Lights Shining Worldwide
Notes
Transcript
INTRODUCTION
INTRODUCTION
In Matthew 5, Jesus has begun His most famous sermon, the Sermon on the Mount, with the Beatitudes.
He pronounces promised blessings over people who experience certain things and fall into certain categories.
Blessed are...
The poor in spirit
Those who mourn
Those who hunger and thirst for righteousness
The merciful
The pure in heart
The peacemakers
The persecuted
The reviled
These are promises of spiritual blessing for all of eternity for the people of God
Not because they merit these things by being poor in spirit or merciful or peacemakers...
But because the Word of God, which they are devoted to, is producing these things in them:
Blessed is the man
who walks not in the counsel of the wicked,
nor stands in the way of sinners,
nor sits in the seat of scoffers;
but his delight is in the law of the Lord,
and on his law he meditates day and night.
So God’s people, bowing to His Word in a state of spiritual submission, are blessed people.
And then, Jesus continues to speak about the identity of His disciples:
“You are the salt of the earth, but if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled under people’s feet.
“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 shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.
SALT AND LIGHT
SALT AND LIGHT
In the salt and the light, we have two different pictures of the work that the people of God do throughout the world.
In salt, we see how we are to preserve the world and be a part of God’s restraining mercy toward sinful humanity—keeping them from destroying themselves.
In the light, we see how we are to push back the darkness with the truth and draw attention to the Lord.
We don’t have a ton of time this morning because I am so excited for you all to hear from Pastor Brian and Pastor Sam...
...but I do want to take a few moment to look at these verses and particularly focused on how we are the Light of the World.
SALT
SALT
Looking at verse 13, we can briefly understand this idea of being the salt of the earth.
In the first-century, salt had two main uses
Flavor
Preservation
I think that Jesus’ words can be applied in both senses.
On one hand, our preaching of the Gospel brings what RC Sproul called “zest” to the world.
How boring the world would be without the eternal Gospel?
How dark and sinful it would be?
But it is about more than the flavor of our preaching. In a time without refrigerators, salt was important in the process of preserving meat.
Similarly, Christians are important in the preservation of the world, until the day in which God judges the earth with fire.
God is merciful not to allow humanity to destroy itself.
God is patient. Until all the names written in the book of Life come into His Kingdom, King Jesus sits at the Father’s right hand governing history.
Left to their unrestrained sin, humanity would rip itself apart.
“Their throat is an open grave;
they use their tongues to deceive.”
“The venom of asps is under their lips.”
“Their mouth is full of curses and bitterness.”
“Their feet are swift to shed blood;
in their paths are ruin and misery,
and the way of peace they have not known.”
“There is no fear of God before their eyes.”
This is a picture of humanity in their fallen state. This is the natural inclination of the heart.
God has graciously given human beings the institutions of government and family to restrain their evil
And of course, He has given the church.
The church’s preaching of the Gospel and the light we bear in society has done so much to reform evil temporarily and provide society with relief
God’s mercy to humanity in the form of the church’s obedience and proclamation
For we know that through the church’s work we have seen the end of many evils like the Trans-Atlantic slave-trade, child labor, women and minorities not having basic rights
And we have seen the beginning of beautiful things like the modern education system and as we saw last week, even the Ivy Leagues
The world will not give the credit, but they should be thankful for the church putting up a stop sign to evil and then executing justice with good.
LIGHT
LIGHT
But I want us to spend most of our time focusing on v. 14-16. After all, this week we have been traveling through space with our Vacation Bible Schoolers
We have been talking about being the light of the world
And we have two wonderful lights in Pastor Brian and Pastor Sam
It makes sense for us to camp out here this morning before hearing from these brothers.
In the same way that Jesus says we are the salt of the earth, He says that we are the light of the world.
What is so striking about this is that Jesus says the same thing of Himself.
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.”
1 John 1:5 tells us that God is light. There is no darkness in Him.
We know from Paul that Jesus is the image of the invisible God.
It makes sense then, that Jesus Christ, the image of the invisible God of Light, would be the Light of the world.
Matthew Henry says the world would just be a dark dungeon if the God of Light had never come to us in the Person of Christ.
And yet, here in Matthew 5, we have Christ, the Light of the world, telling His disciples that they are the Light of the world.
By extension, that we are the Light of the world.
The sort of people that are described in the Beatitudes—the Blessed ones
The sort of people that fit the profile of the blessed one who is like the tree planted by streams water in Psalm 1...
Faithful disciples of Christ who are called out of the world and into community together in local churches—they are the Light of the world
YOU are the Light of the world
How can it be that we are the the Light of the World and HE is the Light of the world?
I don’t feel worthy to carry any title that He carries.
I am sure you feel that as a worshipper
But we reconcile it by understanding both who He is and who He is in us.
He is the Light of the World
We were born in darkness.
He revealed Himself to us through His Word and we believed and we were ushered from the domain of darkness and into the Kingdom of the Son, who is the Light of the World
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.
In the same way that He created the world with His brilliant power, He saved us with His glorious, potent grace.
And just as He said “Let there be Light in creation,” in our conversion, He declared that there be Light in us.
For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.
And now, you and I represent the Lord in the world as ambassadors of the Kingdom of the Beloved Son, who is the Light of the world
Only one chapter on from Paul’s speaking about how God shone light into our hearts by showing us the glory of God in the face of Christ, he says that we are ambassadors.
He says that God is making His appeal through us (2 Cor 5:20)
We bear the Light of the Gospel of Reconciliation
We bear the Light of Christ the Reconciler
We bear the Light of the glory of God in the face of Jesus
We bear the marvelous Light of the One who called us out of darkness
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.
BEARING THE LIGHT IN ACTS
BEARING THE LIGHT IN ACTS
We have certainly seen how this plays out in the book of Acts each week.
Christ told the disciples to go to Jerusalem and to wait there for power from on high.
For the Spirit—the promise of the Father
And in Acts 2, the Spirit of God comes and it is evident in
the sight of the tongues of the fire
and the sound of rushing wind
and the speech of the languages of the nations
And from there, they do just what Jesus told them they would do.
But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.”
The Spirit comes in Acts 2 and they are off.
We have seen the Gospel moving from Jerusalem and into Judea
Just last week the towns from the surrounding regions had people pouring out of them to come and be healed by the Apostles
They are taking the Light of the Gospel and the Light of the glory of Christ and they are pushing back the darkness.
They are continuing the Kingdom work of Christ.
They are His body as He the Head governs them from heaven.
And the Spirit is the One empowering the work from within.
Guiding the church into all truth
Convicting the world concerning sin and righteousness
WE ARE THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD
WE ARE THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD
And so we come back to Matthew 5 and we certainly understand more how HE is the Light of the world and WE are the Light of the world.
It is because He has brought us into the Light by bringing us into fellowship with God and now we represent Him as His body, bearing His Light to the world.
And as you see Jesus saying in Matthew 5, we are accomplishing this by doing good works and then pointing people to our Father who is in heaven.
This doesn’t mean that we run around the world performing all of our religious devotion publicly.
Later in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus will guard against big showy displays of religion.
“Beware of practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them, for then you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven.
“Thus, when you give to the needy, sound no trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may be praised by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward.
Things that are between you and God need to be left between you and God, but there are some acts of our devotion that involve others.
For we know that the whole of the Law is to love God AND to love our neighbor and so we must love the Light of God and also bear it to others
There are parts of your daily life that are lived out in the open.
Your work
Aspects of your family life
Your recreation
And in these things, we must be seeking opportunities to serve God before man and work for man as unto the Lord and glorify our Father in heaven
For our good works will stand out against the darkness of this domain and people will know we bear the Light
They will want to know about this strange Glow that comes from us
And we will tell them with our words and with our works
HOME AND ABROAD
HOME AND ABROAD
Now, you might say, “Where do we do this?”
The answer that we gave the kids all week was WORLDWIDE.
I think sometimes people get caught up with pitting bearing the Light here against bearing the Light around the world.
But we should not make friends fight.
If you look at history, you will see that as the church gained access to more of the world, the church committed to getting to more of the world.
Every church can’t do everything, but God calls individuals and individual churches to the places where He wants them at the time in which He wants them.
And He calls them for the purposes that He wants them there.
And we must be obedient.
Jerusalem and the ends of the earth.
Judea and Samaria
ILLUSTRATION OF THE JUDSONS
ILLUSTRATION OF THE JUDSONS
I want to illustrate this by having you imagine yourself as a father of a beautiful 22 year old woman in 1810.
A group of Baptists are meeting at your home in Bradford, Massachusetts, discussing missions and you notice that one of the Baptists is eyeing your little girl.
Now, you love mission work, but you live in Bradford. You are committed to the life God has given you there. You are a deacon at the church.
You are committed to serving the good Lord there.
You have no plans to leave.
Bradford is your Jersualem.
But then you get a letter from that Baptist. He wants your daughter’s hand. And he doesn’t want to stay in Bradford.
He wants to take her away to the end of the earth.
The Baptist Story: From English Sect to Global Movement Farmer-Preachers and Foreign Missions
I have now to ask, whether you can consent to part with your daughter early next spring, to see her no more in this world; whether you can consent to her departure, and her subjection to the hardships and sufferings of a missionary life; whether you can consent to her exposure to the dangers of the ocean; to the fatal influence of the southern climate of India; to every kind of want and distress; to degradation, insult, persecution, and perhaps a violent death. Can you consent to all this, for the sake of him who left his heavenly home, and died for her and for you; for the sake of perishing, immortal souls; for the sake of Zion, and the glory of God? Can you consent to all this, in hope of soon meeting your daughter in the world of glory, with the crown of righteousness, brightened with the acclamations of praise which shall redound to her Savior from heathens saved, through her means, from eternal woe and despair?
Obviously you can see that our imagined story is real.
The man’s name was John Haseltine.
The girls’ name was Ann.
And the Baptist after her was Adoniram Judson.
John Haseltine, the deacon Baptist of Bradford, who surely loved his daughter and would have loved for her to marry a local boy with aims of settling down on family land, gave her away to the mission field.
She left her family and went with her new groom to Burma.
HOME and ABROAD
BRADFROD and BURMA
SEAFORD and JINJA
Let’s welcome Pastor Brian and Pastor Sam on to the platform with me.