The Incarnate Light

Order of Service

• Announcements
• Hymn — Glorious Things of Thee Are Spoken
• Call to Worship — Matthew 11:28-30
• Hymn — Glorious Things of Thee Are Spoken
• Prayer of Invocation
• Confession of Faith — Colossians 1:15-20
• Scripture Reading — Acts 26:1-11
• Hymn — Amazing Grace
• Pastoral Prayer
• Offering
• Prayer of Dedication
• Hymn — As with Gladness Men of Old
• Prayer for Illumination
• Scripture Reading — John 1:6-13
• Sermon
• Hymn — Jesus, Thou Joy of Loving Hearts
• Benediction

---

Sermon Title: The Incarnate Light

Scripture: John 1:6-13

I. The Forerunner to the Incarnate Light (John 1:6-8)

A. John the Baptist was a prophet sent by God to prepare Israel for the Messiah, primarily through a ministry of repentance

B. The key word describing John's role is witness — a legal/courtroom term denoting testimony

1. Remarkably, John bears witness to Christ before Christ's public ministry and finished work
2. Even so, saving faith was available to John's disciples through his testimony

C. John stands in the line of all Old Testament prophets as a witness to Christ

1. All of Scripture — Old and New Testament — serves as one grand witness to Jesus Christ
2. Hebrews 12:1 calls the Old Testament saints a "great cloud of witnesses"
3. Abraham saw Christ's day and rejoiced (John 8); Moses and Elijah witnessed his glory at the Transfiguration
4. The Bereans searched the Old Testament scriptures to confirm testimony about Christ (Acts 17)

D. Application: Covenant theology in its most basic form is this — God reveals himself by means of covenant, and what he reveals is Jesus Christ the mediator

1. The Abrahamic, Mosaic, and Davidic covenants all witness to Christ
2. Sola Scriptura leads to Solus Christus — Scripture's sole authority points to Christ alone as its content
3. The question is not merely how often we read our Bibles, but how — are we reading christocentrically?

II. The Fullness of the Incarnate Light (John 1:9)

A. Throughout John's Gospel, true does not contrast false with true so much as partial with full — the fullness of God's revelation versus a partial revelation

1. Jesus is the true bread (John 6:32) — the manna in the wilderness was real but only partial
2. Jesus is the true vine (John 15:1) — Israel was called the vine, but only as a partial fulfillment
3. The Law was called a lamp and a light (Psalm 119:105) — true but only partial; Christ is the fullness of God's wisdom and path to life
4. John the Baptist's testimony was true, but he must decrease so the True Light might increase

B. This fullness of revelation extends to everyone — not only Jew but also Gentile, to the ends of the earth

C. Illustration: Augustine spent his life climbing intellectual ladders searching for truth, meaning, and pure reason

1. This passage on the Incarnate Light broke Augustine — true Enlightenment is not found in philosophy but in Christ
2. God did not send an idea from heaven; he became a servant, humbling himself even to death on a cross (Philippians 2:6-8)
3. This truth is not reserved for the intellectual elite — it is for every man, woman, and child

D. Application: Christ is our hermeneutic — the interpretive grid through which we filter everything in this world

1. To live and make sense of the world apart from Christ is like reading in the pitch dark
2. With Christ the light is on; we can interpret all things by funneling them through the fullness of God's revelation in the Son

III. Faith in the Incarnate Light (John 1:10-13)

A. Verses 10–11 highlight the devastatingly depraved state of fallen mankind: the world did not know its maker, and even Israel rejected her Messiah

B. The great conjunction of verse 12 — but — introduces the remnant who receive Christ and believe in his name

C. Saving faith is not produced by human means (John 1:13)

1. Not of blood — not ethnic lineage or family heritage
2. Not of the will of the flesh — not human desire or free will
3. Not of the will of man — not another person's decision
4. But of God — Supernatural regeneration by which the Father calls his remnant into the Son by the Spirit

D. Calvin: "Faith is not a bare or cold knowledge, since no man can believe who has not been renewed by the Holy Spirit"

1. Faith that precedes regeneration becomes cold, intellectual knowledge lacking the warmth of the Spirit
2. Romans 8:15 — we cry "Abba, Father" not because we figured it out, but because of the Spirit of adoption

E. The Reformers distinguished intellectual assent from fiducia (trust/dependence)

1. One may know all the facts of the gospel yet, apart from the Spirit, lack childlike dependence on God
2. Illustration: Biblical faith is not like Indiana Jones leaping into a dark void hoping something is there
3. True fiducia is like a child at the pool's edge who, with eyes of faith wide open, sees Christ with outstretched arms and leaps — knowing he will catch them
4. Faith is neither cold intellectual reasoning nor mindless spiritualism; it is a Spirit-enlightened mind that sees Christ and rests all its weight on him

F. Closing application: Who is Jesus Christ to you?

1. Is he simply the answer at the end of an equation, or the best option in an information-overloaded world?
2. Or is he your all in all — the God in the flesh into whose arms you leap and rest?
3. He is the Light who has come down for you — leap into the arms of your Savior