The Light Within You

Greeting

Good morning Lighthouse!

Tell your neighbor, “It’s time!” How many of you are looking forward to all of the good food that you are going to be eating this week?

How many of you have already started? Some of you already had a head start.

I pray that you have an incredible time with your family. I hope you have a Happy Thanksgiving. Be sure that before you dive into that turkey that you stop genuinely give God thanks for everything that He has done in your life.

Let’s be thankful. Even if everything in your life is not great right now, there are things that you have to be thankful for.

Let’s read our text this morning.

Reading

Isaiah 60:1 NIV

“Arise, shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord rises upon you.

The Light Within You

Introduction

Last week I had the chance to speak to a friend of mine who recently had a kid. One of the things that he said, that I often heard said by new Dad’s is, I’m learning to understand the heart of our heavenly father through my relationship with my son. I believe many parents in the room can say the same.

There were moments in my life when I was in need and my Dad would walk into the room and I let out a sigh of relief, because Dad was here.

I’ve also seen that in my kids as well when they come to me in need and I am able to help them and there is this sense of relief, because Dad is here.

Transition

As we’ve been working our way through the text there is a bit of that feeling as well.

As we’ve shared already, when Isaiah speaks to Israel he is speaking to a people living in darkness, disappointment, and discipline. They were in Babylon as a result of their sins and as a result of breaking their covenant with the Lord.

Now, consider what God says to them through the Prophet Isaiah.

God doesn’t say, “Work your way out.” God doesn’t say, “Figure it out.”

He says, “Arise. Shine. For your light has come.”

That’s a lot like, “you can stand up now because your Father here.”

The light isn’t their achievement, we know that they have already fumbled their commitment to the Lord. The light is God’s arrival. Like a Father coming to rescue their child in need.

And when God’s light comes, His glory rises on His people.

Today we’re going to talk about what that glory means, and what it looks like in your life right now.

Text

Let me once more show you were we have been in this series and where we will end it today.

[Transition]

Arise,

shine,

For your light has come,

and the glory of the Lord rises upon you.

And you can go back either on YouTube or Podcast and listen to weeks one through three, but today we are going to sit with this last phrase, “and the glory of the Lord rises upon you.”

[Text]

This phrase is a prophetic phrase written to Israel during their captivity in Babylon.

Israel was given their own land to demonstrate to the world around then what a relationship with the one true God looked like.

When Israel repeatedly failed to do this, and instead violated their covenant with The Lord, they were taken captive by the nation of Babylon.

Near the end of their captivity God was speaking through prophets about their future; both in their return to Jerusalem and then into the future when the Messiah would come.

So as Isaiah is writing to them he is talking about the near, and the future.

The word I want to focus on is the word glory. That is the operative word in this phrase, and it comes from the Hebrew word kavod, which means the manifest, weighty, awe-creating glory of God.

It’s the word used throughout the Old Testament to describe how humans experience the presence of God.

When Moses encountered the presence of the kavod on Mt. Sinai, he had to cover his head because his face was shining from the light of God’s presence.

When Joshua encountered the commander of the Lord’s army, he fell on his face. That’s what kavod does — it brings people low.

When Solomon dedicated the temple in 2 Chronicles, all of the priests and ministers fell to their knees as the kavod filled the temple.

So in our verse, Isaiah is telling them that not only was the light coming, but as that light came, that as Jesus the glory of the Lord would rise upon them.

Textual Application

Shift 1

What does glory look like when it shows up in human history?

What does kavod look like when it steps into our world — not as a cloud, not as fire, not filling a temple — but walking, talking, healing, and loving?

John answers that question…

John 1:14 NIV

The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.

When Jesus is manifested in the flesh, we see the glory of the Father in Him.

In the Old Testament, the glory of the Lord filled their tabernacles and their temples. When there was a demonstration of this glory in all of it’s weight, the priests could not even stand and minister.

2 Chronicles 5:14 NIV

and the priests could not perform their service because of the cloud, for the glory of the Lord filled the temple of God.

In the New Testament, the glory doesn’t fill a building… it fills a person — Jesus.

There this little obscure verse in the New Testament that also shows us that Jesus is the kavod.

On the night that Jesus was arrested, the temple guards asked him if he was Jesus, the one who was claiming to be the Messiah.

John 18:6 ESV

When Jesus said to them, “I am he,” they drew back and fell to the ground.

Jesus is the kavod of the Old Testament.

Shift 2

Now, before Jesus ascends back to heaven to be seated at the right hand of the Father as King, he begins to make a shift. We talked about this in the second week when we talked about what it means to “Shine”.

Jesus started saying to those around him that the Holy Spirit was coming and would fill them.

The very presence of God, was going to dwell within them, and this was going to be a shift from the kavod filling a temple in the Old Testament, and the kavod filling Jesus as he walked on earth. And when Jesus returns to the Father, that same kavod would now fill you and me.

Let’s do some work.

2 Corinthians 3:13 NIV

We are not like Moses, who would put a veil over his face to prevent the Israelites from seeing the end of what was passing away.

I said earlier that when Moses had an encounter with the kavod, and he had to put a veil over his face for the Israelites sake.

2 Corinthians 3:16–17 NIV

But whenever anyone turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away. Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.

So Paul is going to stick with illustration of Moses seeing the glory of God, but he says that there is no longer a veil that separates us from God. The veil has been lifted, so that we now have freedom.

And here is where it gets really good…

2 Corinthians 3:18 NIV

And we all, who with unveiled faces contemplate the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.

When we see kavod of the Lord, we then are being transformed and we now carry the glory, the kavod, of the Lord within us.

Paul doubles down on this in the next chapter when he writes,

2 Corinthians 4:6–7 NIV

For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of God’s glory displayed in the face of Christ. But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us.

Believers are now the carriers of the kavod.

Now after all of that biblical work, here’s the question: Why has God placed His glory in you?

Why would God put something so weighty, so holy, so powerful… inside ordinary people?

Isaiah 60:2–3 NIV

See, darkness covers the earth and thick darkness is over the peoples, but the Lord rises upon you and his glory appears over you. Nations will come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your dawn.

God so wants to save this world and to redeem this world, that he is going to put his kavod within you and men, and women, and people of influence and significance, are all going to be drawn to what God has put on the inside of you.

God’s mission hasn’t changed — but the way He carries it out has. He once filled temples. He once filled prophets. He once filled one man, Jesus. Now He fills you.

The glory of the Lord will not only rise upon you, but it’s going to rise up within you.

Conclusion

Now, the lynchpin in it all of this is your heart.

The scriptures that we have been slowly reading, and contemplating, since November 2. We have been working our way through this one verse over the course of four Sundays. It’s clear to me that there is much that God wants to do within you and through you.

The only thing that can keep glory from rising on you… is a heart that doesn’t want it.

God comes where He is wanted.

My concern is that we want God to come, but we are not living out a tangible desire to see Him come.

If you were to say to me, “Pastor Josh, I really need to meet with you. I really want to talk to you. There are so many things that I would like to discuss with you.” And if we make the appointment and I come to our meeting and throughout that meeting you are staring at your phone, and texting, and scrolling through social media every chance you get… I’m going to come to the conclusion that you really do not want me.

Why?

Because you are distracted by many things.

I wonder if on Sunday, we raise our hands and tell Him, “God I want you!” Only for Him to come to you on Monday and find you distracted by many things… Preoccupied by other things… Giving your time, your attention, and your resources to other things.

You can say, “God I want you,” and yet live a life that screams, “I don’t have time for you,” and He would know the difference.

God does not desire to give you just enough of Him to keep you from addiction, and to keep you from sleeping with someone who is not your spouse, or to keep you from lying and stealing… He wants to fill you with the weight of His presence so that nations would come to your light.

God comes where He is wanted.

Call

When was the last time you surrendered? Not just that you said it, but that you lived it?

I promise you that God can do more with your surrender than you can do with your striving.

Today we are going to pray a simple prayer.

God, I repent of the half-hearted worship that I have been giving you.

I repent from allowing the temporary to take my eyes away from eternity.

And today, I want to surrender.