John 1:1-18
Let’s give our attention now
to the word of the living God. John chapter one, beginning at
verse one says this, 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. 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. And the word became
flesh and dwelt among us. And we have seen his glory, glory
as of the only son from the father, full of grace and truth. John
bore witness about him, and he cried out, this was he of whom
I said, he who comes after me ranks before me, because he was
before me. And from his fullness, we have
all received grace upon grace. For the law was given through
Moses. Grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has ever
seen God, the only God, who is at the Father’s side. He has
made him known. Pray with me. Lord, we pray now
that you would bless the reading and preaching of your word. May
we hear it as what it is, the word of God. May we receive it
as what it purposes to do, to nurture our hearts in grace. Lord, may we also put it into
practice in our lives as we leave this place this day to serve
you. We ask for your help, your blessing, your grace, and ask
for it in the name of your only son, the light, even Jesus. Amen. You may be seated. Does anyone remember the month
of March? Some of you may still think it
is March. Right, the month of March, nine months ago. Back
in March, that’s when we were going to have, I believe, a 15-day
lockdown, right? We’re still in it. Right? We’re
still in that 15 day lockdown they put in place back then.
But do you remember what occurred in the life of our congregation?
Not knowing what COVID-19 would be, what it would do, where it
was going, where all that business. We were in line with a lot of
churches who for about eight weeks I did not have church services
for eight weeks. We were at home. I can remember
our little family tradition. We woke up strange for me on
a Sunday. We woke up when we woke up. Somebody
cooked breakfast and we all sat around the iPad and we watched
Derek Thomas from our sister church in Columbia, South Carolina.
What a neat, fun time that was. But it wasn’t the same. Those
eight Sundays, no church. And during that time, we didn’t
really know what was going on. We didn’t know what would come
to pass. And then they said, well, 10 people can get together.
Then they said 50 people getting together. And then they said
it’s outside or inside. And then, lo and behold, wonder
upon wonder, good for us, a group in Winston-Salem sued the governor
and said, you can’t tell churches what to do. Or to translate into
two-year-old language, the church wanted to say, you’re not the
boss of us. We serve a savior and a king.
And when he calls his people to worship, we come. And when
he calls us to worship, he speaks to us. And so we have these concerns
about health and the spread of disease and all that. We don’t
want to put too little on those things. But during that stretch
of time, we missed our fellowship together. During that time, we
missed worship together. But during that time, I hope
that we all missed the ministry of God’s word together. We understand that God, by his
word, and under the power of his Holy Spirit, he does one
of two things, or both, during a service of worship. As he speaks
to his people through the preaching of God’s word, he convinces and
converts sinners unto salvation. Or to say it another way, in
church, under the preaching of God’s word, some people get saved. That’s a good thing. So when
you’re not having church, what’s the logical thing that may not
happen? People may not get saved if the
word of God is not preached. Well, then there’s the other
side of the coin. We believe that preaching not only convinces
and converts sinners unto salvation, but we also believe that comforts
and builds up the saints of God in their most holy faith. Some
of you work out. You go to the gym, you pump iron,
you do your whatever it is you do. I don’t work out, you can
tell. I do walk the dog. But you pump iron, right? You
get all exercised. You get your body in shape so
that you have endurance and strength for life. Well, when we don’t
have church, not only is there the opportunity for people to
not get saved, there’s also the lack of nurture. There’s no comforting
and building up in our most holy faith through the preaching of
the Word. And so the reason that we exist
as a church for fellowship, for worship, but most especially
the ministry of the Word, it did not happen for eight weeks.
Now, blessing upon blessing, you have your Bibles, you have
your podcast, you have your television programs you may watch, you have
table talk, and then I think three of you watched yours truly
on Vimeo when we attempted to make, I think maybe my mother
and my children, because they had to, and Jay and Julie. You
watched the videos. But we suffer without the word
of the living God. We suffer without the ministry
of the word. Imagine, though, not eight weeks,
but 400 years. You’ve all heard the proverb, You can probably fill in the
blank. The people perish. Now, in 21st century church speak,
you’ll hear that and you’ll hear people say, well, what’s our
church’s vision? We don’t have a vision statement.
We need a vision statement. And without a vision, the people
perish. Well, that’s not at all what that proverb means. I mean,
maybe that’s a down the line application that could be true.
Yes, you aim at nothing, you’ll hit it, right? But without a
prophetic vision, the people perish. In fact, read through
most of the Old Testament where God threatened Israel with punishment. If you don’t do what I say, if
you don’t do what I ask, if you don’t live as I say, but you
continue in your idolatry, your immorality, your injustice, and
on and on, I will remove my presence from you. And so not only did
God threaten to remove his presence, he would remove his word from
his people. And so without a prophetic vision,
without a word from God, the people will perish. We suffered for eight weeks.
Well, we made it, we had our technology, we had our Bibles,
but back in the days of God’s people in Israel, no podcast. They didn’t even have sermon
recordings on cassette tape. They didn’t have copies of God’s
word. They didn’t have TV. They didn’t have all the media
and messages that we have. Well, what’s a people to do? Well, they lived in darkness.
They lived in darkness and they lived without the word of the
living God for 400 years. They were a small community of
God’s people. They were living in a pagan world.
They were ruled by Gentiles. and they had no word, no message
from God Almighty. Well, into this context, we come
to a story today as we think on verses six through nine. We want to think about the message
and the ministry of John the Baptist. And we think of a little
family that we read of in the other gospels we studied in Luke’s
gospel a couple of years ago. A little family, a husband and
wife. a pious couple, an older couple. They had no children. Their names
were Elizabeth and Zechariah. Zechariah was a priest. She was
a housewife. Zechariah was on duty in the
temple for his two week stretch. And the word of God in Luke’s
gospel tells us that as Zechariah ministered, his lot was drawn. As they cast lots, his lot was
drawn and he went into the temple. to offer incense. And as he was
at the altar, there visited him at the altar, an angel. And the
angel said something like this to Zechariah, Zechariah, you
and your wife, you’re barren. You have no children, but you’re
going to have a son and you’re going to have a son. His name
will be John and he will be great. Not only will you as a couple
be blessed, but he will be great and he will be a blessing to
many. Now you stop there for just a
moment and say, this is ringing some bells in my head. I’ve read
some Old Testament stories, some New Testament stories that sound
like this. This sounds a little bit like
Abraham and Sarah. Old couple, promised a child,
from that child and through that child will the offspring of God’s
people be blessed. No child, barren womb, big problem,
no blessing for future generations. Well, God took care of that with
Abram and Sarah and gave them Isaac. Or we remember our Old
Testament story of Hannah. Hannah prayed before the Lord
year by year and as her family went to temple, went to sacrifice,
as they went to Jerusalem, each year she would pray and she would
weep. She would speak out loud to the
Lord. In fact, people thought she was a crazy woman. And she
said, no, I’m simply praying that God would grant my heart’s
desire for a child. And so Hannah bears Samuel in
her old age, no longer barren. And so here’s another wonderful
story like that. And this is a reminder, isn’t
it, of how good and gracious God is. He takes what is empty,
he takes what is hopeless, he takes what is barren, and he
takes what seems to have no future, and he fills it with life. In
fact, doesn’t this echo our study of John chapter one in the first
few verses last week? In the beginning was the word,
the word was with God, the word was God. He was with God in the
beginning and nothing that was made was not made by him. He’s the creator God. And he
who takes what is formless and empty, He forms it and he fills
it. And he does that in the life
of Elizabeth and Zachariah. But he also does it in a way
that’s gonna bless his church. It’s gonna bless his people for
generations. And so they who were barren,
they who were empty, they who were hopeless, had great joy
brought into their lives. Now there’s a lot more to the
story of Elizabeth and Zachariah and John the Baptist’s birth.
But we come today to verses six through nine, and we read this,
there was a man sent from God whose name was John. Where did
John’s ministry come from? Where did John receive his call
to the ministry? Well, you only have to go back
into the Bible and read into, say, the call of Isaiah or the
call of Elijah, the call of Elisha, the call of all men of God who
were called to speak on God’s behalf. The call comes from God
himself. No man can stand on his two feet
and say, I am here on my own to proclaim God’s word. Now the
call comes from God. It’s confirmed by the church.
It’s affirmed by the laying on of the hands of the elders. We
have this tradition that is passed down to us through the scriptures. And that’s exactly how we ought
to see John’s ministry. He was a man sent from God. He did not send himself. He did
not come on his own authority. But this man, John, and we know
of it from his wonderful and miraculous birth. You remember
a little of the story. Zechariah disbelieved God. He
disbelieved the angel Gabriel who came to him. So God made
him mute. He had, I think we called it two years ago when
we studied this, he had a case of gestational muteness, right? The whole time his wife was pregnant,
he could not speak because why? He failed to believe God and
his promises. He failed to believe God and
his word and thanks be to God and his mercy. God did not do
to Zechariah as he had done to Nadab and Abihu and others where
he struck them dead. It wasn’t a case of muteness. For about nine months, do us
all some good. We’d get a little perspective
on life and we might get a little perspective on who God is and
what he’s doing. But this man, and his wife gave
birth to John the Baptist. God sent him not only into this
world, but God sent him through his mother and father, whose
situation was hopeless, but became full of hope, not only for their
family, but for the whole world. Verse seven tells us the purpose
for his coming. He came as a witness. He came
to bear witness about the light. And then verse eight, he was
not the light, but he came to bear witness. This phrase, he
came to bear witness, is the word we get martyred from. You
know, we speak of martyrs, we read of Christians in history
and in biographies who were martyrs. They gave their lives, right? We usually think of a martyr
as someone who lost their life for the sake of the gospel. But
this word simply means to bear witness. So here was John sent
by God to bear witness about the light. Now some of you wake
up early in the mornings. Maybe you have to be off to work
early. Maybe you go for a morning walk or jog or something like
that. But you wake up and you see the glimmer of sunlight coming
through the clouds. Now it’s a little low because
it’s winter. But you see that orange glow off in the horizon. And as you take your walk, your
run, or maybe your commute to work in those early morning hours,
the longer you go, the more the sun appears until it’s all the
way in the sky full of great brightness. And so we gotta think
of John’s ministry of bearing witness. He was a glimmer of
hope in a very dark time. In fact, his father, Zechariah,
when he sang of his words in Zechariah’s song, our second
hymn this morning, he speaks of the dayspring from on high,
the full sun coming in the person and work of Jesus. But we look
at John, His call was to bear witness. His call was to speak
of the greater and brighter sunshine who was coming, that person,
the Lord Jesus Christ. His call was to bear witness
about the light that all might believe through him. Then verse
eight tells us a little more. He was not the light, but he
came to bear witness about the light. He was not the light,
but he came to bear witness. What did people think of John
during his life, his career, his ministry? Remember his ministry
was cut short. He was such a faithful prophet. He told Herod that he was living
unfaithfully in his marriage. He was put in jail. And remember
one night in a drunken revelry, Herod said to his daughter, whatever
you want, I’ll give you. So she consulted her mother,
who I think was Herod’s third wife, something like that. It
was afternoon television quality event. What do you want? She
says, I want John the Baptist head on a platter. He was not
the light, but he came to bear witness about the light. He was
a lamp. Question though, very often,
are you the Christ? Are you the Messiah? Are you
Elijah come from the dead? Are you the one who is like Moses? Nobody came to bear witness about
the light, but he was not the light. You think about American
Christianity today. And let’s think about this in
light of ministers. Ministers have become celebrities.
Some of you have shared with me the little Twitter handles,
you know, preacher sneakers. You know, which pair of Air Jordans
is the preacher going to wear today? Now they got preacher
watches. You know, they got their fancy
watches. They got preacher outfits. But a minister in today’s culture
is a celebrity. They have to dress right. They
have to look right. They have to play the part. They have to almost
be like a Hollywood star. But think about John. What do
we know of him? Well, he was a strange bird. He was not only
a Nazarite, but he wore He wore camel’s clothing. Some of you
wore a camel hair coat today, right? I wore one. I think there’s
one back over there. That’s not the camel hair that
he wore. It’s not fine wool camel hair, tan colored. He wore the
itchy stuff like he wore a burlap sack. And what does it say? He
lived off of locust and honey. No celebrity pastor, but he came
to bear witness about the light. So many ministers make themselves
the light. They have a brand name, usually
doctored before their name. The books have their picture
on the front. They sell even the little box on TV, right?
You can get a pre-downloaded set of messages from them. You
all have seen that on TV, I’m sure. But John simply came to
do what it took to make it ready for the coming of the Lord Jesus.
And then verse nine, the true light, which gives light to everyone,
was coming into the world. And this is where we want to
land today. We live in strange times. We have an election that’s
not yet, who knows, finished. We have a culture that praises abortion, but it chastises
you if you don’t adopt a puppy. Y’all see that, don’t you? We
don’t mind putting babies into the grave that we don’t want,
but heaven forbid you not adopt a puppy. That’s the cultural
tension that we live in today. And on and on it goes with all
the complications of this year. But we live in a strange, dark
time. And our job as the church is to tell everyone of the true
light, which gives light to everyone and who is coming in to the world. John was a witness. John was
a forerunner of this light. And as a church of the Lord Jesus
Christ, it’s our job to make that light known. It’s our job
to make evident in our daily living, but also in the ministry
of the church, the light of the world. What does the world see
when they see John? What does the world see when
they see a little church like ours? Oh, they see weakness.
They see small numbers. They don’t see celebrity. They
just see simple faithfulness that they cannot understand. Well, this true light, Jesus
Christ, who gives light to everyone, was coming into the world. And
on through the rest of John, we’re gonna see the response
to light and darkness. But here’s the $64,000 question
for us today. The light has come. We don’t
have John as a forerunner. We don’t have that little glimmer
of orange in the early morning sky. We have seen the brightness
of God in the face of the Lord Jesus Christ. And the great question
for us this day is, have we received that light by faith? Has that light entered into our
lives and brightened up our darkness, cast away our sin, Does that
light continually, by word and spirit, continue to feed us and
nurture us and build us up in our most holy faith? These are
the great questions we ought to ask. And my prayer and my
hope is for us this season that we will not get lost in the darkness.
For we remember the statement from John’s gospel last week,
the light has come into this world and as dark as it is, it
cannot snuff it out. It cannot overcome it. So my
prayer this day is that your faith will be strengthened, not
only by God’s word, but also by his sacrament as we come to
the table and feed on him by faith, remembering that Christ,
the great day spring from on high has come into the world
to save centers. Pray with me. Our Lord and God,
we pray now that as we come to your table, as we come to commune
together, as we come to feed on Christ, we pray that our faith
And this light, the light of the world, bred from heaven,
would be strengthened, that we would not forget who we are,
where we have come from, and where we are going, all because
of the great grace of the Lord Jesus Christ. Hear us, bless
us, and help us. We pray in Christ’s name, amen.