Deo Gloria
Sermon for December 17, 2023
Pastor Martin Bentz
Text: John 1:6-8,19-28
Theme: Be a Witness to the Light!
- Point people to the Scriptures
- Point people to their Savior
They’re beautiful, aren’t they, all of the lights people put up this time of year? Some people really go all out. They spend hours and hours decorating their home with lights–outlining all of the doors and windows, outlining the edge of the roof and the fence around the backyard, trimming the bushes with lights as well as the big evergreen tree in their front yard.
Imagine this scene, however. Imagine a house decked out in lights, an absolutely dazzling display of Christmas lights, and inside the people are sitting in darkness. What an ironic picture! What a tragically true picture for those who don’t know Jesus Christ as their Savior! Their house may be lit up with thousands of lights, their Christmas tree may shimmer with shades of red and green and white, but they themselves are still in the darkness because they don’t know the Savior, the light of the world.
It’s completely unnecessary, though. They don’t have to stay that way. They don’t have to remain in the darkness, not if someone tells them about their Savior, not if you and I witness to them and lead them to the light. That’s the encouragement we find in our text this morning in the example of John the Baptist. Like John be a witness to the Light!
John begins his gospel by telling people about the Word, the eternal Word of God who was with God in beginning, who was directly involved in the creation of all things. The person John is referring to, of course, is Jesus Christ, the eternal Son of God, the one through whom all things were made. John then goes on to say that this Word, the Son of God, became flesh and came into our world. But how would people know? How would people know that the Son of God had come to dispel the darkness of sin and death and enlighten their lives with the light of life? Because God sent someone to tell them.
There came a man who was sent from God; his name was John. He came as a witness to testify concerning that light, so that through him all men might believe. He himself was not the light; he came only as a witness to the light. (vv. 6-8)
It stands as a witness, a silent testimony to past civilizations. The Great Pyramid at Giza serves as a witness to the power and skill of the ancient Egyptians. Scientists and engineers today still marvel at its construction. John the Baptist was a witness, not a silent witness though, a vocal one. He was sent by God to testify about the light, to tell the people of his day about the coming of God’s Son that they might believe in him and be saved. John was not the light himself. He was only a witness to the light.
The same is true of you and me. We too are witnesses. Just as God sent John to be a witness to the light, so God has sent you and me to be witnesses to the light. Remember what Jesus said just before he ascended into heaven? “You will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth”(Acts 1:8). All right, if God has given us the same job as John the Baptist to be witnesses to the light, is there anything we can learn from John, anything that will help us in witnessing to others about our Savior?
One thing we can learn from him is to confess our Lord freely and openly. “Now this was John’s testimony when the Jews of Jerusalem sent priests and Levites to ask him who he was. He did not fail to confess, but confessed freely, ‘I am not the Christ’”(v. 19). The original Greek is even more emphatic than our English translation. Twice it says that John confessed freely or openly. When people came and asked John who he was or what his message was all about, he told them. He didn’t try to hide it. He didn’t try to deny who he was or claim to be someone he wasn’t. He told them plainly that he was not the Christ, but was the one who was sent to prepare the way for him.
Is that what you do too? When people ask you who you are and what you’re all about, do you confess freely and openly? Do you openly admit that you are a Christian, a follower of Jesus Christ? Or is that something you try to hide and keep to yourself? When people ask about your goals in life, what you hope to accomplish, where you hope to be some day, do you only tell them about your earthly goals? Or do you tell them about your heavenly goals too: that you want to remain close to Christ your Savior, that you want to lead others to Christ and bring them into God’s family, that you want to live forever some day in the Father’s house? Or what do you say when people ask what you’re doing for Christmas? I mean, what a perfect opportunity to tell people who you are and what Christmas is really all about! Do you tell them you’re planning to go to church on Christmas to worship God and thank him for the most precious gift of all, the gift of a Savior? Or do you only tell them about the relatives you’re going to visit or who’s coming over to your house for Christmas? Do you confess your Lord openly and freely like John?
If we’re honest, we have to confess that sometimes we don’t. Sometimes when people asked, we did try to conceal who we were. We kept quiet about our heavenly aspirations. We missed those opportunities to let people know that Jesus is the reason for the season. We failed. We failed to be witnesses to the light and left people sitting in the darkness.
Lord, forgive us for our failures. Forgive us for being such poor witnesses at times, for being reluctant to share our Christian faith, for being reluctant to talk about you, for being content to allow other people to remain in the darkness. Lord, please have mercy and forgive us!
That’s why he came, isn’t it, to rescue us from all our sins, including our failures and our shortcomings as his witnesses? He cancelled them all by his suffering and death on the cross. But that’s not all he did. He lived a perfect life as well. He never tried to hide who he was, even when surrounded by his enemies. He never failed to confess openly and freely or missed an opportunity to lead someone out of the darkness. He was the perfect witness, the kind of witness we should have been. He is our righteousness. Can we keep such a thing to ourselves, such wonderful news about a Savior from sin, while other people are still sitting in the darkness? No, for his sake let’s strive to imitate John the Baptist and confess our Lord freely and openly. Be a witness to the light.
So what else did John do? He pointed people to the Scriptures. When the priests and Levites came and asked him who he was, he told them he was not the Christ.
“Are you Elijah then?” they asked.
“No, I’m not.”
“Are you the Prophet?”
“No.”
Finally they said, “Who are you? Give us an answer to take back to those who sent us. What do you say about yourself?”
And notice what John said next. He “replied in the words of Isaiah the prophet, “I am the voice of one calling in the desert, ‘Make straight the way for the Lord’”(v. 23). In these words Isaiah spoke about the forerunner of the Messiah, the one who would prepare the way for the Lord, who would make straight paths for him. John quotes those words from Isaiah and applies them to himself: “I’m the one Isaiah was talking about, the voice of one calling in the desert, the one sent to make straight the way for the Lord.” I suppose he could have said, “Hey guys, I’m the forerunner, the one who was sent to prepare the way for the promised Savior. Listen to me and I’ll point you to him.” But to lend credibility and authority to his claim that he was the forerunner of the Messiah, he pointed them to the Scriptures.
As we strive to witness to others about the Savior, we can do the same thing. We can point people to the Scriptures. Not that they’re going to find any prophecies about us in the Bible, because they won’t. But they will find some about our Savior, prophecies that foretold his place of birth, his ancestry, his being born of a virgin, his betrayal, his suffering and death, even his resurrection. Was all of that just an accident, a mere coincidence? Was it a mere accident that Jesus was born in Bethlehem? Was it a mere accident that he was a descendant of David? Was it a mere accident that was betrayed for 30 pieces of silver or that his hands were pierced with nails? Not at all! All of these things were predicted in the Old Testament Scriptures. No other religion can point to things like that. The followers of Mohammed cannot say that the place of his birth was foretold 700 years ahead of time. The followers of Buddha cannot say that he was born of a virgin and that such a thing was predicted hundreds of years in advance. Here is powerful testimony to the light, that Jesus is the Son of God and Savior of the world.
And yet, there’s another reason we want to point them to the Scriptures too. You and I cannot bring them to faith. Yes, we can share the Word of God with them. We can tell them what it says, but we can’t put faith in their hearts to believe it. Only God can do that. And he does so through his Word. God’s Word has the power to do what we cannot, to create faith in people’s hearts. It’s one of the means through which the Holy Spirit works. “Faith comes from hearing the message, and the message is heard through the word of Christ”(Romans 10:17). So as you strive to witness to others about our Savior and lead them out of the darkness, be sure to do what John did and point them to the Scriptures.
And one other thing we can learn from John is to point them to their Savior. So often when we’re trying to talk to others about our Savior, people like to get us sidetracked. They like to get us off on some tangent, some controversial issue or some unpopular Bible doctrine. That’s what the Pharisees were trying to do. They weren’t interested in listening to John’s message about repentance and preparing the way for the Lord. They wanted to sidetrack the issue to a question of John’s authority: “Why then do you baptize if you are not the Christ, nor Elijah, nor the Prophet?”
And notice how John answered them: “I baptize with water,” John replied, “but among you stands one you do not know. He is the one who comes after me, the thongs of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie”(vv. 26-27). In other words, “Guys, you’re missing the point. It’s not about me. It’s about the one coming after me. It’s about the Savior.” John brings the conversion right back to Jesus.
What a valuable lesson for us! What usually happens in situations like that? What happens when we’re trying to talk to someone about Jesus our Savior and they get us sidetracked on some other issue? 9 times out of 10 we spend all our time talking about that other issue and very little time talking about our Savior. When people bring up their objections and those other issues they want to talk about, the best thing we can do is what John did: steer the conversation back to Jesus. “You know, that’s a good question. And I think it’s important that we talk about that some time, but there’s something more important that we really need to talk about first. Let me tell you about Jesus Christ our Savior.” And do you know what else you’ll find? More often than not, once they see the light, once they come to faith in Jesus as their Savior, their objections and their questions tend to melt away.
Don’t be deceived by the elaborate displays of lights you see this time of year. There are many, many people who are still lost in the darkness, who don’t understand what Christmas is really all about and who desperately need to hear about Christ their Savior. But you and I can help them. We can shed a little light in their lives by sharing with them the good news of Jesus Christ. Follow the example of John the Baptist and be a witness to the light. Point people to the Scriptures, and point them to their Savior. Amen.