He is Light

Anthony W. Franklin

Easter: He is/We are • Sermon • Submitted a month ago • Presented a month ago

1 John 1:1–2:2

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Scripture: 1 John 1:1-2:2

1 John 1:1–2:2 NIV

1 That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched—this we proclaim concerning the Word of life. 2 The life appeared; we have seen it and testify to it, and we proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and has appeared to us. 3 We proclaim to you what we have seen and heard, so that you also may have fellowship with us. And our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ. 4 We write this to make our joy complete. 5 This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you: God is light; in him there is no darkness at all. 6 If we claim to have fellowship with him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live out the truth. 7 But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin. 8 If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. 9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. 10 If we claim we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar and his word is not in us. 1 My dear children, I write this to you so that you will not sin. But if anybody does sin, we have an advocate with the Father—Jesus Christ, the Righteous One. 2 He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world.

4/7/2024

Order of Service:

Announcements

Opening Worship

Prayer Requests

Prayer Song

Pastoral Prayer

Kid’s Time

Offering (Doxology and Offering Prayer)

Scripture Reading

Sermon

Communion

Closing Song

Benediction

Special Notes:

Week 1: Communion

Opening Prayer:

Heavenly Father, Thank You for this season of new life that we celebrate as we continue to remember the power of Your Son, our Lord Jesus, who defeated death and lives forevermore. We gather in Your presence today and ask You to give us a fresh vision of who we are when we give ourselves to You. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

He is Light

Our eyes, the incredible works of God, are the gateway to the breathtaking beauty of the world. I don’t understand all the science behind how they work. They seem to take in rays of light that reflect off the objects around us and paint pictures in our minds of the beauty in the world around us. After thousands of years, we still cannot imitate that ability to see, which God gives most of us every day.

Vision, a treasure I hold dear, is not always a constant companion. When I'm without my glasses, the world around me blurs into a foggy haze, making it difficult to discern one object from another. Even with my glasses, there are moments when my eyes need a little extra time to ‘boot up’ in the morning. Like an old computer, they need to buzz, beep, run tests, and ponder for a few minutes before they’re fully operational before I can see clearly, even after rubbing the sleep from them.

A Black and White World

That makes getting dressed a unique challenge. I have a friend who is color-blind. His wife lays out his clothes daily, and you can tell when she’s unhappy with him because he occasionally ends up with colors that do not work well. I’m not that visually challenged yet, but some mornings, when the light is low, black, grey, and dark blue all blend into one for my eyes. I have to rely on how they feel, where the clothes are hanging in the closet, or sometimes I pick them out the night before so I don’t have to use my eyes to find them in the morning.

We all find ways to adapt to our many challenges. It is easy for us to settle into living with our inadequacies, accepting the black-and-white world we see through sleep-filled, weary eyes and trying our best to navigate a world with too little light. But that is not how God wants us to live. He created our world illuminated in color and beauty, and He wants us to live in the full beauty of it. Christ, the ultimate light, illuminates our world and calls us to live in the light with Him.

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How Do We See?

Our passage today comes from a sermon written by the disciple John that was circulated throughout the Early Church. He also wrote the Gospel of John, a book that provides a detailed account of Jesus’ life, teachings, and miracles. You will probably notice a lot of similar expressions in both of these New Testament books, as they both emphasize the importance of Jesus in our lives. As a man who spent three years learning from Jesus in person, writing to many people who only heard about Jesus after He ascended back into Heaven, this whole letter is a message that tells us that we find our identity in Jesus. Because He is, we are.

This sermon letter starts the same way John’s Gospel begins: in the beginning. Jesus is the Word of Life. John is a witness who saw, heard, and touched Him. Jesus was not just an idea or a mythological person made up to inspire us—Jesus was a real-life, living, breathing person.

The first point of the sermon is that Jesus is the light. God is light, and there is no darkness in Him at all. Jesus, not only is that light to us, but He also purifies us from any darkness within us. For instance, when we are deceived by temptation and sin, Jesus' light can lead us to repentance and redemption, helping us to see the truth even after we have plunged back into the darkness.

John wrote in his gospel:

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. 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 testify concerning that light so that through him all might believe. He himself was not the light; he came only as a witness to the light. The true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world.”

Those two passages, the gospel and letter beginnings, harmonize so well, don’t they? The John referred to in this passage was initially John the Baptist, but it also applies to John the Disciple. And it also applies to you and me. We are not the light of God. We only experience, testify, and can see everything because of it. Jesus is the true light that all of creation waits for. When we find the world looking dark, colorless, and upsetting, we don’t need to attempt to create light, and God does not leave us alone to make sense of all the shadows. What we need is Jesus. He will always be there to light our way, providing comfort and security. In times of uncertainty, He is our rock. In times of fear, He is our refuge. And He wants us to live in the light of God with Him.

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The Cave

John uses the word “fellowship” to describe our relationship with Jesus and one another. Fellowship means much more than shaking hands or eating together. It is a powerful word that means forging a connection that moves us from friends to family. In the Bible, there are two primary ways fellowship happens: marriage and joining the family of believers. In both cases, John writes in his gospel that those in fellowship would give their lives for each other.

There is one more text that helps us understand John’s writing. It is not a Christian text; it is a parable told by the Greek philosopher Plato and his teacher Socrates, and it is called the Allegory of the Cave. It is a parable about people choosing Who they will trust their lives with and where those choices take them. It goes something like this.

Imagine people born underground in a cave who never see the light of day. Not only were they born underground, but they were kept in shackles and chains. They have to face the same way all the time, and the only light they ever know is a fire behind them that casts shadows on the wall. They spend their lives trying to guess what those shadows are and what they mean, never fully realizing that they are only dark reflections of the things that move behind them, sometimes even themselves.

Now imagine that one day, someone came from outside the cave and began to tell them about the world outside. He tells them about the sun, the moon, the birds, and the trees. He tells them about all the colors in the world and all the beauty that lies just outside the cave. Then He tells them he will set them free of their chains and shackles, and they can come live with Him. How do you think they would respond?

Some feel brave and hopeful and follow Him outside into a new world and a new life. They have to learn to become different people because there is no place outside the cave for someone who is used to being chained up and interpreting shadows. In the real world, they deal with reality in all its grandeur.

Others are afraid and want to stay in the cave, focusing on learning more about their immediate surroundings. They tell themselves that moving around in the cave is enough change for now, and besides, it is more comfortable and familiar there in the darkness rather than facing the unknown. However, by choosing to stay in the cave, they are missing out on the beauty and truth of the world outside. They are limiting their understanding of fellowship and their relationship with Jesus.

Some people are angry that someone would come and say such crazy things. They might accuse Him of trying to deceive people and whisk them away from safety to be swallowed up in darkness forever. They don’t want to be free, they don’t want to move, they want to be masters of interpreting and maybe even manipulating the shadows... and they want that stranger punished and gone for good.

John learned this story before writing his letters and gospel, and I believe he saw this parable as a reflection of Jesus. Jesus liberates us and extends an open invitation to live in the light with Him. However, not everyone responds to Jesus in the same way. If we claim to be in fellowship with Jesus, we must step out of the darkness of the cave and embrace the light, just as He emerged from the tomb to live eternally.

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Knowing Jesus

What do we do about this? Most of the world runs blindly from the darkness into the light. Sometimes, though, that light is not the escape we think it is. Sometimes, the light we see at the end of the tunnel is a train coming down the tracks, headed straight for us.

We must leave the cave, the tomb, and the underground behind to live the life that God created us to live. But we cannot find the way or figure out how to live on our own because we do not have enough light to see the way. In fact, without the ability to see what comes from Jesus, we could be out in the open and never even know it. Trading the shadows for highlights but still living in the black-and-white world, a world devoid of the vibrant, colorful life that comes from Jesus, is just trading one edge of a cliff for another. And we cannot compromise everything because, without Jesus, life would look like a washout of gray, where we cannot tell one thing from another.

We need a guide who came from the light, who carries that light, and who can reach us in the darkness. We need Jesus. His presence assures us that we are not alone in the darkness and that there is a way out. And then we need to follow where He leads. There is no other way. Only Jesus is fully God and fully human — able to bridge the gap between heaven and our broken world. Only Jesus is strong enough to pull us out from falling into the abyss. We cannot get out on our own.

Trying harder to do better will only have us running in circles until we’ve dug a rut so deep we cannot climb out of it anymore. The way into the light, and more importantly, to have our eyes opened to see and be filled with the light of Christ, begins with learning more about Who He is. This learning journey is not just about acquiring knowledge but about transformation. The more we know about Who He is, the more we will discover who we are when we live in fellowship with Him in the light.

Brothers and Sisters, let us begin this Easter Season by learning more about Jesus, the light God sent into the world to lead us into a new life with Him.

Closing Prayer

Heavenly Father, Thank You for adopting us as Your children of the light. Thank You for sending Jesus to us to show us what a child of the light looks like, lives like, and loves like. We still have much to learn, but we know You never stop shining Your light into the world around us, working to catch and hold our attention. Help us keep our eyes fixed on You so we can learn to see the way You do. In Jesus’s name. Amen.