The Light Within
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Luke, Vol. 2—That You May Know the Truth The Challenge to All Hearts (vv. 33–36)
A little girl was sitting in her first Good Friday service, and the epic story of the Crucifixion was beautifully read. She heard about Judas’ betrayal of Jesus. She heard about Peter’s denial. She listened to Pilate’s cross-examination of Jesus. She pictured the crown of thorns and felt the beating of the soldiers. Then came the words, “and there they crucified him.” The little girl began to weep and buried her head in her mother’s lap. Her sad voice could be heard throughout the auditorium as she sobbed, “Why did they do it? Why did they do it?”5
Lifelong familiarity with the rhythms of the gospel can dull us to its trembling realities, so that we listen to it with the same vitality with which we read the weather report. We need to be more like that little girl, again.
Big Idea: Let the Light of Christ fill you.
Big Idea: Let the Light of Christ fill you.
Light is useless when suppressed
What lights your way affects your whole self
Light that isn’t from Christ is darkness
Let the Light of Christ fill you
Context: Jesus cast a demon out of a mute man. He was accused of casting out demons by Beelzebul. Others wanted more signs. Last week: They will get no more sign than the sign of Jonah. The queen of Sheba and the men of Nineveh will judge the people of Jesus’ generation who refused to believe, because they believed, and something greater than Solomon, something greater than Jonah, is here.
Now Jesus continues on this topic of accepting the truth of the gospel (good news) about the kingdom of God:
“No one after lighting a lamp puts it in a cellar or under a basket, but on a stand, so that those who enter may see the light.
Your eye is the lamp of your body. When your eye is healthy, your whole body is full of light, but when it is bad, your body is full of darkness.
Therefore be careful lest the light in you be darkness.
If then your whole body is full of light, having no part dark, it will be wholly bright, as when a lamp with its rays gives you light.”
Light is useless when suppressed
What lights your way affects your whole self
Light that isn’t from Christ is darkness
Let the Light of Christ fill you
First, we must answer the question: In this metaphor, what is the light?
Jesus
The Word (John1.1
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
The light (John1.9-13
The true light, which gives light to everyone, was coming into the world.
He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him.
He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him.
But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God,
who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.
So Jesus is the light
His own people did not receive him (They suppressed the light)
Those who did receive him were filled with his light
These were born of God. (man’s light is darkness. God’s light is life itself)
“No one after lighting a lamp puts it in a cellar or under a basket, but on a stand, so that those who enter may see the light.
This is often used as an analogy for sharing the gospel
Candlelight service
However, this passage is more on the personal level. Jesus is concerned about the individual and what they do with the gospel
When a person has heard the good news about Jesus, what is the reaction?
Some will suppress it. In this case, the light is useless, just as a lamp under a basket, or left in a cellar where no one can see it, is useless. However, it may be more than useless, it may be dangerous. A candle left unattended can be a hazard, and the light of the gospel left alone is a hazard to the one who hears it and says “I will put it away for now” Luk11.23
Whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me scatters.
If the person who receives the light of the gospel holds up, and allows it to illuminate their life, then it will have the effect it was intended for.
The proper thing to do with a lamp is to put it where it illuminates the room. The proper thing to do with the good news of Christ is to allow it to be the light in your life.
Now Jesus brings another analogy regarding light:
Your eye is the lamp of your body. When your eye is healthy, your whole body is full of light, but when it is bad, your body is full of darkness.
Light is useless when suppressed
What lights your way affects your whole self
Light that isn’t from Christ is darkness
Let the Light of Christ fill you
The eye is where light comes in. It is the lamp of the body in that all we see and understand spatially about the world is through our eyes.
Healthy eyes see well
Unhealthy eyes have cloudy vision, or darkness
This also is a metaphor for knowledge. What knowledge you have determines how you live.
Worldview
Therefore be careful lest the light in you be darkness.
Light that isn’t from Christ is darkness.
Philosophy, knowledge, wisdom. The pursuit of these is not bad, unless it is outside of Christ
Scientific knowledge without a Christ-centered or biblical worldview is darkness. It only leads to death
Those committed to denying God actually hate God. They do not want to submit to His authority over their lives.
These are the ones who are subject to His wrath
What do they do, when they deny God?
For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth.
For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them.
For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.
For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened.
Claiming to be wise, they became fools,
and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.
Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves,
because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.
For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature;
and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error.
And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done.
They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They are gossips,
slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents,
foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless.
Though they know God’s righteous decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them.
The atheist claims knowledge to be their God. The light they have may include real data, true facts. But in their arrogance, they deny the God who created them, and are therefore exceedingly stupid, because the light they do have, they suppress under the basket of science. But science is not opposed to the bible. God’s people have always been interested in knowing him better, and learning about the creation can lead to greater worship of him as we marvel at the intricacies of his design.
But for the God denier, the light they have is suppressed under their own pride. For all who reject the gospel, whatever light they have becomes darkness.
But the one who believes grows in the true light. Remember what the true light is? John1.9
The true light, which gives light to everyone, was coming into the world.
Jesus is the true light
If then your whole body is full of light, having no part dark, it will be wholly bright, as when a lamp with its rays gives you light.”
In other words, let the light of Christ fill you!
Luke, Vol. 2—That You May Know the Truth Our Lamps
Jesus is here speaking metaphorically of our spiritual perception. If our spiritual eye is good—literally “single” or simple, open, uncomplicated by sin—it will admit the light that Jesus shines on it, and our interior being will be illuminated. Listen to Jonathan Edwards describe his experience as a young man alone with his Bible on the banks of the Hudson:
I had then, and at other times, the greatest delight in the Holy Scriptures of any book whatsoever. Oftentimes in reading it every word seemed to touch my heart. I felt a harmony between something in my heart, and those sweet and powerful words. I seemed often to see so much light exhibited by every sentence, and such a refreshing food communicated, that I could not get along in reading; often dwelling long on one sentence, to see the wonders contained in it; and yet almost every sentence seemed to be full of wonders.
This is the way a healthy heart reads and hears God’s Word. Paul expressed this in his admonition, “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom, and as you sing psalms, hymns and spiritual songs with gratitude in your hearts to God” (
So what evidence can there be if someone has this light? Oasis Church, if you walk in this light, how can others tell this? By your love:
Beloved, I am writing you no new commandment, but an old commandment that you had from the beginning. The old commandment is the word that you have heard.
At the same time, it is a new commandment that I am writing to you, which is true in him and in you, because the darkness is passing away and the true light is already shining.
Whoever says he is in the light and hates his brother is still in darkness.
Whoever loves his brother abides in the light, and in him there is no cause for stumbling.
But whoever hates his brother is in the darkness and walks in the darkness, and does not know where he is going, because the darkness has blinded his eyes.
So what do we do with the light? Will we be among those who suppress it, to our own loss? Or will we let it grow in us, and as a result, bring light to those around us?
