John 3:17 Light has come into the world
John 3:17-21 “Light has come into the world
Author and Philosopher Voltaire, a known pessimist and critic stated that 100 years from his death a person would be able to find a copy of the Bible only in museums because the Bible would become a dead book! He died in 1778. Only 25 years after his death, the British and Foreign Bible Society was organized and the very presses which had been used to print Voltaire’s writings were used to print copies of the Word of God.
Since Voltaire’s death, millions of copies of the Bible have been printed. The demand for Bibles increases. The eternal Book lives on while Voltaire’s works have yet to reach a complete English edition! Just before his death, Voltaire stated, “I wish I had never been born!”
Throughout history there has been persecution of Christians and the burning of Bibles and churches. Believers throughout history have been put to death for there belief in Christ and have faced violent opposition.
Jesus himself suffered persecution his entire life, even as an infant when Herod killed all the children 2 and under in the 1st century. In Jesus’ lifetime he was accused of using the power of Satan, he was accused of hypocrisy, the religious leaders poked fun at his family and his earthly father Joseph’s occupation even mocking his place of childhood Nazareth. The Samaritan village rejected him, villagers tried to throw him off a cliff, Herod and Pilate publically antagonized him and then they beat him, they mocked him and spit on him and clothed him in purple, they saluted him as King and then they crucified him before his own mother.
10 of the 12 disciples died violent martyrs deaths of crucifixion and sword for the belief that Jesus is exclusive and true. The world that Mary and Martha had known was completely torn from under there feet, moments of happiness and love amongst the apostles and Christ had been ripped from them so violently as death had taken ther loved ones. Everything began to change just because of who Jesus was and who Jesus is.
Why is the hatred so violent, Why is the Bible so attacked, Why is there so much opposition to Jesus?
v. 17- For God did not send his son into the world to condemn the world but so that the world might be saved through him.
1. The character of God – FORGIVE THEM
Unbelief and opposition to Jesus is our fault and belief is a gift of God’s character, a character seen in the incarnation of Jesus Christ. He did not let us flounder in darkness, he sent the light.
What love did he give this world?
1. His son- deeply costly (not a ram or a goat)
2. Open a door of eternal life to everyone who believes (benefits us at his cost)
3. Belief is the only requirement
If Christ didn’t come into the world to judge the world to judge it why are these passages talking about condemning.
v. 18 He who believes in him Is not condemned, but he who has not believed is condemned ALREADY.
Jesus didn’t do this, he didn’t come into a world that would become pro Jesus or anti Jesus based on his arrival. This is not a neutral world, nobody is neutral towards Jesus.
What has Jesus done for the world?
"Jesus went throughout Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the good news of the kingdom, and healing every disease and sickness among the people. News about Him spread all over Syria, and people brought to Him all who were ill with various diseases, those suffering severe pain, the demon possessed, those having seizures, and the paralyzed, and He healed them" (Matthew 4:23-24).
-In John 8 a woman was caught in adultery and Jesus spared her life
- He drove out evil and healed the lepers restoring them into fellowship
- He healed and raised the daughters of ailing families out of love mercy and compassion
- In order that men did not suffer he healed the downcast and gave sight to the blind.
- He forgave the sins of men and woman to free them from the bondage of the devil
- He set addicts free and prostitutes he made brides again
- Jesus forgave the men who crucified him.
- His very nature was to make sure that his mother was taken care of by the beloved John in the midst of the hell of the crucifixion.
What about his teachings?
- Do unto others as you would have them do to you
- I am with you always, even to the end of the age
- Let him without sin cast the first stone
- Judge as our might be judged
- If someone strikes you on the left cheek turn and give him your right one also
- Look at the birds of the air, are you not much more valuable then they?
- Love one another
- Greater love has no man than to lay down his life for his friends (and he did just that).
Nobody can be neutral to these things, there will be those who love him everlasting, wholeheartedly and forever.
There are those that despise him and want him dead and will mock him in the media and blaspheme his name on the big screen and spit venom at you.
The world the gentle lamb came into was already condemned.
Look at verse 36. He who believes in the son has everlasting life, and he who does not believe shall not see life but the wrath of God ABIDES OR REMAINS.
Its already there.
We are under the wrath of God….Jesus came to save some guilty people and have the rest perish. His grace is magnified as well as his wrath and it is full magnification.
This is what we are, we are in the midst of death, abortion, murder, old age, sickness, natural disasters, genecide, slander, wrath, rape, torment…..we watch our loved ones get old and deteriorate and die, we suffer pains and have illness…..we are in a world of death but
He came not to make neutral people not neutral but to make guilty people not guilty and to make dead people live. He came to brig hope of eternal life despite our penalty of death. He is the only one that has done this- the only one.
Jesus is not truth among other truths but THE ABSOLUTE TRUTH, THE ONLY TRUTH, THE ECLUSIVE TRUTH and there is no road to the father but by him alone.
v.18 The people that are condemned are those that reject this love and remain in a state of death.
1. His character – He actually came to save us
2. His Grace- he came and got us despite what we deserve so lets get over ourselves, we live in bodies of death, slander our neighbors, gossip, frustruate and break down yet Christ comes to make us live, build up his church, love, encourage and forgive the unforgivable.
v.19
And this is condemnation, that the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.
It seems like division because light permeates darkness.
-everytime a preacher preaches there is a division between believers and skeptics, the living and the dead
-everytime a witness preaches on the street there is a division those who listen and those who walk by
- every time the topic comes up at dinner there are those who want to continue talking and those who want to change the subject
Death to Death or Life to Life- we are sending people to hell with our message and we are sending people to heaven with our message WHO IS SUFFICIENT FOR THESE THINGS?
We are not salesman or peddlars of Gods word, we speak in faithfully as we can and there is a schism….period.
Seems like judgment?
John 9:39- FOR I CAME FOR JUDGEMENT
Contradiction? Superficial reader?
V 20- For everyone doing evil hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed.
V 21- Whoever does what is true comes to the light so that it may be clearly seen that his works have been carried out in God.
Believers and Unbelievers
- Laying bear the inner workings of unbelief. What is the nature of unbelief?
Jesus is exposing our souls. We do not know the nature of our souls.
V 19- The light has come into the world – JESUS
I AM THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD
- Jesus is the sum of all truth
- I AM THE WAY THE TRUTH AND THE LIFE
- Everything is hidden in Jesus- to know anything at all truly must be known in relation to Jesus.
Everything revolves around Jesus –
- The truth about ourselves, God and ourselves, the way of salvation, what is good and right what is evil and ugly is in Jesus. He made it all, he decides whats right and wrong who saved and unsaved who will suffer and who will not its all him.
- THERE IS NOTHING GREATER THAN CHRIST
- He is what the universities need, hes what the public schools need hes what everybody needs!
20-
1. fallen, under Gods wrath and condemned – NEGATIVE
2. Sinful
3. THE ONLY THING THAT CAN CASUE OPPOSITION TO JESUS IS DARKNESS AND EVIL.
4. Unbelief is a love affair with evil, no exposure.
5. Love darkness / Hate light – and does not come to the light.
18-19 belief and unbelief
20-21 Look at your soul, do you love light or do you love darkness.
Do you attribute your salvation to yourself or to the grace of God?
Shame that is deserved is a horrible thing! Exposed deeds is a horrible thought, laying everything laid bare. This is terrifying that I might have to live in absolute light.
As long as the public banishes the light there are enough people to approve of the evil. As long as the light of Christ is kept out public sin is still in the dark and people love it.
Imagine if the church exploded into the community – people are driven to Christ for the forgiveness of sin
What has Christ and Christianity contributed to a world that has opposed him so violently
- Hospitals which began during the middle ages
- Some of the worlds greatest universities began by Christians
- Literacy and education
- Capitalism and free enterprise
- Civil liberty
- The abolition of slavery both in antiquity and modern times
- The discovery of the new world
- The elevation of Woman
- The condemnation of aduletery, homosexuality and other base and depraved ideologies
- Highest regard for human life
- Civilizations farther than the eye can see
21- But whoever does what is true comes to the light so that it may be clearly seen that his works have been carried out in God.
This doing of what is true is only the work of God
The ultimate contrast is not that one hates the light and the other loves it, or that one believes and comes and the other doesn’t, both true.
ULTIMATE CONTRAST- the believer is coming because God is enabling him to come and working in him
- IT MAY BE CLEARLY SEEN (Passionate) that his whole newness has been carried out in GOD.
In the darkness I’m king –Pride is the number one killer.
Christians have had that pride snapped – im here like a child and all I have is grace.
I WANT THE GRACE OF GOD TO BE SEEN
Let your light shine that God might get glory. GOD CENTERED.
Unbelief is our fault, belief is a gift of his character.
If you do not believe you magnify Gods justice
If you believe and are cleansed by Jesus you will magnify the grace of God because God did it.
COME TO CHRIST.
Come out of darkness, you will not live in shame.
Jesus is Love- the greatest thing in the world is Love- come into the love and spread it around.
If we are honest, there is no reason to hate Jesus- look at your heart and ask why
The wicked are a dime a dozen, they are irreplaceable and they will be condemned for god’s glory.
The righteous are irreplaceable loves unconditionally and will be saved b grace for God’s glory.
Unbeliever- believe
Believer- God did this for you, do it unto others and worship him centrally, not yourself.
Author and Philosopher Voltaire, a known pessimist and critic stated that 100 years from his death a person would be able to find a copy of the Bible only in museums because the Bible would become a dead book! He died in 1778. Only 25 years after his death, the British and Foreign Bible Society was organized and the very presses which had been used to print Voltaire’s writings were used to print copies of the Word of God.
Since Voltaire’s death, millions of copies of the Bible have been printed. The demand for Bibles increases. The eternal Book lives on while Voltaire’s works have yet to reach a complete English edition! Just before his death, Voltaire stated, “I wish I had never been born!”
Throughout history there has been persecution of Christians and the burning of Bibles and churches. Believers throughout history have been put to death for there belief in Christ and have faced violent opposition.
Jesus himself suffered persecution his entire life, even as an infant when Herod killed all the children 2 and under in the 1st century. In Jesus’ lifetime he was accused of using the power of Satan, he was accused of hypocrisy, the religious leaders poked fun at his family and his earthly father Joseph’s occupation even mocking his place of childhood Nazareth. The Samaritan village rejected him, villagers tried to throw him off a cliff, Herod and Pilate publically antagonized him and then they beat him, they mocked him and spit on him and clothed him in purple, they saluted him as King and then they crucified him before his own mother.
10 of the 12 disciples died violent martyrs deaths of crucifixion and sword for the belief that Jesus is exclusive and true. The world that Mary and Martha had known was completely torn from under there feet, moments of happiness and love amongst the apostles and Christ had been ripped from them so violently as death had taken ther loved ones. Everything began to change just because of who Jesus was and who Jesus is.
Why is the hatred so violent, Why is the Bible so attacked, Why is there so much opposition to Jesus?
v. 17- For God did not send his son into the world to condemn the world but so that the world might be saved through him.
1. The character of God – FORGIVE THEM
Unbelief and opposition to Jesus is our fault and belief is a gift of God’s character, a character seen in the incarnation of Jesus Christ. He did not let us flounder in darkness, he sent the light.
What love did he give this world?
1. His son- deeply costly (not a ram or a goat)
2. Open a door of eternal life to everyone who believes (benefits us at his cost)
3. Belief is the only requirement
If Christ didn’t come into the world to judge the world to judge it why are these passages talking about condemning.
v. 18 He who believes in him Is not condemned, but he who has not believed is condemned ALREADY.
Jesus didn’t do this, he didn’t come into a world that would become pro Jesus or anti Jesus based on his arrival. This is not a neutral world, nobody is neutral towards Jesus.
What has Jesus done for the world?
"Jesus went throughout Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the good news of the kingdom, and healing every disease and sickness among the people. News about Him spread all over Syria, and people brought to Him all who were ill with various diseases, those suffering severe pain, the demon possessed, those having seizures, and the paralyzed, and He healed them" (Matthew 4:23-24).
-In John 8 a woman was caught in adultery and Jesus spared her life
- He drove out evil and healed the lepers restoring them into fellowship
- He healed and raised the daughters of ailing families out of love mercy and compassion
- In order that men did not suffer he healed the downcast and gave sight to the blind.
- He forgave the sins of men and woman to free them from the bondage of the devil
- He set addicts free and prostitutes he made brides again
- Jesus forgave the men who crucified him.
- His very nature was to make sure that his mother was taken care of by the beloved John in the midst of the hell of the crucifixion.
What about his teachings?
- Do unto others as you would have them do to you
- I am with you always, even to the end of the age
- Let him without sin cast the first stone
- Judge as our might be judged
- If someone strikes you on the left cheek turn and give him your right one also
- Look at the birds of the air, are you not much more valuable then they?
- Love one another
- Greater love has no man than to lay down his life for his friends (and he did just that).
Nobody can be neutral to these things, there will be those who love him everlasting, wholeheartedly and forever.
There are those that despise him and want him dead and will mock him in the media and blaspheme his name on the big screen and spit venom at you.
The world the gentle lamb came into was already condemned.
Look at verse 36. He who believes in the son has everlasting life, and he who does not believe shall not see life but the wrath of God ABIDES OR REMAINS.
Its already there.
We are under the wrath of God….Jesus came to save some guilty people and have the rest perish. His grace is magnified as well as his wrath and it is full magnification.
This is what we are, we are in the midst of death, abortion, murder, old age, sickness, natural disasters, genecide, slander, wrath, rape, torment…..we watch our loved ones get old and deteriorate and die, we suffer pains and have illness…..we are in a world of death but
He came not to make neutral people not neutral but to make guilty people not guilty and to make dead people live. He came to brig hope of eternal life despite our penalty of death. He is the only one that has done this- the only one.
Jesus is not truth among other truths but THE ABSOLUTE TRUTH, THE ONLY TRUTH, THE ECLUSIVE TRUTH and there is no road to the father but by him alone.
v.18 The people that are condemned are those that reject this love and remain in a state of death.
1. His character – He actually came to save us
2. His Grace- he came and got us despite what we deserve so lets get over ourselves, we live in bodies of death, slander our neighbors, gossip, frustruate and break down yet Christ comes to make us live, build up his church, love, encourage and forgive the unforgivable.
v.19
And this is condemnation, that the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.
It seems like division because light permeates darkness.
-everytime a preacher preaches there is a division between believers and skeptics, the living and the dead
-everytime a witness preaches on the street there is a division those who listen and those who walk by
- every time the topic comes up at dinner there are those who want to continue talking and those who want to change the subject
Death to Death or Life to Life- we are sending people to hell with our message and we are sending people to heaven with our message WHO IS SUFFICIENT FOR THESE THINGS?
We are not salesman or peddlars of Gods word, we speak in faithfully as we can and there is a schism….period.
Seems like judgment?
John 9:39- FOR I CAME FOR JUDGEMENT
Contradiction? Superficial reader?
V 20- For everyone doing evil hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed.
V 21- Whoever does what is true comes to the light so that it may be clearly seen that his works have been carried out in God.
Believers and Unbelievers
- Laying bear the inner workings of unbelief. What is the nature of unbelief?
Jesus is exposing our souls. We do not know the nature of our souls.
V 19- The light has come into the world – JESUS
I AM THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD
- Jesus is the sum of all truth
- I AM THE WAY THE TRUTH AND THE LIFE
- Everything is hidden in Jesus- to know anything at all truly must be known in relation to Jesus.
Everything revolves around Jesus –
- The truth about ourselves, God and ourselves, the way of salvation, what is good and right what is evil and ugly is in Jesus. He made it all, he decides whats right and wrong who saved and unsaved who will suffer and who will not its all him.
- THERE IS NOTHING GREATER THAN CHRIST
- He is what the universities need, hes what the public schools need hes what everybody needs!
20-
1. fallen, under Gods wrath and condemned – NEGATIVE
2. Sinful
3. THE ONLY THING THAT CAN CASUE OPPOSITION TO JESUS IS DARKNESS AND EVIL.
4. Unbelief is a love affair with evil, no exposure.
5. Love darkness / Hate light – and does not come to the light.
18-19 belief and unbelief
20-21 Look at your soul, do you love light or do you love darkness.
Do you attribute your salvation to yourself or to the grace of God?
Shame that is deserved is a horrible thing! Exposed deeds is a horrible thought, laying everything laid bare. This is terrifying that I might have to live in absolute light.
As long as the public banishes the light there are enough people to approve of the evil. As long as the light of Christ is kept out public sin is still in the dark and people love it.
Imagine if the church exploded into the community – people are driven to Christ for the forgiveness of sin
What has Christ and Christianity contributed to a world that has opposed him so violently
- Hospitals which began during the middle ages
- Some of the worlds greatest universities began by Christians
- Literacy and education
- Capitalism and free enterprise
- Civil liberty
- The abolition of slavery both in antiquity and modern times
- The discovery of the new world
- The elevation of Woman
- The condemnation of aduletery, homosexuality and other base and depraved ideologies
- Highest regard for human life
- Civilizations farther than the eye can see
21- But whoever does what is true comes to the light so that it may be clearly seen that his works have been carried out in God.
This doing of what is true is only the work of God
The ultimate contrast is not that one hates the light and the other loves it, or that one believes and comes and the other doesn’t, both true.
ULTIMATE CONTRAST- the believer is coming because God is enabling him to come and working in him
- IT MAY BE CLEARLY SEEN (Passionate) that his whole newness has been carried out in GOD.
In the darkness I’m king –Pride is the number one killer.
Christians have had that pride snapped – im here like a child and all I have is grace.
I WANT THE GRACE OF GOD TO BE SEEN
Let your light shine that God might get glory. GOD CENTERED.
Unbelief is our fault, belief is a gift of his character.
If you do not believe you magnify Gods justice
If you believe and are cleansed by Jesus you will magnify the grace of God because God did it.
COME TO CHRIST.
Come out of darkness, you will not live in shame.
Jesus is Love- the greatest thing in the world is Love- come into the love and spread it around.
If we are honest, there is no reason to hate Jesus- look at your heart and ask why
The wicked are a dime a dozen, they are irreplaceable and they will be condemned for god’s glory.
The righteous are irreplaceable loves unconditionally and will be saved b grace for God’s glory.
Unbeliever- believe
Believer- God did this for you, do it unto others and worship him centrally, not yourself.
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