January 4, 2023 - John 1:4

In this episode, Jori discusses with her listeners how Jesus is life and light for the world. 

Scripture translation used is the English Standard Version.

Scripture quotations are from The ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Scripture References: 
Psalm 119:160
John 17:17
Matthew 5:14
Psalm 119:11
John 1:4
John 20:30-31
1 John 5:13
James 4:14
1 John 1:1-5
Revelation 12:4-10
2 Corinthians 4:4
Ephesians 2:2
John 3:16
John 5:26
Colossians 1:19
John 11:25
Hebrews 1:3
1 John 5:11
John 8:12
Isaiah 42:6-8
Luke 2:27-32
1 Peter 2:9-10
Colossians 1:11-14
Matthew 5:14-16

Email: awordforthisday@gmail.com

Podcast website:  https://awordforthisday.buzzsprout.com

A link to the transcript of this episode is found below. Please note, it is a word for word transcript of the show and will be different than if reading a book. Voice inflections, pace, etc. that are conversational in nature are lost in the transcription. Some words or phrases that may have been repeated within the audio recording may have been removed to make it easier for the reader to understand. 
AWFTD23Jan4.docx

Transcript

 Hello and welcome to A Word for this Day podcast. I'm Jori Shaffer, the show's host and creator, and I am so thankful that you are here today. Welcome back to all you regular listeners and welcome to anyone, one who has found us for the first time. It's such a joy to have you on this journey. We are going to talk about the truth that is found in God's Word today. That is one of the main things that we do day after day after day with God's help in this podcast, is talk about the truth. Our world needs truth. And friends, we have that truth. That truth. That is God's word. Scripture says the sum of all of your Word is truth. Jesus, when he was praying back to the Father, said, “your Word is truth. Sanctify them in your truth.” That Word sanctify is a churchy word that just means to set apart, to make holy, to change us into who he wants us to be. And we do that by abiding in His Word. So I'm so glad you're here. I want to encourage you to please not let this be the only time that you think about His Word today. Please let this just be a jumping off point, an encouragement to study more as the day goes, an encouragement to look for times that you can think about His Word, memorize His Word, read His Word, study His Word, live His Word out, and share it with those who you come in contact with. Oh, may we radiate his light in this world. He said in Matthew, “you are the light of the world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden”, and we are that light only because He is the light. And for us believers, He is within us. And so I just love it when we get to spend time together. I wish we could all sit around the table or in some comfy chairs and have this discussion and Bible study together. But for now, that's not the way the Lord has it set up. So I'm thankful for this podcast medium. I'm thankful for the ability to be able to do this with you. 

I want to let you know that I have prayed for you. I continue to pray for you frequently, that the Lord would draw you closer to Him, that you would know more of Him and more of His Word, and that you would just be able to hide it in your heart and then share it with others. That's the bottom line friends, is to share this truth with the world that we are around and know that I love to hear from you. So if you feel so led, please send me a message sometime. You can find my email in the show notes. It is awordforthisday@gmail.com and I would love to hear what God's doing in your life as you spend more time with Him and His word. 

Well, our recording for January the fourth, 2023 is back in the Gospel of John. We were just there a couple of days ago, but oh these verses, I'm so excited about this because you know, I love all the words and all the verses, but there is just so much packed in the beginning verses of John's Gospel and so I love it when we're here. So John, chapter one, verse four reads as follows from the English Standard version,  “In him was life and the life was the light of men.” Oh friends, here we go. This is so exciting. Well, if you are new to this podcast or just finding us for the first time, then I want to let you know that I think it is wise for us to get background when we study a scripture. It helps us get the appropriate context. So it is wise for us to think about the book or the letter that we're in, think about the author, and then try to determine perhaps about the surrounding verses near the verse that we're studying for the day. That helps us to have a better understanding. It helps us to have the appropriate context, hopefully helps us to remember so that we may share this later when the Lord puts it on our heart to share and so we'll do that. Now we are back, as I mentioned, in John's gospel. There are four gospels. 2s And these start the New Testament. These are the gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. They are named for the men who wrote them. There's nowhere within these works (these gospels) that say, “I Mark,  I Matthew,  I Luke,  I John wrote these.” But the earliest church historians, the earliest of these letters we have in history, recorded that the gospels do have the name for the men who wrote them. And so we know that Matthew and John were apostles of the Lord Jesus. They were disciples. And then the Lord Jesus called out twelve to be apostles, that he gave authority to go out and heal and cast out unclean spirits. And they worked with Him daily. They saw him. They ate with him. They saw his miracles, they saw what he did on a grand scale. They saw how he interacted personally, one on one.  They saw how he dealt with those who persecuted Him and who blasphemed Him. They saw Him be tortured and crucified. They saw Him die and be placed in a tomb. And then they saw Him after His resurrection. They saw Him as he appeared to many in full bodily form and then saw Him ascend back to heaven. And so these men had so much to tell about the Lord Jesus, and they wanted people to know. And then we know that Mark and Luke's Gospels were written by men who were not apostles. They did not walk with the Lord Jesus during his earthly ministry, but they received their information from those who did walk with him, firsthand. The Gospel writer, Luke, records that he received his information from those who had eyewitness accounts. And then earliest church history records that the Gospel writer Mark was a very close traveling companion with the apostle Peter. And it is thought that he wrote much of what Peter taught. Matthew's Gospel had primarily a Jewish audience, it appears, when we read that because he used over 60 New Testament references in his Gospel to encourage and try to show that Jesus truly was this long-awaited Messiah. Luke and Mark's Gospels primarily originally have Gentile audiences. It appears Luke was the only Gentile writer of the Gospel. And when I say Gentile, that means non Jewish. He  wrote and showed just how Jesus loved those who were the less fortunate, those who were not held in very high regard in society: the Gentiles, women, children, the sick. And it appears that he primarily had a Gentile audience. And then Mark, it appears, wrote primarily to a Roman Gentile audience because of the way that he explained Jewish customs, as if he were explaining to those who would not have known about those customs. John's Gospel is different. His, I've read has been described as a spiritual gospel. And you will see that when you read it, there's different imagery. He uses so much imagery throughout. We do not see the parables in John's Gospel like we do in the first three Gospels. And he talks so much about believing in faith, and they all do, but we see that he really hones in on this. And then I love what he says. And we talked about this just a couple of days ago, but any time the author tells us about why he wrote a book or letter, we should take notice of that. And thankfully, the gospel writer John does that. And we see in John, chapter 20, verses 30 and 31, he says, “Now, Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples which are not written in this book. But these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing, you may have life in his name.” That was John's mission, was to tell the people about Jesus, to encourage them to believe so that they could have life. And as I mentioned just a couple of days ago, and it's just worth repeating, because for one, we need to be able to know where it is and then also to share it with others. But in his letter of First John, he wrote in First John 5:13, “I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God that you may know that you have eternal life.” Because in knowing Jesus, in believing in Jesus and accepting him as our Lord and Savior, in accepting that free gift of salvation, we can have life. And it's not just life here for a short time, friends. I'm talking about eternal life. And so this is why it is important, this is why it is critical for us to know this and to share this, because this life on earth is short in the big scheme of things. It is but a vapor, scripture says, and then it's gone. But there is an eternity for all of us, and we mustn't forget that. And we can either believe in the Lord Jesus and have that life eternal, or if we choose not to believe, and we choose to be rebellious and disobedient and to turn the other way from Him, then that leads to death, that leads to eternal death and torment. And, oh, friends, I don't want that for anyone. And so that's why it's so important for us to know this truth and to know Jesus. 

Now, as I mentioned, this gospel writer John was one of the apostles. He walked and talked and ministered with and served with the Lord Jesus during his earthly ministry. He is the longest living apostle. He wrote this Gospel of John much later, it is thought than well, much later after those original three Gospels, the Synoptic Gospels, he wrote the letters of first, second and third John. And then when he was cast out, exiled on the Isle of Patmos, he wrote the Revelation and he was told to write that we have that record in our canon of Scripture. And I just love that we know that think all of the other apostles were martyred fairly early for their stand for Christ and for their faith. But John was allowed to live much longer and we see that Grandfatherly style of writing for his children. He so wanted people to believe. And he has a kind and gentle tone to his writing, but also at times very firm. And I am thankful to see that.

 So as we get into our verse for the day, I just want to back up and just start at the beginning, because it's just a few verses before this and we've been here several times already at this new Year, but it's just good to see the full picture. So John opens his Gospel in the beginning, just like we talked about a few days ago. But he says in John, chapter one, verse one, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without Him was not anything made that was made.” And here's our verse, “in him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.” Oh, friends, I'm so excited for us to talk about this life and to talk think about this light today. 2s Now, the neat thing that we see, especially in John's writings, but in a couple of other places in the New Testament, is he often talks about this light versus darkness concept. Light goes with life and goes with following the Lord Jesus and God the Father. Darkness goes with death and rebelling against the Father, going after the ways of the world or Satan. And you can almost well, you can just put them in two columns. And we've done that before. We did that before over this last year when we were in different parts of the scripture. But I want you to think about when you hear light and life, think about God, Jesus, the Holy Spirit, and think about eternal life, not just here for a short time, not just our physical life, but actual life, eternal. And that's what Jesus came to bring to us. But then, like I mentioned, when you hear about darkness, that has that very negative connotation, and it is 2s the absence of God is what's in the darkness. But listen to our verse,  “in him", and that's Jesus, was life and the life (that was in Jesus) was the light of men. “The light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it.” You know, we read later in the Scriptures that 1s that old devil, Satan, the deceiver, of course, he was thrown to the earth, he was disobedient. We read in Scripture that he took about a third of the angels with him and those are the ones who have been disobedient to the Father. And we read that 1s Satan is described as the god with a little “g” of this world, the prince of the power of the air. And for a short time he does have some 1s control over the worldly things. But God has the ultimate control. But we see that difference. Light and life is with God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit. Death, darkness is with the one who's an enemy of God. And so in him was life. The life was the light of men. 

John, the Gospel writer, John, uses this imagery and talks about life about 36 times in this gospel. And so that is something that is just  a very key theme that he has throughout. And he does that far more than any of the other gospels. And remember how I told you that his gospel has a different flavor compared to the synoptic Gospels, which are Matthew, Mark and Luke? He really just uses a great deal of imagery, but he so wanted people to know about this life that they could have in the Lord Jesus and that they were no longer they didn't have to be bound in sin and death, but they could have eternal life. “For God so loved the world that he sent his only begotten Son, that whosoever believed in Him would not perish, but have everlasting life or eternal life.” And you'll see in this you'll see in John's letters of first, second and third John that he talks about, especially first John, the  concept of light and darkness. And you know, another thing that is just really neat to me, as we look and study and think about this, we've already talked about for two or three days that Jesus was there in the beginning, God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit, He was there before the beginning. Things were created through Him, with Him, by Him, for Him. 2s But we always see when Jesus is talking, he defers to the Father. And I love that. And we see that a lot in John's Gospel. And for instance, in John, chapter five, verse 26, Jesus said, and these are in red letters, “for as the Father has life in Himself, so He has granted the Son also to have life in Himself.”  Even though Jesus was fully God, fully man, and He was part of the Godhead, we read that in him, we read in Colossians, “all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell.” He was that as we talked about that image of the invisible God, he's the radiance of the glory of God, as we talked about, he's what we can see and touch and feel of God, at least when he was here on earth. And the Gospel writer John was able to do that. He talks about that in 1 John, and we touched on that just a little bit in the previous days. But we see that Jesus being obedient to the Father, defers to the Father, and He says, 2s “as the Father has life in himself, so is he granted the Son also to have life in Himself.” And we see that throughout John's gospel. 

Often when Jesus talks about life, about how life is in Him, He says in chapter eleven of John's Gospel, when He was talking to Martha after her brother Lazarus had died and been placed in the tomb, and He didn't get there as quickly as they thought that He should have arrived. And when He arrived, Martha said, if you had been here, my brother wouldn't have died. And they continued to have a discussion about resurrection. And then in chapter eleven, verse 25, Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he died, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this?” And so He was very clear that life was in Him. Resurrection comes through Him will come through Him, for us who are believers. And I just love that we're reminded that in Him was life and the life was the light of men. And so we have that light, but we also, we have that life in Him, but also with that life comes that light, His light that we shine to others to tell others about the this good news. And I just love that we see, as I mentioned to you a little bit ago in John's first letter in first John, chapter one, verse one, John said, “That which was from the beginning which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we looked upon and have touched with our hands concerning the word of life.” I love it. “The life was made manifest.” In other words, they saw this life, they saw Jesus. “The life was made manifest and we have seen it and testify to it and proclaim to you the eternal life which was with the Father and was made manifest to us.” John understood that God, through the power of His Holy Spirit, gave John very clear understanding that Jesus was life and light, and likely because Jesus said it several times. And John recorded that in his gospel and in his letters. And we see over and over and over again how this life, this eternal life, this life in Christ comes through faith. It comes by believing that Jesus is who He says he is. It comes by believing that Jesus did come to this earth fully God, yet fully man. He walked a sinless life. He was crucified, He died, He was buried in a tomb. He was there for three days and then He was resurrected in full bodily form. He was seen by many and then ascended back to the Father, where He's seated at the right hand of the Father, the right hand of the Majesty on high we talked about yesterday. And He's coming again.

 Belief in that and then accepting that free gift of salvation that He offers through faith by grace is all that it takes, friends. But when we do that, then we have that light. His light shines in the darkness and the darkness cannot overcome it. The darkness will try to overcome it. I mean, we live in a dark and dying world, but His light is life. 2s His life is the light of men. I just love that. And we also read in first John, chapter five, beginning in verse eleven, it says, “And this is the testimony, that God gave us eternal life. And this life is in His Son. Whoever has the Son has life. Whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life.” That just boils it down right there. And we are his if we accept Him, if we abide in Him and we abide in Him by knowing His Word, being in His Word, spending time with Him, denying ourselves, picking up our cross daily and following Him, that's how we know more of Him. And not only in Jesus's own words did he say that he was the resurrection in the life, but he also talked about being the light. He says in John, chapter eight, verse 1s twelve, again, Jesus spoke to them, saying, I am the light of the world. Whoever follows Me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life. And I think John the Gospel writer heard him say that over and over again. And that's probably why he opened his Gospel that way. That's probably why he put it in his opening of his first Epistle or his first letter. And I just love that those are Jesus's words. He made it very clear. And also as I was pondering on this and I was thinking about how Jesus was there in the beginning, before the beginning, he's that Word made flesh. God spoke the Word, 1s and the Word is what caused things to be created. And then also, what was the first thing that God said? “Let there be light.” And then there was Jesus. And oh, I just love that. Of course, Jesus was there before he said, “Let there be light”. But it was like He was the visible part. It was the visible part. And I just love it. I love it. You can get into some thought tornadoes thinking about this over and over again, but what a blessing. And He deserves our thoughts of Him and our meditations that He is life and light. 

As far as other scriptures that talk about Jesus being a light, if we look all the way back in Isaiah chapter 42, beginning in verse six, the Lord says,” I am the Lord. I've called you in righteousness. I will take you by the hand and keep you. I will give you as a covenant for the people, a light for the nations that was talking about Jesus coming to open the eyes that are blind, to bring out the prisoners from the dungeon, from the prison, those who sit in darkness. I am the Lord, that is My name. My glory I give to no other, nor My praise to carved idols.” The Lord was sending Jesus to be a light, to bring us out of that darkness, out of that dungeon, out of that slavery, to seeing. Oh, do you see it? I just love it. And then over in Luke, when I believe it was Simeon, the old man who was at the temple, when Jesus was presented at the temple on his 8th day of life as a man on this earth. And Mary and Joseph took him to the temple, which was the custom, and he saw what he knew that had been praying. And it says, this is about Simeon, “And he came in the Spirit into the temple. And when the parents brought in the child Jesus to do for him according to the custom of the law, he”, (that Simeon) “took him up in his arms and blessed God and said, LORD, now you are letting your servant depart in peace according to Your word. For my eyes have seen Your salvation that you have prepared in the presence of all peoples. A light for revelation to the Gentiles and for glory to Your people, Israel. “

Don't you just love how it all fits together? And then if we look over in 1 Peter, chapter two, verse nine, I believe if I can get there Peter was encouraging the believers, and he says, “but you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for His own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. Once you were not a people, but now you are God's people. Once you have not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.” Aren't we so thankful for this? And then if we look in Colossians, chapter one, beginning in verse eleven, it says, “May you be strengthened with all power according to His glorious might, for all endurance and patience with joy, giving thanks to the Father who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in light. He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.” That's what he did for us, that is, in Him was life, and the life was the light of men. He gave us this life and he gave us his light. He if we are his, if we have a relationship with Him, if we've accepted Him as our Lord and Savior, then we have his life, his light within us. And just like he said in Matthew, chapter five, verse 14, “You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light so shine before others so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.”

 May we do that, friends. In Him was life, and that life was the light of men. We have that within us as believers. And may we share that with others. Oh, I pray that we'll do that for his glory. Blessings to you, friends. Until next time.