Let There Be Light | John 1:1-5

Stand with me and turn with John chapter one.

John chapter one.

While you're turning there, just a quick word about my philosophy of preaching.

So when we come here together every week, it's not going to be group therapy, though I certainly hope to counsel you from the word.

It's not going to be life coaching, though I hope you take away things that can change your life.

It's not going to be a political rant, though I think it's going to apply to present issues.

My favorite definition of preaching comes from Jonathan Edwards, who says that the aim of preaching is to take the truth of God's word and to lead lift the affections of man as high as they will go.

So week in and week out, the expectation I want you to have is just to be amazed by Jesus.

To just be amazed by Jesus.

So that's where we're going to start over the first eight weeks.

We're going to have a series, just an introduction to the Son of God, who is Jesus.

John chapter 1, we're going to read the first five verses together this morning.

John 1 · chapter mention

In the beginning was the Word.

And the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

He was in the beginning with God.

All things were made through Him, and without Him was not anything made that was made.

In Him was life.

And the life was the light of men.

The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

Let me pray for us.

Heavenly Father, as we start a new season together, Lord, we want a season only anchored to the person of Christ as revealed through the scriptures.

And so, Father, this morning we remember that the Son has been raised, the Spirit has been sent, the Scriptures are sufficient, and we ask you, Lord, that you would apply them to our hearts and our lives today.

In Jesus' name, Amen.

You may be seated.

You know, when you're a pastor, introduction sometimes can be a little bit tricky.

Let me explain what I mean.

Several years ago, I was gonna go play golf one afternoon.

I was gonna go and I was gonna play by myself.

And so I get there and I get to the first T box, and there's another guy on the first T, and he's playing by himself.

And so he invites me, he said, Hey man, you just want to jump in with me.

And I was I was happy to have somebody to play with, and so I jumped in with him.

Well, we started playing and we were having a good time, and you know, as golf is apt to make you do, right?

He'd hit a bad shot, and maybe there was some colorful language, right?

And then kind of as we go on, there might have been an off-color comment or an off-color joke here and there, but I really didn't think much of it.

I was thankful just to have somebody there to play golf with.

Well, we got to the third hole, and that inevitable question that I've come to dread came up.

What do you do?

Now, I don't dread that question because I'm ashamed to be a pastor.

I am thankful to be a pastor, I'm thankful to be your pastor.

I dread that question because of the response of awkwardness that often follows, especially in a circumstance such as that.

So I start telling him, you know, I pastor a church not very far from here, you know, we'd love for you to come hang out with us one day.

And I can see as I'm telling him what I do, the blood is draining out of his face.

And he immediately begins to apologize profusely.

Man, I'm so sorry.

I did not mean to say that.

I, you know, like I don't normally talk like that, you know, and all the.

And I'm trying to roll with it, I'm trying to laugh it off, I'm trying to do everything I can to make him feel comfortable, but it was no help.

We walked off the green of the third hole, and he said, Hey man, I need to practice.

You just go on and play without me.

But you know, really, those are the kinds of questions that we ask when we're trying to get to know someone, aren't they?

We want to know who they are, we want to know where they're from, we want to know what they do.

And as John begins to introduce us to the person of Jesus, he introduces him by answering those same questions for us.

John's introduction in his gospel is really extraordinary.

It's completely different than the way Matthew or Luke introduce him.

He doesn't start with a message to an angel, he doesn't start with a pregnant virgin, he doesn't start with a baby in a manger.

He starts way, way, way, way, way before all of that with a much more formal introduction.

Because what John wants is he wants us to understand who Jesus is, where Jesus is from, and what Jesus has come to do.

The first thing I'd have you see is that John wants you to see that Jesus is the beginning.

Jesus is the beginning.

It's really pretty remarkable that John starts his gospel in the same exact place that Moses starts our Bible in Genesis chapter 1.

Genesis 1 · chapter mention

As a matter of fact, if you were to have the Greek version of the Old Testament beside the Greek version of the New Testament, what you would see is that this language in the beginning is the exact same phrasing and the exact same wording.

One of the things that I hope to teach you over the years is that in the New Testament, the writers typically expect you to have the Old Testament as a context to make sense of what they're saying in the New.

That it didn't just appear suddenly, is John's point.

Jesus didn't just appear, but the revelation itself didn't just appear when we have the New Testament.

It was spoken into a context that is building on everything that has come before it.

And we certainly see that here with John.

He's taking the words of Moses and he's copying and pasting them as he starts his gospel.

And his intention is to set for us the expectation that the context of what he's teaching us about Jesus is found in Genesis chapter one.

Now you remember what happens in Genesis chapter one, right?

In Genesis chapter one, the there is no creation.

The entire universe is dark and void, it's filled with chaos and nothingness.

There is no time, there is no creature, there is no there is no earth.

But what happens?

The word of the Lord interrupts the darkness, the word of the Lord interrupts the chaos, the word of the Lord speaks into the nothingness, and out of nothing becomes everything.

The word of the Lord is so mighty, it flings the galaxies into the sky.

It's so mighty that it begins to spin the earth on its axis.

Well, Jesus is the word of God.

Jesus is the word of God, spoken out into a time of darkness, into a time of death, into a time of emptiness.

He is the word of God.

He is the one by whom, for whom, and through whom all that has been made is made.

Now, it's kind of a nebulous introduction when you think about it, right?

Jesus is the word.

And you'll notice that the that word is capitalized in your Bible.

It's showing us that he's intending to talk about Jesus in the first person here.

In the day that this was written, it was really a stroke of artistic genius by John.

That word or logos, which is the Greek word for word, was a concept that philosophers often debated.

It was the center of much conversation.

The Stoic philosophers believed the logos or the word was the central rationality behind the universe.

They believed that it was the source of man's rationality.

Philo, who was a first century Jew that really built on the philosophies of Plato, he believed that it was not a person, but it was the ideals of a person, that if you were to collect all of the ideals of God and all of the attributes that he describes, that you wouldn't find them in a person, but it would be the consummation or the manifestation of all of those.

Well, the Jewish people, those who were orthodox in their belief system, they understood the word of God, as we saw earlier, to be the power of God going forth, the creative power of God that can fling the galaxies.

They understood in Isaiah 38 that it was the word of the Lord that was gonna come down from heaven to be among his people.

They understood in Proverbs 8 that the word of the Lord could be wisdom personified.

Well, again, who is Jesus?

Jesus is the word, man.

In every single sense of the way people would conceive it, Jesus is the word.

He exceeds every single expectation of the Stoics.

He is the rational center of the universe, the architect of the world, and the architect of the human soul.

He is the basis, the basis of human rationality, meaning we are made in the image of God, in his image, and we are rational because he is rational.

He is the ideal man, actually consolidated within a person.

Every attribute that God has called for in a man can be found in the person of Christ.

Every attribute that Philo could have conceived of would be in Christ and so much more.

Who is Jesus?

Jesus is the mighty word that flings the galaxy but has come down in the flesh to dwell among us.

He is wisdom personified, he is grace in essence, he is the truth declared.

That here is John, and he's saying, whatever is true and right in your culture, whatever is true in your understanding, however unclear you are about what is right, and however unclear you are about what is true, whatever is true cannot be truly known, truly encountered, and truly experienced until you have known, encountered, and experienced Christ himself.

That he's showing us here by using this concept of the word that the gospel is at home in every single culture.

And every single culture, in some way or another, is pointing to him, but can only be realized when they discover him.

So he shows us that Jesus is the word, and then he drops a bombshell on us.

In the beginning was the word, he said, and the word was with God.

So this concept of being with God is a concept of deep intimacy.

It's as close of a relationship as a person can have.

So simultaneously, simultaneously, Jesus has been close, intimately, personally with God, and at the same time, simultaneously, he himself is God.

Right?

He's introducing us to this profound mystery of the Trinity.

That God exists in three persons, co-eternal, simultaneously.

God the Father, introduced here with the term God, God the Son, introduced here in the term word, and God the Holy Spirit to be introduced later in the book.

And it's fascinating the way that he frames it up.

By the way, we're not going to be able to unpack all of this right here.

Centuries in the beginning of the church, they were working on unpacking all of this meant what all of this meant.

But think about what it means that he's with God.

It means that, you know, some people seem to think that like you had God the Father in the Old Testament and God the Son in the gospels and then God the Spirit in the New Age, that there are these different manifestations of God over time, but it's really just one God.

No, no, no, no, no.

In the beginning, he was with God.

They existed together.

And think about what it means that he was God.

It means he's not partially God, that the Father isn't one third God, and the Son is one third God, and the Spirit is one third God.

No, no, no.

All of them were God, are God.

They are all co-eternal.

They are all entirely God.

In the beginning, he was God.

It also means that like the Father is not capital G God and the Son and the Spirit, little G God, right?

No, no, no.

In the beginning, he was God, unequivocally, unqualified, unconditionally stated.

In the beginning, he was God.

In fact, I love the fact that John leans in right here and he speaks to a heresy, a false teaching that is so common even now among our Jehovah's Witness neighbors and our Mormon friends.

Many belief systems have believed that Jesus was created.

He was just the first part of creation, or he was just the preeminent part of creation.

But listen to what John says.

Verse 3.

He says, All things were made through him.

And without him was not anything made that was made.

So all things were made through him.

He's the creator.

And without him was not anything made that was made.

That means he himself is uncreated.

So here he is, and he's addressing this reality right from the beginning.

Now, why is he doing this?

Because John is setting the tone for his book, he's setting the expectation for what is to come.

See, in John chapter 4, there's going to be a woman that's been married five times.

John 4 · chapter mention

She's currently living with a man that is not her husband.

Her life is defined by shame.

Nobody wants to touch her, nobody wants to be around her.

She has to go to the well when nobody else is there because she doesn't want to hear all the rumors and see all the grimaces on all of the faces.

And Jesus is going to look to her and he's going to say, I have living water that I can give you.

I have water that I can give you that will make you so that you are never thirsty again, so that you never have to come back to this well and face your shame day in and day out again.

And how can he offer living water?

Because he's God.

Because he's God.

John chapter 8, there's going to be a woman caught in the act of adultery.

John 8 · chapter mention

And she is ripped naked out into the street in the midst of her shame, brought before accusers who are ready to literally pepper her with rocks until her head's caved in.

And she brought she brought before Jesus, and the expectation is that Jesus would join in the condemnation.

And as he stands there, you know what he says?

I don't condemn you.

Go and sin no more.

What authority does a man have to declare someone uncondemned?

None.

He is able to offer her real hope because he's God.

Because he's God.

Matter of fact, if you go on through the Gospel of John, there'll be a series of I am statements.

It harkens all the way back.

Remember, the Old Testament is the New Testament context, harkens all the way back to Exodus chapter 3 in the burning bush, which rolls up to Moses.

Exodus 3 · chapter mention

And Moses is like, Pharaoh's not going to listen to me.

The people of Israel are not going to listen to me.

Who am I supposed to say sent me?

And God says, I am.

I am.

So as the gospel rolls on, as the ministry of Jesus rolls on, Jesus boldly, audaciously, brazenly says, I am the bread of life.

I am the light of the world.

I am the true vine.

I am the I am the way, the truth, and the life.

And no man comes to the Father except through me.

I am the Good Shepherd.

How can he say these things?

How can he say these things and not be a blasphemer?

How can he say these things and not be owed stoning himself?

Because he is God.

And the point is, throughout John's gospel, is that this is your hope.

You had to have a man stand in your place for your sin, yes.

But a merely a man was insufficient to bear the weight of your sin.

God had to do it.

A man can't help you with your shame.

God has to do it.

A man can't rewire your nature.

God has to do it.

A man can't redefine your past and reshape your future.

God has to do it.

And the good news of the gospel of John is that God has come.

The word has been declared, the darkness has been interrupted, and he has stepped in in all of his might and all of his glory to get into the midst of your brokenness that you could be okay.

That you could be okay.

And so he is building up that Jesus is the word and that Jesus is God because he wants you to know unequivocally that Jesus is Lord.

That Jesus is Lord.

This is what he's getting at when he says he was in the beginning with God.

All things were made through him.

Without him was not anything made.

There's this emphasis on creation that was made.

The anchor point of the Lordship of God is found in the fact that he's the creator.

And here is John saying that if you want to know who your creator is, if you want to see him in human flesh, your eyes need to behold the risen Christ because he is the creator.

And being the creator, he is now the owner of all things, and he is the Lord over all things.

That means that means he's the architect.

He's your designer.

He's the one that made you the way that you are, he's the one that put you where you are, he's the one that equipped you and gifted you with the personalities that you have and the gifts that you have.

That means that if you want to have any hope of discovering the significance of why you're on the spinning rock that we call earth, you're gonna have to live in relationship with the Lordship of Christ.

And be submitted to the Lordship of Christ.

You see, the origins of your worldview determine the strength of your hope.

The origins of your worldview determine the strength of your hope.

In 1859, there was a man by the name of Charles Darwin who published a book that started a revolution around the world called The Origin of the Species.

And the thesis of the book essentially is that we all started in like a primordial puddle, right?

And then over enough time that puddle turned into a single atom, and over enough time that began to increase, and those cells began to multiply, and with billions of mutations over millions of years became a species so complex and so beautiful that we could take up multi-ton 747s and launch them over continents.

And many people latch on to Darwin's perspective.

Why?

Because it alleviates the accountability of their lives, it enables them to justify doing whatever it is that they want to do.

But what is the unintended byproduct?

It's a complete loss of significance.

You have no place to fit in, you have no reason to actually be here.

The greatest contribution that you can hope to make is, for better or worse, some evolutionary contribution to the primordial puddle that is your gene pool.

I want you to look around our world, y'all.

Do you feel like you see a lack of significance?

They call us the anxious generation.

People are lost and they're searching.

Yes, we have lost accountability, but at the same time, we have lost what it means to live in the dignity of being an image bearer of Almighty God.

How different is it?

How different is it if we understand ourselves of being put together, the origin of man of finding itself in the mind of Christ, lived out by the power of Christ, engineered by the ingenuity of Christ.

Yeah, yeah, there is one that we are following and there is one that we are pursuing, but we know he is our Lord and He knows what is best.

And he has assigned to each of us a purpose that we could enjoy Him and glorify Him, that we could let His name be hallowed over the face of the earth, that all of the nations would be glad.

Now, now on the spinning rock of earth, we have a place where we fit.

You see, the anxiety that is always tightening your chest and you can't seem to get a grip on it.

You know what it needs?

It needs a robust understanding of the Lordship of Jesus.

The depression that's always squeezing in and pressing in on your life that seems to shade everything darker than it is.

You know what it needs?

It needs the hope that is found in the significance of Christ.

That mom guilt that you have.

It's like no matter what you do for your kids, it's not enough.

No matter how you love your husband, it's not enough.

No matter what you do at home, you never stay up enough.

It feels like you're not contributing, it feels like you're overlooked, it feels like your life is meaningless.

You know what it needs?

It needs to find its significance and its placements in the Lordship of Christ.

It needs to remember that Jesus is Lord and He is taking the most mundane of activities and weaving them together in the tapestry of his providence for the glory of his name.

Now, now, changing a diaper isn't just changing a diaper.

You go to work every day, Dad, and you feel like a complete and utter failure?

Like you can't raise the standard of living for your family, you can't give them more of the things that you want to give them.

Like your work is all vanity and empty and pointless.

Do you know what it needs?

It needs to be submitted to the Lordship of Christ that whatever it is, if it is for the glory of Jesus and the good of your family, it is glorious, a living sacrifice in his eyes, so you can go every day to a dead end job that nobody else thinks is worth anything, and you can do it.

As an act of worship.

There's your dignity.

Oh, brothers and sisters, you know what our culture needs?

It needs a recovery of dignity.

And that is found only in the Lordship of Christ.

John wants us to see that Jesus is the beginning.

And then John wants us to see that Jesus is our new beginning.

That he kind of starts by saying, all right, this is who Jesus is, and this is where Jesus is from.

And now he's going to get to the point of like, and this is what Jesus did.

This is what Jesus did, this is the work that he's about.

You know, a lot has taken place between Genesis chapter 1 and John chapter 1, right?

Genesis 1 · chapter mention John 1 · chapter mention

Between Genesis chapter 1 and John chapter 1, we have man has rebelled against God, we have sinned against God, the whole creation has come under a curse.

Genesis 1 · chapter mention John 1 · chapter mention

We have had brother rise up against brother and strike them dead.

We've had disease enter the world and sin enter the world and affliction enter the world and division enter the world.

We've had arrogance and pride become pervasive over the face of the earth.

And because a lot has happened between Genesis 1 and John 1, a lot of those things have taken place in your life too, right?

Many of you have attended a funeral that you wouldn't wish on your worst enemy.

Some of you have been in the doctor's office and gotten the diagnosis and went numb as you listened to him talk.

Some of you have buried children and spouses.

Some of you have lost your job due to no fault of your own, have no idea where in the world your provision is going to come from.

Some of you have coped with disabilities or special needs.

Some of you have faced just unimaginable trauma at the hands of people that were supposed to care for you and protect you.

And all of this is because of what's taken place between Genesis 1 and John 1.

And it reminds us a lot of what happens in Genesis 1 2, doesn't it?

Right before the creation happens, it's described this way: the earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep.

It's almost like we left John Genesis, God spoke, the sun came, the world is illuminated, creation comes, image bearers, his glory being distributed.

But it's almost like we're returning back, isn't it?

To the way it was before God did anything.

We're returning back to the darkness that used to hover over.

It feels like darkness is hovering over our world, doesn't it?

But you know when we're reading Genesis 1 verse 2, and we're reading about the darkness that is hovering over the deep, those of us who have had the joy of being able to read the Bible before, we are reading Genesis 1.2 with the anticipation of Genesis 1.3, aren't we?

Genesis 1:2

That there is the there is chaos and darkness hovering over a void and formless world.

But just another verse later, the voice of God in all of its majesty and in all of its might is going to interrupt the darkness and interrupt the silence and say, Let there be light.

This is the anticipation that we are meant to read John's gospel with.

If you think about the original audience that would have gotten this in the first century, it would have felt like we were returning to Genesis 1.2 to them too.

It felt like their whole world was just had this darkness that was hovering over it.

They were in the midst of a Roman occupation, okay?

And they're this tiny little group of people.

They're being persecuted, those that have come to faith because they love Jesus.

And it seems as though there's no hope to be found, there's no chance for deliverance.

What are they gonna do?

Raise up a little army to go up against the mighty Romans?

No, it seemed like despair.

It seemed like a pointless existence.

But here is John, and John is saying, don't you understand?

That just like, just like in Genesis 1, just like in Genesis 1 verse 3, after the darkness is hovering over the deep, now the word of the Lord has come again, and the word of the Lord has come to bring life, to bring life, because he is the light of men.

Genesis 1:3

See, Genesis 1 is about the creation of all that there is.

John 1 is about the recreation of all that is.

Do you see how these things dovetail together?

Genesis 1 is about the creation of all that is.

John 1 is about how all that is is going to be redeemed and made new by the return of the Creator as he comes to set free his creation from the condemnation and the curse of sin.

So it's about hope.

That what we see is that life and light have come through Christ to displace the darkness and the despair that are in our world that characterize everything that we see.

Do you know what light does?

Light creates the environment that's conducive for life.

That's a pretty good description of the ministry of Jesus, y'all.

Do you know what Jesus did?

Jesus came to his people so he could turn on the lights and turning on the lights so that we could see his kingdom as the hope of the actual world, and seeing his kingdom as the hope of the actual world, we would know that we can be grounded in him and rooted in him, even in the here and now, in a way that is going to set us free forever.

That he turned on the lights, that we could see the glory of the kingdom, that we would recognize that we don't have to get wrapped up in chasing all the trivialities and trinkets of this world.

We don't have to get bent out of shape trying to keep up with the Joneses and build our resume as impressively as we can.

We don't have to try to run on the rat race and the treadmill of life until we're exhausted and dead.

No, no, we're not even living for all of this.

No, the point here is that the Redeemer has come, deliverance has arrived, and now Jesus is come to make all of us whole again.

There is victory that is possible for every one of us.

How do we know?

Because the lion, the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

I want you to notice something here that's really interesting.

The verb shines is in the present tense.

The light shines.

The work that Jesus does shines.

The launch of the Spirit shines.

The building and the inauguration of the kingdom shines.

The church shines.

That here is the light, and the light is actively in the present tense.

Even after the ascension of Christ to the throne of God, He is shining in the midst of the darkness.

You see that?

Now look what he says about the darkness.

The darkness has not overcome it.

Do you see the difference in verb tense here?

We went from the present active to the past perfect.

In other words, I don't want to give you a grammar lesson here.

It means it's already done.

It's already finished.

The darkness is already lost.

The light is shining, and the darkness is losing.

It's over.

It feels like it's spreading, sure.

But the darkness has, in effect, on the cross, when Jesus spreads his arms and says, it is finished, defeated it.

The cross was a spectacular failure of hell.

Because the cross, in effect, defeated hell itself.

See, the thing about light is that light is invincible against darkness.

There is no dark dark enough to extinguish the dimmest light.

And the dimmest light can actually puncture and penetrate the darkest darkness.

This is the picture of who Jesus is for us.

Now, my guess is the difficulty that you have with that is that it doesn't often feel like it.

It doesn't often feel like the light is shining and the darkness has been overcome.

I mean, would it surprise any of us this morning if we go home and we turn on the news or we open up X and we see that another mass shooting has happened at another Christian church somewhere?

That wouldn't surprise any of us.

We're almost desensitized to it.

Would it surprise you if you went home and you found that another child on your street had been violated by someone that they trusted and loved?

Unfortunately, it wouldn't surprise any of us.

Would it surprise you if you went to work on Monday and you found out that there were going to be mass layoffs and that you were going to be one of them?

It wouldn't surprise you.

The reality is that the darkness is pushing in and it feels like the darkness is winning.

It feels like Genesis 1-2 is beginning to be true for all of us, that darkness is hovering over all of our lives and over all of our families and over all of our hopes, all of our dreams, and all of our aspirations.

Well, the point of John is that because Jesus is the word made flesh, because Jesus is the word, the word that flings galaxies, that has come down to us as the power of God, because Jesus Himself is God and God's will cannot be thwarted, and God cannot be overcome.

Because Jesus is Lord and He is sovereign, reigning over everything in our world, reigning over all of our lives, all of our families, all of our jobs.

Because all of this is true, that we can go ahead and live now in the midst of darkness as though we are victorious.

Because just like all those years ago in Genesis, we are reading and waiting with anticipation that we know no matter how hard life is, and no matter how dark life is, no matter how scary life is, we know that one day very soon the voice of God is going to open up heaven and is going to say, Let there be light.

And at the moment of that declaration, the sun will be bleached out in the splendor of his glory, and the last tear will be wiped away from your face, and you will enter into a time of shalom and tranquility and abundant life that will not be interrupted.

Oh, brothers and sisters, brothers and sisters, this morning, this morning, would you rest, would you rest in the Lordship of Christ?