The new covenant reading for this morning is taken from the gospel according to John The gospel according to John chapter 1 beginning at verse 6 John chapter 1 beginning at verse 6 this can be found on page 886 of your blue pew Bibles page 886 of your blue pew Bibles John chapter one, beginning at verse six. We'll be reading through verse 13 this morning. John chapter one, beginning at verse six. The word of our God. 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, 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 were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. Whenever I enter a room, Nothing very much seems to happen. Nobody announces me. People go on with their business, they keep talking to one another, like I'm really no big deal. Because I'm really not a big deal. I suspect that many of you have the same experience when you enter rooms. But you know what's different with the President of the United States, at least when he's formally entering a room, someone goes before him and throws open the door and announces, ladies and gentlemen, the President of the United States. And everybody stops what they're doing, and they all look to watch the President make his entrance. At the time that I think about this the most is at the State of the Union addresses every year. The annual State of the Union address, the entire Congress, all the representatives, all the senators gather together in the chamber of the House of Representatives. Before they get started, the Sergeant of Arms takes several steps into the chamber there. and quite solemnly declares, Mr. Speaker, the President of the United States. And everyone stands up, and they all turn to see the President. And when he walks in, they all burst into applause. He's greeted with a standing ovation. For a brief moment, he's not a Republican president. He's not a Democratic president. He's the President of the United States. This morning, We come to God's word, not in a place where he talks about the president entering a room, or even entering the chambers of Congress, but God sending a messenger to announce that the Son of God, the King of kings and Lord of lords, is coming into this world. How would he be greeted? Well, it turns out he's not greeted with a standing ovation and thunderous applause. But before we get to that, We see the man that God sent to be the forerunner. There was a man sent from God whose name was John. Now if you were thinking about last week's sermon, You might realize that John was talking about the second person of the Trinity, as the Son existed with the Father from before the foundations of the world, before time began. This is a very abrupt transition from the glory of God from all eternity to there was a man sent from God. I think the reason why he does this so quickly in the gospel is because Christianity is ultimately not a philosophy. It's not even about those great truths of who God was. It's important for us to know. But most of Christianity is about what God does in history. It's about God crashing into history and actually doing things that we can see and hear and smell and sometimes even taste. And so God is saying, I want to bring it down to the concrete realities of Jesus coming into the world where people could see him. Before Jesus came, I sent John. There was a man sent from God whose name was John. Who exactly was John? Well, John's actually a really big wheel in his own right. You know, first century Jewish writers wrote about John the Baptist like Josephus does. Talks about him being a just and righteous man and what a big deal he was in Israel. Tens of thousands of people turn out from the areas around Jerusalem, but all throughout Galilee, in order to hear John preach in the wilderness and to receive his baptism. John was a really big deal. In fact, he was such a big deal that the Jewish authorities in Jerusalem sent priests and Levites out to him in order to ask him who he was. They asked, are you the Christ? And John confessed. He didn't deny it. He freely confessed, I am not the Christ. And they said, well, why are you baptizing then? Or are you Elijah? Referring back to this passage from Malachi. Not literally Elijah, but the one who comes in the spirit and the power of Elijah. Or are you the prophet that Moses spoke about? Do you get what they're saying? They're saying, John, you are someone special. You are a big deal. And not just a big deal because you're making a big event in Israel with all these people coming out to you. All three of those, the Messiah, Elijah, or the prophet who Moses spoke about, were all men who would be sent from God. They recognized that John wasn't simply famous. He was important from a spiritual standpoint. And John said, actually, I'm just a voice. I'm a voice crying out in the wilderness, make ready the way of the Lord. John's whole mission was to not glorify himself, but to point to the one who would come after him, Jesus the Messiah, and say, look, there's the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. Nevertheless, John was really quite a big deal. We should ask, why does God do so much for John? You know, you meet a normal preacher like me. We're not really that big a deal. No one announces us. But John, the forerunner of Jesus, is actually prophesied about in the Old Testament. And that should make you realize John is an important figure. Before John is conceived in the old age of Zechariah and Elizabeth, God sends the angel Gabriel to Zechariah to announce his coming birth. I suspect God didn't do that for any of us. I actually say that with a high degree of confidence. And then when John was born, Zechariah and the power of the Holy Spirit actually prophesied about Zechariah's ministry. This is an important person, a prophet, yes? In the words of Jesus, there has been no one born of a woman up to that time who is greater than John. But John said, it's not about me. It's about him, the one who comes after me. We should take seriously the language here of John. being sent by God. That's actually formal language. It means he's God's ambassador. Now, an ambassador does not come to bring his own message. It's a really bad ambassador. If the president sends him to France, he goes, I don't care what the president says. I'm going to tell you what I think. That's how you get fired. No, an ambassador comes to bring the message of the one who sent him. John came from God to give God's message about Jesus. So in a very real sense, you ought to think that John is actually fulfilling the father's desire for the father to bear witness to his son. When you read through the gospel, you're going to see that comes up a lot. Jesus will say, the Father is bearing witness to me. I don't receive testimony from mere men, but the Father is bearing witness to me. The works I do are bearing witness to me. The Holy Spirit bears witness to Jesus, comes down on him in his baptism. Of course, the Father even speaks from heaven and says, this is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. And I think that while we want to consider that John is bearing witness to Jesus, in a very real sense, John is bearing the father's witness to Jesus. The father is testifying to his son. In the other gospel records, that's Matthew, Mark, and Luke, we actually get a fuller picture of John's ministry than we do in John. They talk about his teaching ministry, his rebuking of the hypocrites, and so on. But in John, all the emphasis falls on him pointing to Jesus and witnessing to him and saying, this is the one greater than I who comes after me. And that's actually a very important thing, because John comes in the Father's power, verse 7 says, so that all might believe through him. See how gracious God is? If God doesn't send a forerunner to turn the hearts of the people back to him, he's going to come and bring utter devastation to Israel. It will be all judgment. And God's, you actually get that from Malachi if you go back and read the passage from Malachi 4. But God sends a messenger to turn the hearts at least of some of the people back to him so that they will be saved. That's an incredibly gracious thing. Now John doesn't come so that people will believe on him, that is on John, but they'll believe on Jesus through him. That believing on Jesus, they will have life, that you will have life in his name. And then we're told, but John was not the light. Now, in one sense, of course, John is a light. He's a light in the sense that all Christians are called to be lights. That is, to reflect the glory of Jesus Christ. Jesus himself would describe John as a burning and shining lamp. He does send a type of light out. But John, the gospel John, wants to make clear that he's not the light he was talking about that we looked at last week, the true light from before all time, the light that comes only from God's Son, who is now coming into the world. I do want to draw your attention to one little detail that I think is worth noting here. If you go back and read Malachi's prophecy of John, what does it say John is going to come before? says, I'm going to send my messenger, my forerunner, before that great and awesome day of the Lord. Not the great and awesome day of the Messiah, but the great and awesome day of Yahweh. That's what Lord means there. And John's own testimony is, he's the voice crying out in the wilderness, preparing the way for Yahweh, preparing the way for the Lord. If you get that, you understand that it's not telling us simply something about John. It's telling us something about Jesus. The one who will come after John is not merely a human Messiah. He is Emmanuel. God himself come in the flesh. Well, if John was such a big deal, the forerunner was such a big deal, that tens of thousands of people turned out to hear him preach, to undergo baptism of repentance, what would happen when the Messiah himself comes into the world? Well, we're told in verse 9 and following, the true light, which enlightens 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. Let's take those one verse at a time. Verse 9, the true light which enlightens everyone was coming into the world. Now that idea of enlightening everyone is actually a bit undefined for us. But it led a lot of early church fathers to say that Jesus is the one through whom everybody has any knowledge at all. So Justin Martyr, for example, said, you know, when Socrates and other philosophers, whenever they had right reason, it was only because of the pre-incarnate Christ. And in one sense, they're actually right. Although I wish they didn't use the term pre-incarnate Christ, because what we're talking about here is the second person of the Trinity. Apart from God's general revelation that he gives to everybody, it would be impossible for people to understand anything. So in one sense, God's revelation of himself, his revelation of truth, is necessary for anybody, even those who are suppressing the truth and exchanging it for a lie, to actually think correctly. There's actually a whole school of apologetics built on that truth, Vantillian apologetics. But there it is, it is a truth. Nevertheless, I don't think that's the emphasis here. I mean, I think Justin Martyr's right, but the emphasis here is not on the light that the second person of the Trinity gives so that everybody can think, but it's the spiritual light that Jesus brings when he comes into the world. Think, if you read John chapter 10, where Jesus says, I am the light of the world, you'll understand that's what he's driving at. The idea here is, is that everybody who gets spiritual light gets it from Jesus. He's the true light. He brings life and light and truth into the world so that people can be brought out of darkness and into his light and therefore be saved and know God, right? Because salvation, according to Jesus, is to know the Father in a saving way. So Jesus comes as the true light into the world. It leaves a question for us. It's not a question we answered in this verse. But the question is, if Jesus comes as the light into the world that is available in one sense for all people, how come all people don't get saved? Why are only those who are given new hearts able to see in his light? The common answer in the history of the church is to use an analogy with the sun. When the sun shines in the brilliance of the noonday sky, it gives light for everybody under the sun to see. And if some people don't see in that light, the defect isn't in the sun, the defect is in the people who don't see. They might be physically blind. The problem with people not seeing in Christ's light is not that Christ's light isn't shining on them, It's that they are spiritually blind and they hate the light. That's what John is going to say just a little bit later on in his letter. We come to John chapter 3. We're told that people hate the light. We bring this back actually to general revelation. Paul does in Romans chapter one, he talks about the fact that actually everybody knows God. Which seems odd, because we walk around and we talk to people who claim to be atheists. But God says through Paul, everybody knows him, because God is making himself known. He is revealing even his eternal power and Godhead, so they are without excuse. At least they know enough to be blameworthy. That's the point. What people do with that knowledge is they hate it. They suppress the truth and they exchange it for a lie. If we understand that, we won't be surprised that when the true light comes into the world in the form of a human being that is Jesus Christ, that people would reject him too, just as they rejected God's general revelation. I think what's really shocking is not that Jesus would come into the world and the world wouldn't receive him, The shocking thing here is, is that he came to his own people, and his own people did not receive him. It's the Jewish people. Thinking about the history of the Jewish people going back to Abraham, which is 18 centuries earlier, God keeps showing grace to them. He keeps giving them blessings. He keeps forgiving them. It is the Jewish people and the Jewish people alone that God gave his scriptures to. He gave his revelation. God said his name in the midst of them. He said a temple, a tabernacle. And he said, you alone of all the people of the earth have chosen as my own special treasured possession. And he said his name on them. And yet, the vast majority of Jewish people in Jesus's day reject the Messiah when he comes into the world. Now, that's not without precedent. When you look at the Old Testament record of people dealing with God, the prophets are regularly bemoaning the fact that the people don't know and trust and follow God. Think of Isaiah. The ox knows its owner. The donkey knows its master's crib. But my people don't understand. My people don't consider. That's a regular refrain of the, We see that particularly in Jeremiah, the weeping prophet going to the Babylonian exile, how the people had rejected all the messengers God had sent up to that time. And yet, I think it does reveal to us just how wicked the human heart is that not only people in general rejecting their creator, but God's chosen people would reject the very one who has revealed himself to them over and over again when he comes in their midst, and instead would end up crying out, crucify him, crucify him. He came to his own. and his own people did not receive him. The light actually creates a type of crisis when it comes into the world. Now, a crisis requires someone to make a decision, either for the light or against the light. We're going to develop that point in just a moment. But first, I want to take us back to something I said last week, actually something the Bible said last week. That is, the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. Two of you after the worship service pointed out to me that you have different translations. The old New International version has a translation that says, the darkness has not understood it. It actually has a very different idea to it. I thought it'd be helpful this morning to take just a few moments to explain why this is a better translation. Because you really do want to see here, it's a theme that throughout the whole Gospel of John, but the light is shining in the darkness and the darkness never puts out the light. That's actually very important in our own lives as well. So first I want to say the New International Version is a wonderful translation. I highly commend it to you. I'm not saying it's bad. Please keep reading it. If you actually look at the new New International Version, you will discover that they've changed this verse, they've changed this translation so it matches the ESV. That the darkness has not overcome the light. So why would they have translated it the other way to start with? Well, at least theoretically, both translations are possible. The word that's being translated simply means to lay hold of something in a forceful way. Now, you can lay hold of something in a forceful way to wrestle it to the ground, to seize it and drag it somewhere, or you can intellectually lay hold of something and therefore understand it or comprehend it. So theoretically, if you look at a dictionary, both are possible. However, there's three good reasons why you want to understand it here in terms of the darkness has not overcome the light. First of all, if you want to understand what an author means or a speaker means by their words, you don't start by going to a dictionary or a lexicon and finding all the possible meanings and saying, let me pick one that I like. You ask the question, how does this author normally use this word? You want to know how this author uses this word, how this speaker uses this word. Consistently throughout John, John doesn't use the word to mean understand. He uses it with the idea of grasping, seizing, wrestling to the ground. For example, in chapter 8 of the Gospel of John, when the woman is seized in adultery and dragged before Jesus, the word, therefore, caught or seized is this very same word. Now, the Pharisees, they didn't come to the woman and understand her. They grabbed her. They dragged her out to see Jesus. That's how John uses the term. So that would be the natural way to understand it. Secondly, I'm not even sure what it would mean to say the darkness doesn't understand the light. Do you know what that means? What does it mean for darkness to understand light? I think you have to do some mental gymnastics and say the people walking in darkness don't understand the light. But to say darkness doesn't understand light really doesn't make any sense. Let me give you an image of how this metaphor works. Imagine it's noon. You're in a darkened room and you go and open the blinds. What happens? The light streams into the room and dispels the darkness, right? The darkness doesn't overcome the light. The light overcomes the darkness. Imagine you're in the same room at midnight, and the lights are on in your house. And unlike us, your power hasn't gone out. Your lights are on. And you open the blinds. Does the darkness stream in through the windows and dispel the light? No, the room is just as light as it was before. But if you go outside the house, you can see the light streaming out of the house. That's the way this metaphor works. Darkness doesn't overcome light. Light dispels, that is, it overcomes darkness. Of course, John's using it in a more spiritual sense. Third, you just have to ask the question, how does it fit with this particular story? Now see, if we stopped right here, that is, we stopped with his own people not receiving him, you might think that the darkness not understanding the light would be the point of the story. Yeah, I know I have to get to the people in the darkness not understanding the light, but after all, they reject him. But that's not the end of the story. It's not the highlight of where John is going. John's point is not that his people reject him. That's simply a step that lays down the black cloth so we can see the jewel of the gospel. Look there with me. Verses 12 and following. But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, who were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. See, the highlight of this story, and actually the really shocking thing in this story, is not that God's own people rejected him. That's a morally shocking thing. It's a strange thing that in the mysterious providence of God, instead of Israel becoming revived and reformed first, and therefore having a revived Israel going out into the world to call the Gentiles in, God chose that his own people would in mass reject him, and then he would bring masses of Gentiles in, in order to make his own people, the Jewish people, jealous, so that all Israel would then be saved. I think it actually, when you think about it, is a way that magnifies the grace of God. It points to the fact that even his own people didn't pursue him, and it's all about God's sovereign grace. So I think that's probably why God does that. But it's a mystery to us. We wouldn't have imagined that if we were a Jewish person in 100 BC, that that was God's plan. We would have naturally thought God's going to lift us up. We're going to be the head. We're going to be reformed. We're going to be revived. And then God is going to bring the Gentiles in. That's not what God does. But I think the really shocking thing John has for us here is God saves his enemies. Isn't that the point? If everybody's heart is blackened, right, as Jesus will tell Nicodemus in John chapter 3, you're all dead in your sins. Unless you're born from above, that is, born again, you can't even see the kingdom of God. And the remarkable thing is, is God then gives that new life to wicked people like me. You know, we can imagine God saving good people, but God saved wicked people like me and wicked people like you. God saved his enemies through his sovereign grace. Well, I'm getting a bit ahead of myself there. Of course, that's what the Bible clearly teaches. Because we've come to this place of crisis. Verse 12 again, but to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God. The crisis is, is when the light comes into the world, you have to choose, right? The Bible actually even says at times, you know, that like Paul, for example, in Athens, you know, God kind of in one sense overlooked all your rebellion before. But now that Christ has come, you've got to decide. He's demanding that all men everywhere repent. There's a crisis and you have to choose. And some people choose to embrace Jesus. Some people choose to hate Jesus. The question is, what causes human beings to differ? What causes one woman to turn to Jesus and say, I'm going to embrace you and love you, while her co-worker says, be gone from me. Crucify him. Is it something inside us? Good people choose Jesus and bad people don't? Or is it something outside of us? Is it inside you in terms of your moral goodness, your intellectual, you're smarter than other people? Is that why you came to Jesus? You know, interestingly, those who believe in the biblical doctrine of God's sovereign grace, we call them Calvinists or Augustinians and so on, we naturally go to the Book of Romans to show that God saves people through his sovereign grace. But actually, the Gospel of John teaches it every bit as clearly. Actually, it's all throughout the Bible. But John is abundantly clear of who makes the difference. Look with me again at verse 13. Think this question. Does salvation come from inside us? That's what makes the difference. Or does it come from outside us? John says, who were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. He couldn't be more clear. He's saying, if you're saved, it's not because you did it. God did it. It's God's sovereign grace in your life. God is the one who saves you. Just a little explanation of that first expression there, not of blood. The idea there is bloodlines. That is, many Jewish people in the first century thought, because they were physical descendants of Abraham, they were going to be saved. And John is saying, that's not it. Of course, you'll see Jesus explaining this in greater detail later, as will John the Baptist, right? Saying that God can raise up children of Abraham, even from these stones. You know, don't trust in your lineage. And I would say to you today, particularly to you young people, every now and then I'll meet people who, when they find out I'm a pastor, or I'm talking about Jesus, will say something like, well, you know, my grandfather was a minister. And I'm like, well, that's good for him, but what about you? You don't get saved on the my grandfather was a minister card. You have to choose Jesus for yourself by his grace. God says it's not of your will, but it's entirely of my sovereign grace. Well, what do we do with that? I really think there's only two things we need to do with this. One is we ought to be grateful. The second is we ought to be comforted and gain confidence from this truth. You know, we sing. It's actually the world's most popular song, not just the most popular hymn. We sing Amazing Grace. Amazing grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me. I once was lost, but now I'm found, was blind, but now I see. You know, not just to say those words. We ought to be in awe of the grace of God and be thankful and grateful for Him for what He has done, that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. But this truth also ought to grant us great confidence. See, if you're responsible for getting your salvation started, you might be responsible for getting your salvation finished. What the Bible says is, he who began the good work in you, he will complete it. That's what Philippians says. He got it started. He'll get it finished. You are secure in his love and in his sovereign grace. And I want to say more than that. If you go out into the world to participate in the ministry that God has entrusted to us, his ministry of reconciling the world to himself and Jesus Christ, you can go out with confidence. You can go out with confidence that God is at work. You can go out with confidence, but the light continues to shine in the darkness. And the darkness will never put it out. Amen.