We started our mini-Christmas series last week by looking at the first five verses of John’s gospel, where he began to give us an astounding description of Jesus that is very different from the other gospel accounts that we have from Matthew, Mark, and Luke. 

While Matthew, Mark, and Luke focus on the narrative – story – of Christ’s genealogy, miraculous conception, and birth in a manger, John proceeds to focus on the character of Christ – that is to say, he focuses on who Jesus is rather than on how he was born. How Jesus was conceived and born are definitely important topics; but for John, he wants to supplement those stories with straight forward doctrinal truths about the person of Christ – about who Jesus is. 

It is almost as though John has put on a set of boxing gloves, has stepped into the ring, and he is landing one body blow after the next as he describes Jesus. We talked last week about the fact that John is writing his account of Jesus’ life to combat – to make war against, to confront, to demolish – a false teaching known as Gnosticism; a teaching that says that God could not have created physical matter because physical matter is evil, therefore, Jesus could not have been God in the flesh, which completely undermines the necessity for Jesus to die in the flesh in our place at the cross of Calvary. 

John also makes his purpose for writing this book crystal clear in John 20:31 where he says that he wrote this book so “that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name”. John wants his listeners to come to a place of saving-belief. 

Even the demons believe that Jesus is who he says he is. In some regard, the demons may have more belief than some modern-day Christians who love their style of church more than the gospel and love the darkness between Sundays more than the clear preaching of repentance from sin and faith that produces works of righteousness. You see, John knows that the people of God will be bombarded with false teachings, every waking moment of the day, and he desperately wants the church to know the truth so that we can be set free. 

The Christmas season is one of the most celebrated holidays of the year. More money is spent in stores during Christmas than any other time of the year. At the same time, while there is more exposure and interest in the culture regarding the person and work of Jesus, it is also a time of year when I think the gospel faces the threat of a soft-pedaled, false notion of Jesus that aims at appeasing men and women who do not like to hear the harshness of the true story of who Jesus is.

In my mind, John, as he lays out his purpose for writing this book, and as he has the false teaching of the Gnostics in his mind, actually echoes the words of the apostle Paul to the Galatians, where he says, “if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be accursed” (Gal. 1:8) or let him be “anathema” or “cut off”. 

John’s only concern, along with the apostle Paul, and virtually every other writer in the Bible, is that we might come to believe in and to personally know and to make known the real Jesus of the Bible as we walk in continued repentance and close relationship with him – instead of some fictionalized character that has been fashioned into our own image and liking. 

The kind of Jesus that we fashion into our own image and liking has no power to save or to transform or to set us free from the effects of Satan, Sin, and Death. Is this not why there are so many quote-unquote believers today who do not walk in victory over our greatest enemies? Is this not why the holiness of the believer seems unimportant in many professing believer’s lives today? Is this not why so many people search for churches to satisfy their own sense of consumeristic needs rather than locking into a church for the purpose of growing in the gospel and reaching the lost?

I think this is why John’s description of Jesus is so important for us today – because we love to refashion Jesus into our own image according to our liking. Sometimes we believe false things about Jesus – like he is not offended by our sin, that his unconditional love means we have the license to do whatever we want, that God is here to serve us instead of us serving him, and since we have Him, we do not need to be accountable to anyone else, and all we have to do is simply offer fake little apologies that we call repentance as we turn around and commit the same sins the very next moment.

Can you see how it is so very possible that we have a false notion of who Jesus is in America and because of that, the church is powerless against Satan, Sin, and Death? Sometimes I find that we just fashion Jesus based on things we like about him, as we reject or ignore the things we do not like about him. 

We love to receive and believe in Jesus as the friend of sinners, or the one who never leaves us nor forsakes us, or the one who empathizes with us in our suffering, or the one who heals our wounds (Matt. 8:17, 11:19; Luke 7:34; Hebrews 13:5, 4:15). These are all very true aspects of who Jesus is and we need to believe these things about Jesus.

But heaven forbid if anyone reminds us that Jesus also said that we cannot be his disciples if we do not pick up our crosses and die to our sin, or that if our right eye or our right hand causes us to sin, then we are supposed to deal with that sin aggressively and violently, or that we are supposed to submit to and obey our spiritual brothers and sisters and especially those leaders who attempt to hold us accountable to walking in God honoring holiness, or even worse, Jesus says that if we bear bad fruit than we do not belong him and we are nothing better than a bunch of snakes (Luke 14:26 – 33; Matthew 5:29 – 30, 12:33 – 37; Ephesians 5:21; Hebrews 13:17).

We love to be coddled when it pertains to issues of our own sin, and we certainly do not love to submit to the authority of biblical community or leadership. I am convinced that many in the American church have a more intimate relationship with darkness while holding onto a false Jesus than they do with the real Jesus. This is evident just in the prioritization of participation in weekly biblical community and our efforts in reaching the lost – heaven forbid if God would call us to reprioritize our schedule to include regular weekly time spent with other believers, seeking the face of God in prayer and Scripture study and working together to reach the lost.

Again, John, the disciple whom Jesus loved, and one of the Sons of Thunder who used to argue about which side of Jesus he would sit on in heaven, (a very consumeristic and sinful desire) he has been transformed, he fell in love with the real Jesus after his resurrection and he knows the dangers of a church that believes false teachings about Jesus. He knows that believers will be scattered by Satan, Sin, and Death as they follow a mirage of a fake Jesus if he does not speak out boldly.

So last week, in verses 1 – 5, he described Jesus as the eternal, preexistent, coexistent, Word, who is God, and who created all things. He alone has complete authority – whether we submit to him or not. Talk about taking the gloves off and going all bare knuckled on his opponents!

John also described Jesus as the only one through whom true spiritual life and light can be found – Jesus is the only source of eternal life, and anyone who has that eternal life will shine brightly – as Jesus shines through them – into the darkness of this world which can never extinguish that eternal light. And this week, as we pick it back up again, John dives a little deeper into this theme of Jesus as the light of the world whom the darkness cannot extinguish. Look at the text with me…

6There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. 7He came as a witness, to bear witness about the light, that all might believe through him. 8He was not the light, but came to bear witness about the light.

9The true light, which gives light to everyone, was coming into the world. 10He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him. 11He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him.

12But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, 13who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.

#1: THERE WAS A MAN SENT FROM GOD (VV. 6 – 8)

In verses 6 – 8, John tells us that “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 first thing that catches my attention is that John, the disciple whom Jesus loved, and one of the sons of thunder, is bearing witness about another man named John who was sent by God to be a witness about the light – Jesus – so that all would have the opportunity to believe in Jesus or to be condemned by their unbelief (more about that in a moment).

For now, this other John, that our author, John, is talking about, is none other than John the Baptist. John the Baptist was Jesus’ cousin and he was sent by God as a forerunner to Jesus, to announce the arrival of the Messiah – much like a news anchor, broadcasting the arrival of the President of the United States in some state or city. But there is so much more to John the Baptist than meets the eye here, he is far more than a presidential informant!

If John the Baptist was “sent by God” to testify to the presence of Jesus, how much more seriously ought we to take our own calling to be sent by God to testify to the presence of Jesus in our lives. You cannot testify to something you do not have! You cannot testify to the light when you spend your life walking in darkness. Furthermore, John the Baptist did not think much of himself, even though he was sent by God, he preached powerfully with humility – he possessed a heart that desired to make much of Jesus even as he made little of himself.

As John the Baptist testified or proclaimed Christ as the light of the world, he never sugar coated his preaching. John the Baptist did not cower back or mince his words because someone might get offended or feel like he was talking about them. On the contrary, John the Baptist called some of the people standing right in front of him, a tangled-up mess of snakes who relied on their religious upbringing to save them rather than producing actual, identifiable, spiritual fruit of repentance, in keeping with their so-called proclamation of faith – this is a message that Jesus preached nearly verbatim later on in the gospels (Matthew 3:7, 12:34, 23:33; Luke 3:7). 

I wonder how that message and description of Jesus would sit with the modern church where we like to coddle wolves and injure sheep more than honor the Savior and King who went to the cross on our behalf, all because our own relationship with Jesus has been so compromised by our love for our own darkened thoughts, desires, and behaviors behind closed doors. 

I know how it all worked out in the biblical record. John the Baptist gets beheaded for confronting the highest spiritual leader in Israel – the current sitting king/president King Herod – for his wicked adultery with his brother’s wife. Jesus gets crucified by the highest council of religious leaders in Israel as that council’s followers cheered them on from the sidelines like a bunch of vipers that they were.

Bottom line… if you have heard the voice of God calling out to you, saying, “Whom shall I send on my behalf to proclaim my name” you better get busy thinking about your calling instead of your comfort and your investment instead of your consumeristic wants and needs. You better get ready for the darkness to throw everything it has at you because the darkness hates the light of Christ, it detests the tiniest shred of resurrection light that might shine through you, because hell is furious about keeping its hold on the ones it thinks it has won over, and hell loves to keep its transplants alive and well within the sheepfold of the local church.

Once again though, you have to remember who the true light actually is, or you will not even begin to make a dent in the gates of hell! You will be too busy thinking about and nursing your own version of the Jesus who only wants you to find happiness and comfort rather than following your Captain onto the battlefield to win souls. If the Jesus you love only exists to make you feel better and only wants to help be happier, than you certainly will not be a force to be reckoned with at the gates of hell – like John the Baptist or even Jesus for that matter – especially if you keep sugar coating your love for sin and the darkness over the One who gave his life for you. 

If you keep giving yourself a pat on the back and giving your so-called Christian friends hall passes based on apologies rather than seeking fruit of repentance, hell will not be afraid of that little lighter you carry around in your pocket. If you think that Jesus’ unconditional love means soft pedaling the consequences of sin in your own life or in the lives of your friends, hell will laugh at you as you entertain yourself in the mirror of your false religion. You need the true light inside of you if you are going to fight the darkness.

#2: THE TRUE LIGHT WHICH GIVES LIGHT TO EVERYONE (VV. 9 – 11)

The darkness is real today my friends. Why else do we have quote unquote churches pushing the LGBTQ agenda so heavily? Why are there supposed churches celebrating the mass murder of the unborn? Why do we have so many professing believers living in open sin and rebellion against a holy God while church members cower in fear, coddle, and generally ignore the hard work of putting sin to death in community? Why is Only Fans and the pornographic industry one of the leading money making industries in the world today?

The answer is that there are far too many people claiming to be Christian in the church today, who have no idea who Jesus really is – they have no real relationship with the true light of the world. American Christians have a better relationship with their desire for comfort, power, and acceptance with a great friend crowd than they do the Light of the World.

Again, I think this is why John tells us that John the Baptist was not the light and that he came to bear witness about the light – in his own non-soft pedaling sort of a way – because he knew, according to verses 9 – 11, that, “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.”

This portion of the passage makes me ask which churches Jesus would actually be allowed to enter if he visited us in the flesh again today. I mean, did you catch the fact that even though “the world was made through” Jesus (v. 10), Jesus created the world, and even though he has the authority and the power to speak things into existence out of absolutely nothing, that there are many, referred to as “his own people” (v. 11) that actually do not receive him – they actually reject him? 

Jesus did not fit the mold for the Savior they had envisioned in their minds. They did not expect a Savior who spoke with the authority of the King of kings and the Lord of lords. They did not expect a Savior who drew sharp lines of division between sheep and goats. They did not expect a Savior to flip tables in the temple. They did not expect a Savior to hang out with pimps, prostitutes, gang bangers, addicts, and religious folks all at the same time, while calling everyone to repent of their sins and believe in him. 

They wanted a Jesus that would make their religious community a safe place that was free from state interference; they wanted Jesus to overthrow the Roman government. They did not expect Jesus to claim to be God but according to John, he made at least seven such claims when he said things like: I am the bread of life (6:35), I am the light of the world (8:12, 9:5), I am the gate for the sheep (10:7), I am the Good Shepherd (10:11), I am the resurrection and the life (11:25), I am the way the truth and the life (14:6), and I am the true vine (15:1).2 These statements are exclusionary statements; they are not inclusive statements.

The people of John’s day did not expect Jesus to make these claims. These claims are claims of deity; only God can use the term “I AM” as he did in the Old Testament and as Jesus does here; these claims earned Jesus the verdict of being guilty of blasphemy by the ruling religious elite of his day and culminated in his crucifixion.3

This is the Jesus who came to be the light of the world, to be the unextinguishable light in the darkest corners of society where many religious people will never be found – unless they too are partaking in the darkness as is often the story throughout the Bible (think of the religious men who wanted to literally stone a prostitute to death, even though it is believed by some, that each of those high and mighty religious men had sinned with her and wanted to cover up their own sins by killing her!). Jesus confronted them in public, in an astonishing way.

This is the light that John the Baptist was sent by God to testify about. This is the testimony that ultimately got John the Baptist killed because of his own shocking obedience to the One who called and sent him – he was killed by a disobedient, wicked, religious, disqualified leader (King Herod) because John the Baptist confronted him publicly! Many rejected John the Baptist! Many rejected Jesus as they still do today, all over the American church. 

Many rejected Jesus while still claiming to be lovers of God even though they loved the darkness more than God and they loved the appearance of godliness while denying its power to save and transform. And Jesus will say to them: “Depart from me you workers of iniquity for I never knew you” (Matthew 7:23). It is still the same today, all over the American church – there are people who think they know Jesus because they made some little profession of faith that resulted in no change of life. 

But rest assured, there were some back then in Jesus’ day – and some in our day today – who did not and do not reject the light and in so doing, they received and accepted and came to a saving belief in Jesus – the light of the world who sets men and women free from their love of the darkness! 

#3: BUT TO ALL WHO DID RECEIVE HIM (VV. 12 – 13)

John says in verses 12 – 13 of our passage, that “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”. These people, who received Jesus instead of rejecting him, instead of playing games by accepting the parts of Jesus they like while rejecting the parts they do not like, these people, “believed in his name” and the church sprang up out of nothing and the gates of hell suffered violence.

These people did not have the same belief as the demons did; they rejected the darkness and they received the light of the world – Jesus! This is such good news ya’ll!!! To know that even though there are some traitors today who deny Jesus with their wicked lifestyles, even though the American church is full church hopping consumers, even though there are many who attend church on Sundays and live like hell throughout the week, there are still some who receive and accept and truly believe in Jesus as the light who destroys the darkness! 

It can be depressing some days when you survey the amount of people whose testimony of their lips does not match their lives. But thank God, there are also people (a small remnant) who have been set free from the darkness by the light of the world. These people have been born again or born “of God” as the passage says. These people have been spiritually renewed, saved, and made into new creations in Christ Jesus. Their old way of living in the darkness is behind them because they are now walking in the light as they follow the true light of the world onto the battlefield to win souls for the kingdom.

These people are now referred to as “children of God” rather than as children of the darkness. To be born again or to become a child of God literally means to be made new by the power of the Spirit as he works within you through your faith in a crucified, risen, and returning Savior. 

Jesus is the Word who is God, he came in the flesh as the embodiment of the Word of God, he came to live the life that you and I could never live apart from him, and he died in the flesh to pay the price for the deeds of your flesh when you were living in darkness, so that by the faith that he has given to you, you can now believe in him, you can be saved by him, and you can be reborn into a new creation, so that as Jesus rose in the flesh from the grave, you can now live as that new creation according to all the resurrection power that is now at work in you. This is glorious, good news!

CONCLUSION…

In conclusion, I want to say that this good news – that Jesus is the light of the world who came in the flesh to remove the presence, the power, and the penalty of our sins – this good news has a transforming effect. If you have believed this gospel message – this message of Jesus – and you are now experiencing what it means to be walking in the light as Jesus is the light, then it is as though you are walking around with a set of heavyweight gloves that will knock out any form of darkness that comes against you!

You may not be familiar with the true story of Ol’ Saint Nick because we are far too conditioned to think of the cultural Santa Clause at Christmas time. But the reality is that Ol’ Saint Nick was a real dude who passionately defended the message of the gospel – the message of the person and work of our crucified, risen, and returning Savior. He defended the gospel against the same heresy – false teaching – that John is confronting in the text we studied today.

In Ol’ Saint Nick’s day, Gnosticism had become so full blown within the church that people were beginning to believe in a false Jesus. Ol’ Saint Nick could not sit quietly by. He confronted those heretics with all the boldness of a true believer who walked in the light of the gospel, and he actually wound up slapping/punching one of his opponents right in the face. I am not condoning physical violence to win theological arguments.

But I will close by saying this: If you want to sit back and hold onto the pieces of the Jesus you love while rejecting the pieces you do not feel comfortable with, so that you can play around in the darkness of Satan, Sin, and death, so that you can continue to treat the church like your favorite shopping center where you stay as long as they have stuff in stock that you want, then have fun enjoying that little highway to hell as you cozy up with the darkness when no one is looking. 

But if your heart warms and leans into believing in the real Jesus – including all the hard to understand and hard to accept parts of him – and if you are legitimately walking in the light, as He is the Light, and if you can see the fruit of repentance and holiness being produced in your life, if you are pouring out your life in a sacrificial act of gospel ministry alongside others in the church family, then you are carrying around a massive floodlight and you are fully equipped with a perfect set of boxing gloves by which you can do real damage in the kingdom of hell.

If you hold onto the real Jesus – not just during the Christmas season but in every season – hell will quake at your very footsteps because you have a saving belief that the demons can never understand and the darkness will never extinguish! – Amen!!

1 Unless otherwise specified, all Bible references are to the English Standard Version Bible, The New Classic Reference Edition (ESV) (Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers, 2001).

2 Craig L. Blomberg, Jesus and the Gospels: An Introduction and Survey, 2nd Edition (Nashville: B&H Publishing Group, 2009), 188.

3 Ibid.