated by the Spirit of God. The verse goes on to say, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, That speaks of physical desire or of human planning that are so frequently the impulses behind children coming into the world. Such is not the case with God the Father. He grants this birth to whomever he pleases. To whomever he pleases. It's not the result of our desires, our own will. are planning but is exclusively the result of the will of God. Spirit regenerates us and enables us. He alone enables us to cry out, Abba, Father. If you pray to God as your Father, it's only because you have the Spirit. So faith logically follows regeneration. And so if we have faith, then we know. If you have faith, you can know you are regenerating. God has done a work in your heart. You have been granted a heavenly birth, not this physical birth, but a heavenly birth. It's not an emotion. It's not something you feel. It's not something you can see. But if you trust in Jesus Christ, if you've confessed your sin, and desire to live for Him, then you have been adopted. And once in God's household, you have all the benefits and privileges of having God as your Father. We confessed that earlier in the service. All the privileges. You are sons and daughters of God. Do you realize, do you realize the love that the Father has for the Son is no different than the love that the Father has for you. In Christ, you receive the same love. It's a wonder. It's a wonder that God loves us so. He cares for you, and he will secure your joy in his presence forevermore. John the Baptist was sent as a witness, not just for those men and women on the banks of the Jordan River who came out into the wilderness to hear this crazy man, John, preach and hear what he had to say. He was sent so that you might believe. So you might believe. Have you received Jesus Christ? Have you believed on his name for the forgiveness of your sins? Do not be like the Jews. Do not presume on his grace. Don't think, well, you know, I go to church occasionally. I'm OK. Or I come, my parents drag me here every Sunday. Therefore, I'm OK. You must know and believe in Jesus Christ. May the Son be pleased to grant to each one here that birth by the Spirit, that we may all have God for our Father. Amen. Let us pray. We thank you, our Father, for this plan, conceived in eternity past, that the eternal Son of God might come into the world as the light that came to shine into the darkness of our sin and depravity, of our darkness and lostness. We thank you for the light for Jesus. We thank you for his work on our behalf that he has done all that is necessary for our eternal salvation and life in your presence. We pray our father that every ear that heard the words this morning from your word, that those words might not just bounce off eardrums, but rather go down by the power of your spirit deep into the depths of our hearts, that a seed might be planted, a seed of true faith for the salvation of our souls. We pray, rejoicing, in the light of Jesus Christ. And we thank you for him. Amen. As we close, I invite you to turn in your hymnals to number 324, thou who was rich beyond all splendor, number 324. And please stand to sing. Wished beyond all splendor, all for the sake he came as Lord. Just for a manger didst thou ♪ Now who was rich beyond all splendor ♪ ♪ All for love's sake he came as poor ♪ ♪ Now who art God beyond all praising ♪ ♪ All for love's sake he came as man ♪ and burn by thine eternal flame. Thou who art God beyond all praising, all for thou's sake be gladest. You are love beyond all telling, Savior and King, we worship Thee. Emmanuel within us dwelling, make us what Thou art. The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God the Father, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all. Amen.