THE GOSPEL OF JOHN
JESUS IS THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD
DR. JIM DIXON
MARCH 8, 1987
1 JOHN 1:1-18
What is the brightest object in the universe? The sun appears to be the brightest object by day and the moon appears to be the brightest by night, but of course the moon has no light of its own. It merely reflects the light of the sun. And even the sun is not the brightest object in the universe. It’s not even close. It’s simply an average-sized star with an average magnitude of light. When we look into the heavens at night, the star called Sirius, the dog star, appears to be the brightest, and it does release thirty times the energy of our sun. But even Sirius is not really the brightest star. It’s simply closer to Earth, only nine light years away. There are many stars brighter than the dog star, but even the brightest of the stars pales when compared with a quasar. Scientists tell us that the quasar is the brightest object in the universe. It is hard to comprehend, but we are told that a quasar releases 100,000 billion times the energy of our sun—100,000 billion times. The energy is released primarily in the form of light, and yet scientists, astronomers, and cosmologists do not really understand what a quasar is. Some scientists believe that they are infant galaxies, galaxies in birth with incomprehensible energy at the core.
We are told, that many quasars are very, very distant from us. Some quasars are at the very edge of the known universe, 10 billion light years away. The incomprehensible light released by those objects actually takes 10 billion light years just to reach this planet called Earth. Yet the Bible tells us that there is something in this universe infinitely brighter than a quasar. That something is God—that someone is God—He who created the universe itself. The Bible says God is Light, and in Him is no darkness at all. The Bible tells us that God dwells in unapproachable light. The Bible tells us God is the Father of Lights. And the Bible tells us that 2,000 years ago the very Light of God came to Earth in the person named Jesus Christ. So Jesus Christ announced to the world, “I am the Light of the world.” The Bible says of Him that the True Light, which enlightens every man, had come into the world. Now, I have two teachings this morning concerning the meaning of Jesus as the Light.
The first teaching is this: Jesus Christ is the Light which enables us to see ourselves. He is the Revealer. He is the One who unveils who we really are. He strips off the disguises and the concealments, and He shows us as we really are in nakedness before Him. One day, the Bible says, every person who has ever lived will stand before Jesus Christ and His light will penetrate their darkness. Everyone who’s ever lived will stand before Him and suddenly, in the Light, they’ll be made known. And for the first time, many people will see themselves as they really are at the judgment seat of Jesus Christ. But if you’re a Christian, if you’ve asked Jesus Christ to be your Lord and Savior, then even now you have come to Jesus Christ and His light has begun to shine upon you and you’ve begun to see yourself as you really are. You see, you can’t be a Christian, you can’t come into fellowship with God, you can’t come into fellowship with Jesus Christ, unless you’re willing to let His light shine upon you and you are willing to acknowledge what you’re really like.
Most people in the world don’t really want to acknowledge what they’re like. In the year 1912, in Eastern Sussex in England in Piltdown Common, a man named Charles Dawson made an astounding discovery. In a gravel pit near Piltdown Common, he found the bones of a very ancient man. He found an ancient skull and jaw, and he took those fossils to the British museum, where scientists examined them. Scientists from all over the world came and they examined these bones and they made an incredible announcement to the world: they announced that they had discovered in Piltdown Common the missing link. They had made the greatest discovery in evolutionary history. They had found the transitional life form between man and ape. They had found the ape-man, and they announced that the bones of this transitional life form were 250,000 to 500,000 years old. This ancient man was then called eoanthropus dawsoni—Dawson’s Dawn Man—but he was better known as the Piltdown Man. Charles Dawson became famous, and he went all over the world and delivered lectures, though he died only four years later in 1916.
But the Piltdown Man continued in fame and he was written about in all the history books and the science books and in the textbooks of the world. For forty years, he was accepted as the missing link. But a strange thing happened between the years 1949 and 1953. Scientists discovered new means of testing fossils. They were able to bring these fossils under more light. They developed radiation dating methods. Finally, in the year 1953, when they did radiation dating on the skull of the Piltdown Man, they found that the Piltdown Man was not whom he appeared to be. They discovered that the skull of the Piltdown Man was only a few hundred years old, dating to the 13th century. They began to explore the Piltdown Man in greater detail, and they discovered that this skull had been fossilized, and that probably Dawson had stained the skull. They believed that Dawson stained the skull with mahogany and potassium bichromate to make it look ancient. They believed he had actually taken the skull from a medieval cemetery near the house where he lived.
Then they examined the jaw and they found that it wasn’t even a human jaw. As they looked at it under closer scrutiny, they discovered that it was actually the 20th-century jaw of an orangutan. Again, Dawson had stained it and filed the teeth to shape them in such a way as to look more humanoid. Then they discovered that the Piltdown Man wasn’t even a man—it was a female. It was not whom it appeared to be, but was a hoax. Some historians today say that it was the greatest hoax ever perpetrated upon the scientific community, an embarrassment. The Bible says that there’s a very real sense in which each and every one of us are just like the Piltdown Man. We’re not who we appear to be. We’re not as human as we appear to be. We’re not as civilized as we would like to think we are. The Bible says that when God made us, He crowned us with glory and honor. He made us in the very image of God. But the Bible says we are fallen. “All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. There is none righteous, no, not one.” When we come into the light of Jesus Christ, suddenly we see that all of our righteousness is like filthy rags, and we are in darkness, and His light penetrates our darkness.
It’s not easy for us to admit what we are and what we’ve become. We don’t like to see ourselves as we are. You know, in our house, there’s a few places where I can go and comb my hair. I suppose I could comb my hair anywhere I want, but there are three places where I can look in the mirror and comb my hair. I can go into the kids’ bathroom where they have a mirror and there’s a light there, but it’s kind of a weak light. I like to comb my hair there because I can only see back about a half inch through the individual hairs. But then in our bedroom, there’s a mirror with a light that’s a little brighter. It’s kind of scary because I look into that light and I can a good inch or so, maybe an inch and a half, and that bothers me. Well, down in the basement there’s a bathroom, and I don’t know why but they put a light in that bathroom that is incomprehensibly bright. And I can stand there and I can look in that mirror and it’s just shocking. My hair looks like an aspen grove in the winter time. And I don’t like to look at that. You see, spiritually we’re all kind of like that. We don’t really want to take a look at our souls and we don’t really want to take a look at our spirits. We don’t want to see what we’re really like. We don’t want to see the spots and the blemishes. We don’t want to see the sin, we don’t want to see the darkness. The Bible indicates that there’s something evil about the fact that we don’t even want to acknowledge who we really are.
Perhaps the greatest manifestation of evil is that we would not admit who we really are. Scott Peck, the Christian psychiatrist and MD who wrote a book called The Road Less Traveled, presents a fascinating but chilling portrait of evil in his more recent book called The People of the Lie. In this book, Scott Peck tries to portray what he believes evil is really like in the sight of God, what evil people are really like. He calls them the people of the lie. He says that the people of the lie are persons who are unusually devoted to maintaining the image of perfection. He says truly evil people are people who have an excessively strong desire to maintain the appearance of moral purity. He says that such people outwardly do all the right things. They go to work on time, they dress right, they look right, they do all the socially accepted things, and they probably even go to church. But the key words in describing these people are “outwardly” and “appearance” and “image,” because, says Scott, these people don’t really care about being good. They don’t really desire to be good. They don’t hunger and thirst after righteousness. They just have an incredible desire to appear good. Their goodness is a pretense. They are the people of the lie.
They are, says Scott, like the Pharisees of old as described in the Bible, because the Pharisees didn’t care about being good. They just wanted to appear good, and they hated the light of Christ because His light penetrated their darkness. It wasn’t really that they wanted to fool people so much as they wanted deep down to fool themselves. They didn’t want to see themselves. That’s what people are like. There’s a little bit of the Pharisee in all of us. There’s darkness in all of us, and the Bible says that we must do something about it. What the Bible counsels us to do is to come into the Light, to come to Jesus Christ and approach Him truly. And as we come to Him and we begin to see ourselves, there’s only one proper response: repentance. The Bible demands repentance.
The world says, “I’m okay, you’re okay.” That’s the philosophy of the world. That’s what the humanists teach us. “I’m okay, you’re okay.” It sounds great, but it’s a lie. Jesus Christ says, “I’m okay, you’re not. But you can be.” He says,” I’ve come that you might have life and that you might have it in abundance.”
It’s a dangerous thing to expose yourself to the light of Christ. The Bible speaks of a rich man who came to Christ. He said, “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” Jesus said, “You know the law—thou shalt not killed, thou shalt not steal, thou shalt not commit adultery, thou shalt not bear false witness, thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.” And the rich man said a very foolish thing. He said, “All these I have done from my youth.” But the Light was shining upon his darkness and the Light penetrated more deeply. Jesus saw into his heart and into his soul. And Jesus Christ could see that this rich man was in love with money. He loved money more than anything. He loved material possessions more than God. In truth, he lived for money and he lived for the pursuit of material things. Money was his God, and as the Light shined on his darkness, Jesus said, “One thing you lack. Go and sell all that you have and give it to the poor. Come, follow Me, and you’ll have treasure in heaven.” When this man saw himself in the light of Christ, he had to make a decision. His decision was not to repent. So he turned and he walked away, exceedingly sad. It’s a test when you come into the light of Christ and you see yourself as you really are.
But you see, there was another person who came to Christ. Her name was Mary Magdalen. She was a harlot. She sold her body for sexual pleasures and she was demon-possessed. The Bible says six times over that she was demon-possessed, but she came to Christ and the Light penetrated her darkness and she saw herself as she really was. She began to weep, the Bible says, and her tears flowed onto the feet of the Son of God. The Bible says that Mary washed Christ’s feet with her tears and she wiped His feet with her hair and she took precious oil and she anointed His feet. And Jesus said to her, “Your sins are forgiven you,” and she came out of the darkness into the Light, and she became what the Bible calls one of the children of the Light. She became a Christian. She was the last at the cross and she was the first at the empty tomb. To her Christ presented Himself resurrected and alive because she came into the Light. She saw herself and she repented.
So here is a call to repentance. If you’re a Christian, you had some moment where you saw enough of Christ that you saw a reflection of yourself and you acknowledged that you are sinful. You at least in your soul and spirit got on your knees and you asked Jesus Christ to be your Savior. But the call of Christ is a call to stay in the Light. And that requires repentance daily. It requires that every day we would purge ourself of the darkness and walk into His Light and repent. “Search me, oh God, and know my heart. Try me and know my thoughts. See if there be some wicked way in me and cleanse me from every sin and set me free.” He knows you. He knows your innermost thoughts. He knows your lust. He knows the hidden angers that you harbor, that I harbor. He knows our petty jealousies. He knows the secret habits of our lives. He is the Light, and He demands that daily we come before Him and we repent.
“This is the message we have heard from the beginning: God is Light and in Him is no darkness at all. If we say we have fellowship with Him while we walk in darkness, we lie, and we do not live according to the truth. 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, cleanses us from all sin. If we say we have no sin we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. But if we confess our sin, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sin and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. I am the Light of the world,” He says. His light enables us to see ourselves, and the only response to that is repentance.
Secondly and finally, He is the Light of the world. He is the Light that enables us to see our way. He is the Light that shines on the path that we are to walk. He is the guide. He’s not only the revealer, He is the guide. He is the Light that would guide us, that would show us to the path that we should walk upon. In John chapter eight, Jesus said, “I’m the Light of the world. He that follows Me will never walk in darkness.” Some of you may have heard of Lija Messenger. Messenger was a Russian baroness. She was born into incomprehensible wealth. Prior to World War I, she lived in a castle with 300 rooms. Everybody ought to have 300 rooms. It was a beautiful castle, and it was all hers. She lived on an estate and it was all hers. Everything was hers. She lived in Latvia, a portion of modern day Russia. Well, during World War I, when Russia was our ally, her castle was used as a kind of hospital. And all those rooms were used to help people in need. She volunteered her castle for this use.
So there were wounded people and Catholic nuns and doctors all over the castle. Messenger went into one room of the castle, and in this room she saw a 15-year-old boy who was on the brink of death. His wounds were bandaged with bloodied rags and he was mumbling, “It is dark, it’s all dark and I’m lost.” She didn’t know what to do. There was no one else in the room, just her and the 15-year-old boy. Lija went up to this 15-year-old boy and she said, “Can I help you?” He said, “It is dark. It’s all dark, and I’m lost.” She said, “Can I do anything for you?” And he looked up at her, his eyes focused on her, and he said, “Could you pray for me?”
Lija Messenger was not a Christian. She didn’t know what she believed. She didn’t believe anything. She hadn’t prayed since she was a little tiny girl, but she felt like here was a 15-year-old boy dying. Surely she had to grant his request, but she didn’t know how to pray. And she thought, “Well, I’ll pray the Lord’s Prayer.” But then she realized she didn’t even know the Lord’s Prayer, and she said, “Our Father,” and then she stopped. She didn’t know what came next. She just stopped. It was obvious that the boy was in turmoil and was desperate and felt like he was in the darkness and was destined for eternal darkness.
Suddenly, Lija Messenger was stunned to find herself repeating a verse of the Bible, a verse she had long forgotten, a verse she had memorized when she was a little girl and a Catholic nun taught her John 3:16. She was stunned to find herself saying to this 15-year-old boy, “God so loved the world that He gave his only begotten Son that whosoever believes in Him will not perish but have everlasting life.” She said it twice, and the boy’s eyes just opened and looked at her. And she said to the boy, “Don’t you understand? It says right there that if we would just believe in Christ, if we would receive Christ as Savior and truly believe in Him, we’ll not perish, but we’ll have everlasting life.” She was speaking to herself more than that 15-year-old boy.
Well, a miracle happened. That boy died a few moments later, but only after he had passed from the darkness to the Light. He invited Christ to be his Savior and Lord. Perhaps a greater miracle took place when Lija messenger in that very moment, in that room, in her own castle, in response to a verse she had memorized decades before, gave her heart to Jesus Christ. And she passed from the darkness to the Light. But, you see, for her as for us, that was only the beginning. Because she then had to live in a world of darkness. She went forth from there, and World War I continued and the Germans invaded Latvia. They took over her castle. They took it from her. They took her estate, and she moved from incomprehensible wealth to incomprehensible poverty and she fled.
She fled to another part of Russia where she lived in isolation and began to just pore over the scriptures. As she had known one verse, she now learned thousands. She immersed herself in the Light that she might walk in the Light in a world of darkness. And in the midst of great persecution in 1917 at the close of World War I, the Bolsheviks overthrew tzarist Russia. Nicholas II was executed. Lija Messenger, the Russian baroness who had been tied to the tzars, began to be persecuted, and so she fled again. Finally, in 1922, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was founded. The General Secretary of the Communist Party became Joseph Stalin, in his great rise to dictatorship. Lija messenger, not only because of her ties to tzarist Russia but because of her Christian faith, was thrown into prison. She was told to renounce Jesus Christ. She refused. She was in the Light. She would not leave it.
She was sentenced to execution, but a miracle happened and her execution was stayed. She was somehow released. She fled to the United States of America and she lived the final decades of her life here, establishing mission agencies, seeking to be light in the darkness, walking in obedience with the scriptures, and sharing the Light of Jesus Christ. She is now in the Light with Christ Himself and her life is simply an example of what our lives are meant to be. We’ve never been invaded by the Germans here. We’ve never experienced a communist government here. There’s no Linen or Joseph Stalin here to persecute us. Very few of you have ever been in prison, certainly not for your faith, and yet we’re in the darkness. The darkness surrounds us and we’re called to be children of the Light. This is a strange world we live in, really strange. This is a world where homosexuality and extramarital sex is not only tolerated but advocated. A world where we’ve always had sexual diseases, venereal diseases, and now we have AIDS. When the world gets in trouble, it simply seeks prophylactics. God calls the world to repentance, saying, “Change your course.”
Why is it that the world can’t seem to comprehend that maybe homosexuality just isn’t right? Maybe it was never part of God’s plan. God loves everybody, but certain things are simply wrong, and the words of Christ, the light of Christ, reveals it. Why doesn’t the world understand that we were created to be monogamous? That sex is a gift meant to be opened in marriage? The world doesn’t want to change its course. It’ll do anything to preserve the darkness. They try to keep themselves from stumbling. But if we walk in the darkness, we will one day fall, if not in this life, then at the judgment seat of Jesus Christ when all must stand before His light. So here’s a call to obedience—obedience to the light of His word. “Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, a light under my path.”
In conclusion there’s a little story that some of you may have heard. It’s the story of a captain of a great ship, a battleship. The ship was at sea and they were in the midst of the very darkest of nights. And through the darkness ahead of him, as the captain looked out from the ship, he could see a light, in the distance but in his path. He radioed a message to that light that was before him and he said, “Alter your course 10 degrees south.” The message was, radioed back, “Alter your course 10 degrees north.” The captain was a proud man, kind of arrogant. He said, “Listen, this isn’t just anybody speaking to you. This is the captain of a ship. You alter your course 10 degrees south.” And the message came back, ”This is seaman third class Jones. Alter your course 10 degrees north.” The captain was enraged, and he said, “Listen, this is a battleship. Alter your course 10 degrees south.” And the message came back, “Sir, this is a lighthouse. Alter your course 10 degrees north.”
Jesus Christ is the lighthouse of the world, and His word is given to us as a lighthouse, as a light in the darkness. God doesn’t alter His course. Jesus Christ is omniscient, He is omnipotent. He is unchanging. His words are eternal. They are binding. They are right and they are true. As they were once true they are now true and they will always be true. They cannot be changed, but people want God to change. But God is Light. We are in the darkness and we are called to change and to walk in the Light. So here is a call to repentance, a call to obedience. There is a promise given to us as Christians: “The Light shines in the darkness. The darkness shall not overcome it.” Let’s commit ourselves anew this day to daily repentance, more faithful obedience. He’s the Light. Let’s walk in the Light. Let’s close in a word of prayer.
Lord Jesus, You are the Light of the world. We are in darkness. It’s hard for us sometimes, Lord, to admit that when we come before You, Lord Jesus, and we see Your sinless life, the purity of Your love, Your moral excellence. Lord, when we allow Your light to shine on our souls, we see the spots and blemishes there. Lord, help us to repent. Thank you, Lord, that when we repent truly You forgive by the blood of Your cross. Today, Lord Jesus, we would consecrate ourselves anew to the Light. It doesn’t matter what the world teaches. Let God be true and every man a liar. We want to follow You. Help us to be light in a world of darkness. You help us to see ourselves, You help us to see our path. We desire to serve You more faithfully. We pray these things in Your great name. Amen.