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| Order Of Worship (Liturgy) |
MATTHEW 5:14-16
(Readings: John 8:12-30; Matthew 5:1-16)
Light of the World
Congregation of our Lord Jesus Christ…
Well may our Lord call himself the ‘Light of the World’, as we read in John 8:12, but to hear him say to us, ‘You are the light of the world’ is sure something else! I mean, isn’t that cutting it a bit rich? That statement has such grandeur and importance! Could there be a higher compliment paid? Yes - to us who feel ourselves so often under a dark and dismal cloud? What is Jesus going on about?
Perhaps this illustration may help us. A mother was giving instructions to her young son on a cumulus-filled day. With the sky totally thick with clouds, the boy was about to go out to play.
She reminded him to wear a hat. He responded by pointing out how cloudy it was. And she sharply retorted, “Where do you think the light out there comes from?”
The answer was obvious. There was day-light because there is sunlight. Despite the darkest of clouds, it is the sun which still makes the difference between night and day. And for that boy, it was a light still strong enough to cause sunburn.
Now put that spiritually. “You are the light of the world” says Jesus. You are the difference between the saved and the unsaved, because you are saved. Sinful though you are you yet shine! And it’s precisely the same difference the Lord Jesus has just been proclaiming in his Sermon on the Mount – the famous ‘Beatitudes’.
You see, as Christ brought out the different characteristics and blessings of being a believer, in the verses 3 till 12, he separates light from dark. He is doing spiritually what he did physically at the dawn of creation. Being poor in spirit, being in mourning, being humble, hungering and thirsting for righteousness, being merciful, being pure in heart, being peacemakers, and being willing even to be persecuted for the Gospel – that’s living as light!
Whether we always realise it or not we are quite different than the world around us. But perhaps then the verse before our text, the verse with the picture of salt, seemed a little out of place here. Could it be that has disturbed the natural flow on from the Beatitudes? What could salt possibly have to do with this living for the Lord and so witnessing for him?
Friends, Jesus uses a contrast here to show the wholeness of our living unto him. For the action of salt is silent, hidden, pervasive, and unseen. Yet the action of light is so open. It’s obvious!
We are taught here that becoming Christ-like is two things. On the one hand it is a silent, hidden, and all pervasive thing – it reaches right into the very fibre of our thinking and our vision. On the other hand, however, it’s a wide open and lighting up what we show and what we do!
While in our reading from John 8:12 Jesus said, “I am the light of the world … Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life,” in our text he commands us believers to be what he himself claimed to be!
And don’t think this came out of the blue for those hearing Jesus on the Mount. The principles here have been part of their Jewish make-up ever since God gave the Law at Sinai.
Now, on another hill, the Law is being renewed. The difference is the power it now has.
You see, the Old Testament was and is God’s Word. But, at the same time, it was also God’s foreword, looking forward to its fulfilment. With Jesus that fulfilment had come. It had become completely clear!
This is the essence of our first aspect, WE HAVE THE LIGHT, since we are Christ’s Body. Then, secondly, we see … WE KNOW THE LIGHT. And, thirdly, the text tells us … WE SHOW THE LIGHT.
Congregation, WE HAVE THE LIGHT - you are the light of the world! There’s no doubt about it! The Church is being addressed here. The word “you” is the plural word used for a group together – “yous” is the way we would say it colloquially.
It is a special group. The group the apostle says of in Ephesians 5:8, “you were once darkness, but now you are the light of the world.”
Another picture which Scripture uses to describe what this group is, is life and death. It is in Jesus that we have life in this world.
Now, this doesn’t stop our present suffering and death. But those temporary pains are small compared with the eternal inheritance we have in Christ. The contrast is of those outside this group, while enjoying now this life, yet being doomed to an unending suffering, compared to those within the group having a short time until everlasting bliss! From being relegated to an intense hatred that’s far beyond this world’s worst possible – hell itself – we’re lifted up to a peace beyond understanding – the life forever in heaven!
And it’s because of him! He who is none other than Christ Jesus! He who revealed the glory of God, also graciously reveals God in us. His work of salvation has made us believers, one with the Father.
This is the wonder of Pentecost. For it is Christ’s Spirit who has come and equipped his Church to be as him in this dark world.
And can we say this world doesn’t need saving any less now? As we look around us at what goes on at work, on the sports field, in our House of Parliament, what’s in the media – doesn’t the world need the Lord that much more? Could being a Christian have finally become obsolete, like some archaic steam machine? Is the protest against social injustice – the cry for the unborn child, the defenceless elderly, and the genuinely poor – could that all be just passé, just an old-fashioned dream?
If that was so, why did Christ come over two thousand years ago? And would he have put you and I where we are right now?
You are the light of the world! And if we can’t shine the way, then it truly is the blind leading the blind!
For example, where would our society be without its Christian background? You only need to compare our system of justice with those countries which have no Biblical influence. Whatever bedrock of goodness our society has is because the Light shone in past times, and because in his grace he’s still pleased to bless.
But it’s a light that can only come, secondly, if, WE KNOW THE LIGHT. As our text continues, “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.”
These are self-evident truths. Naturally we know that a city on a hill cannot be hidden. And how obvious isn’t it that once you’ve lit a lamp you don’t put it under a bowl!
Imagine, boys and girls, if during the next power cut, when everything has suddenly gone pitch black, that your Mum and Dad, when they finally found the candles, and lit them, put them under cooking bowls! That makes no sense at all!
Yet it’s this precise nonsense which affects much of this world! Because to be able to put Christ’s light to any proper use, you need to know first of all that it is Christ’s light. You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink.
So we’re not speaking here of some kind of intellectual head knowledge. If that were the case many more would be saved. And Christianity would be a fairly middle and upper class affair.
We’re speaking of something quite different. To know this fully is to know inwardly. This true knowledge isn’t what passes exams. This can only be written upon the hearts of God’s chosen people. That’s where his Word brings life as its preached and taught and read. That’s where there’s the knowledge and conviction that everything God reveals in his Word is true.
But, like we confess in the Heidelberg Catechism, we need to go further than this. As Answer 21 says, true faith is also a deep-rooted assurance, made mine by the Holy Spirit, through the Gospel. The Gospel, that great news that tells of sins forgiven, of being made forever right with the almighty and all-holy God; and of you – you of all creatures – being given the most precious gift of salvation. What – can we have this happen and not show it?
This is why there is a third aspect to the text – WE SHOW THE LIGHT. In the words of verse 16, “In the same way, let you light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.”
We are to show the light. But could we ever say, since seeing the light, that we didn’t know this was so? True, we’ve seen how the text points to our having and our knowing. But together with showing aren’t all the three aspects as inseparable as the Trinity?
In Philippians 2 this is laid out for the believers there. In the verses 12 till 16, Paul tells them, “...continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his purpose. Do everything without complaining or arguing, so that you may be blameless and pure, children of God without fault in a crooked and depraved generation, in which you shine like stars in the universe as you hold out the word of life.”
Congregation, the Word that is in you, and which can save you. The Word of which David says in Psalm 119:105, “Your Word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.”
Still, shining your light isn’t like clicking a switch in your house. It’s easy to slip away into darkness. Staying in the light is a whole different matter!
Our modern age has made having light at night a different things than what was the case in the New Testament times. Just that flick of a switch and whole rooms and halls become flooded with light. But the light of the first century A.D. had to be carefully struck.
And while it was burning it had to be put in the right place, so it would give the best light and it had to be constantly looked after so it wouldn’t be snuffed out. But in its burning there’s a complete contrast to the darkness all around. The one solitary lamp was enough to help light those one-roomed homes in Palestine.
Friends, in the places we have in this world, what does our light show up before men? Do they see the beautiful godly attitudes in the verses before the text? That’s the way of God’s Word lit up by the lamp of Christ’s Spirit in our hearts. Then they will see our good deeds.
The original word for “good” here goes further than simply describing what is good on the surface. There’s also something gracious and attractive about the good deeds a Christian does. It’s a depth and movement beyond what meets the eye.
There may be two people who help a senior citizen across the street. Yet if one is a Christian his help has more meaning than the other’s.
That might be hard to understand. But it’s true all the same. For we begin to realise the reason behind the difference when we see the focus of the action. Was it just a pat-on-the-back exercise? ‘There ... I’ve done my good deed for the day!’ Or was it something deeper? Will those around us, as the text describes it, give glory to your Father in heaven?
What doesn’t belong to any believer is a put-on goodness. That plastic smile which is so meaningless. These words of Jesus are completing banning what someone once called “theatrical goodness”. Don’t do on the outside what means nothing in your heart. It will be seen, sooner or later, for what it truly is.
The 19th Century evangelist, Dwight L. Moody, was once at a conference with some young people who took their faith very seriously. One night they had an all-night prayer meeting. As they were leaving it in the morning they met Mr Moody.
He asked them what they’d been doing. They told him. And then they went on, “Mr Moody, see how our faces shine!” Moody answered them very gently, “Moses didn’t know that his face was shining.”
You see, that goodness which you feel, that which draws attention to itself, isn’t Christian goodness. The Christian should never think or speak of what he or she has done.
Rather, we must realise time and again what the Lord has enabled us to do. I am never to attract the eyes of others to myself. I am only to point them to God!
As long as men and women, young people, and boys and girls, are thinking of the praise, the thanks, the prestige, which they will get out of what they’ve done, they haven’t even begun the Christian way. Jesus warned about those like this later on in this same sermon. In Matthew 7:21 he said, “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.”
Unless you truly appreciate the beginning of the Lord’s Prayer, unless you understand ‘Our Father who art in heaven,’ your light hasn’t begun to shine. For how can we be called God’s children if we don’t see the hand of the Father? And how could we know the Father’s Son, if we don’t acknowledge that the very light we do see and live by is from his righteousness, despite the dark clouds of our sin? But as we acknowledge whose light it is, and keep everything we do illumined by that light, the world won’t have an excuse.
In the apostle’s words in 1st Peter 2:11, we must “live as aliens and strangers in the world, abstain from sinful desires, which war against your soul.” That’s the darkness the devil wants so much to cover us with. Instead, continues Peter, “Live such good lives among the pagans that, though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us.”
Upon Christ’s second coming all will worship him – they won’t have a choice. But wouldn’t it be much better for their eternity if we showed them we’re doing that right now?
Amen.
PRAYER:
Let’s pray...
O Light from Light, true God from true God, you who was begotten not made, of one Being with the Father, please hear our prayer. As the apostle Paul was dazzled by your light before he became the great bearer of your light, so we too have been humbled again by your Word. You who was cloud by day and the fiery pillar by night to Israel of old, please shine brightly in and through us today and always. Amen.
* As a matter of courtesy please advise Rev. Sjirk Bajema, if you plan to use this sermon in a worship service. Thank-you.
The source for this sermon was: www.rcnz.org.nz
(c) Copyright 2023, Rev. Sjirk Bajema
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