How Bright Are You?

How Bright Are You?

Mark 4:21-25

Open your Bible to Mark chapter 4.

We often make assumptions about how bright someone is. We’ll stereotype and pigeonhole people according to how they look or even what color their hair is. We have expressions for people who aren’t very bright. We say, “They aren’t the brightest bulb in the box.”

But some people just aren’t very bright. I mean, we all know someone who isn’t that bright, don’t we?

And not to pick on Bengal’s fans but it’s like the Bengal fan who responded to an ad in the paper for an all-inclusive cruise that was exclusive for Bengal’s fans. He decided that he needed to check it out. It sounded like a really good deal because it was only fifty bucks.

He threw on his team jersey and hat, went to the address listed and saw the sign. It said, “$50 cruise. Bengal’s fans only.” He threw his fifty bucks on the counter and said, “I’ll take the cruise.” The guy behind the counter pulled out a crowbar and hit him over the head, knocking him out cold.

When the fan woke up, he was floating in an inner tube down the Ohio River. Beside him, he saw another guy with a Bengal’s jersey floating in another inner tube. So, he turned to him and asked, “Do they serve food on this cruise?”

The man answered, “Well, they sure didn’t last year.”

Some people just aren’t bright.

But when it comes to God’s Word, it doesn’t matter how smart you are, how educated or how high your I.Q. may be. God gives his truth out freely to everyone. It just depends on whether you’re listening or not.

Here in Mark’s gospel, Jesus has just finished sharing a parable about how people hear the Word and respond to the gospel.

· Some have closed minds and they’re so hard that the gospel can’t penetrate their hard hearts and the Word is stolen.

· Some have confused minds and they’re shallow in their faith, the Word is starved they and quickly fall away.

· Some have cluttered minds where the Word is strangled by worries, the deceitfulness of wealth and others things.

· Some have cultivated minds and their hearts are open they bear fruit, thirty, sixty or even a hundred times what was sown.

And now, Jesus continues to teach about how important it is to really hear God’s Word.

This passage can be confusing because it sounds really similar to something Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount. He said, “You don’t light a lamp and it under a basket, you put it on a stand so everyone can see it.” Then He said, “Let your light shine before others.”

In this passage, He uses a lamp as an illustration again, but He isn’t talking about our testimony. He’s referring to how the light of His truth can’t be hidden.

Let’s pray and then we’ll read our text.

Pray!

Mark 4:21–25 ESV

And he said to them, “Is a lamp brought in to be put under a basket, or under a bed, and not on a stand? For nothing is hidden except to be made manifest; nor is anything secret except to come to light. If anyone has ears to hear, let him hear.” And he said to them, “Pay attention to what you hear: with the measure you use, it will be measured to you, and still more will be added to you. For to the one who has, more will be given, and from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away.”

The first thing we see is:

Light has its purposes

Jesus was teaching His disciples using another parable. He uses the common image of a lamp to teach a profound spiritual truth. In that day, it would have been an oil lamp. Every house had at least one. It was used to provide light in houses that were naturally dark because they really didn’t have windows.

Houses in that day had notches cut into the wall so that a lamp could be placed there. When a lamp was lit, it was not lit to be hidden under a basket or under a bed. The lamp was lit to be placed somewhere so that everyone in the house could receive light.

This parable is designed to illustrate the purpose of spiritual light. When Jesus shared the Word of God, He was giving light to the world. His light was given to speak to people trapped in spiritual darkness; to show them that there was a way for them to be saved. He said:

John 9:5 ESV

As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.”

His light burned brightly as He taught people about the love of God.

His light was designed to reveal the Heavenly Father to fallen man. His light increased in its intensity until it shone with the glory of Heaven as He gave His life for sinners on the cross. Then it burst forth in radiant beams when He rose from the dead.

His light was not designed to be hidden away. He came to this world not to hide the truth from men, but to reveal the truth to those in darkness.

When He saved us from our sins, He placed His light within us. He doesn’t want us to hide the light away. He wants us to allow His light to shine through our lives so that others might see the way to God.

Matthew 5:16 ESV

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.

Far too many Christians are guilty of hiding the light.

Light is a tremendous gift! Can you remember when the darkness of your sinful past was shattered by the light of the Gospel? Can you remember when He placed His light and His life within you? If you can, then you know the value of that light.

It cannot be hidden away, but it must be shared with a lost and dying world!

Light has its purposes.

Light has its powers

Jesus reminds us that light holds the power to make hidden things plain. The light that Jesus came into this world to display not only reveals the hidden things of God to man; it also reveals the hidden things within man! That’s why so many people who have heard the Gospel message have rejected it.

The Gospel is the message of salvation, but it’s also a message of confrontation. It’s a message that reveals the darkness of the human heart. People are like insects and creatures of the night; they run away from the light when it shines on them. Why? Jesus said it was because “their works were evil” (John 3:19).

And that’s because when the light of the Gospel shines into a person’s heart, it reveals all the darkness inside. That’s a painful experience for the lost sinner. Yet, when the darkness is exposed to the light, the darkness will have to flee and salvation will be the result. The first step in coming to Jesus to be saved is having your sins exposed to the light.

We also need to understand that there’s a day coming when all the hidden things of darkness will be revealed. Christians will see all of their secrets exposed at the Judgment Seat of Christ (2 Corinthians 5:10). Lost people will see their secrets revealed at the Great White Throne judgment (Revelation 20:11-15).

No one has ever really gotten away with sin!

That’s the clear teaching of the Bible:

· Reuben’s sin of defiling his father’s bed with Bilhah was exposed.

· Achan’s sin of taking some of the devoted things was exposed and his entire family suffered.

· Ananias and Sapphira’s deception was exposed with disastrous results.

The hidden works of darkness will always be brought out into the light. You and I will not be able to hide our sins either.

It’s far better to drag your own sins out into the open and confess them to the Lord than it is to hide them away, waiting for God to expose them. And, they will be exposed! When we get honest about our sins, that’s when we can really experience His forgiveness. But when we try to hide them away, they’ll destroy us from inside.

Jesus asks, “Are you listening?”

23 If anyone has ears to hear, let him hear.

Maybe he’s trying to speak to you, in this place today. Is His light shining on you?

Light has its purposes and powers.

Light has its privileges

Verse 24 is rich in truth.

24 And he said to them, “Pay attention to what you hear: with the measure you use, it will be measured to you, and still more will be added to you.

There are three important truths in this verse. The first is:

We’re cautioned

We’re cautioned to listen to the right voices. There are so many different voices competing for our attention today.

Many people today listen to opposing voices. They get their news and information from Facebook or a single source because it’s the one they agree with and anything they don’t agree with is fake news. They think everything is either right or left. They simply regurgitate things without ever once considering if its true or not. They believe outright lies and misinformation.

We need to be extra careful that we only hear the Lord’s voice as He speaks. And the right voice will always say things that agree with Scripture and point you to Jesus. And when we hear the Lord speak, we need to make sure we do what He tells us to do.

If He calls you to come to Jesus to be saved, you need to come. If He calls you to a life of deeper commitment, you need to obey. If He calls you to a life of service, you need to surrender.

We’re cautioned to listen to the right voices.

We’re counseled

We’re counseled to pass the truth on to others. Of all the things that you could do with your life, there is probably nothing more important than taking the time to share your faith and tells someone the good news about Jesus.

We’ve been given the greatest task of taking the gospel to the nations, starting right here in this city and around your homes and workplaces. We’ve been given the great privilege of being called to proclaim the gospel to the world.

We’re cautioned. We’re counseled. And:

We’re comforted

We’re comforted by His promise. The idea for us is that those who listen to what the Lord is telling them and obey by giving their faith away will see Him reveal even more truth to them. If you really want to get closer to God and know more about Him, take the time to share the things you already know.

Give away what He has given you!

· Did you learn something in your private time today? Give it away!

· Did you get something from a sermon recently? Give it away!

· Did He open your eyes to some truth in His Word? Give it away!

And as you give away the truth that has been revealed to you, He will give you even more truth. If you simply horde the truth for yourself and never share it with others, He has no reason to give you more.

Understand this, the gospel is the only thing that becomes more valuable as you give it away. The more you share truth with others, the more He’ll share His truth with you. As we share the gospel, we are making an investment in others and in our own spiritual growth.

We’re supposed to let the truth flow out of us like “rivers of living water” (John 7:38). Sadly, far too many Christians act like they are ponds that have become stagnant. The truth has flowed in but never flowed back out.

We serve a God who specializes in giving us more.

· God doesn’t just pardon, He abundantly pardons (Isaiah 55:7)

· God doesn’t just give mercy; He delights in showing mercy (Micah 7:18)

· God doesn’t just save; He is able to save to the uttermost (Hebrews 7:35)

· God doesn’t just save a sinner and forgive their sins; He adopts him into His family. He gives them peace, joy, hope and blessing. He provides absolute assurance and eternal security.

Our God majors in the “more.”

You see, we have a Savior who gives not of His riches but “according to His riches” (Philippians 4:19). When a billionaire gives a dollar out of his wealth, he has given but he hasn’t given much. When a billionaire gives according to his riches, he can do a lot of good.

Bill Gates spent hundreds of millions of dollars to have every child in an African country immunized against smallpox. That is giving according to his riches.

But God’s giving makes what Bill Gates pale in comparison. God reaches into his infinite stores in heaven and keeps giving us more and more, more love, more mercy, more forgiveness, more grace, more hope and more blessings.

God keeps giving us more.

Light has its purposes, powers and privileges.

Light has its promises

The person who hears the truth and passes it on will see his ability to receive truth expanded. As this kind of person hears the truth and gives it away, the Lord continually reveals more truth to him. He grows in the things of God in ways he could never have imagined. That is the promise to the person who gives away the light!

The person who rejects truth will see his ability to recognize truth diminished. Not only will this kind of individual receive less truth, they will eventually lose their grasp of the truth they once had.

How many here learned to play and instrument or learn a foreign language in High School?

If you haven’t practiced those things since, you have probably lost your ability to do them.

I took German for a lot of years and wasn’t that bad at it when I was 18, 19 years old. I passed those classes and did fairly well. But that was then. I haven’t used German in a lot of years. If I were to sit down and take a first-year German exam, I’m pretty sure that I would bomb it!

Rejecting God’s truth is far more serious than failing to stay brushed up on your foreign language skills. Rejecting the truth will develop into a tragedy in the life of every person who rejects the light! Their rejection of the truth will condemn them to Hell.

Whatever the condition of our heart and mind, whether it’s closed, confused, cluttered or cultivated, we must all listen to God’s Word when it is read privately and proclaimed publicly.

As far as listening to preaching, the example of the martyr Dietrich Bonhoeffer might help you.

Bonhoeffer ran an underground seminary for theological students during the oppressive years of Nazi Germany. He was a very intelligent man who possessed immense critical capabilities. But in his homiletics classes as he listened to his students preaching, he always set aside his pencil and listened intently with his Bible open before him—no matter how poor the sermon was. He believed that the preaching of God’s Word ought to be attended as if he were listening to the very voice of God.

That’s how we need to listen: always looking to the text, always engaged, always thinking, always praying. Jesus has called us to be sure we really hear the Word of God.

But hearing is worthless if it doesn’t result in doing. Attention to God’s Word must be tied to a willingness to do it, or the truth of it will fade.

· Has God’s Word impressed on you that you must forgive? Then do it!

· Has God’s Word impressed on you that you must confess a wrongdoing? Do it!

· Has God’s Word impressed on you that you must apologize? So, do it!

· Has God’s Word impressed on you that you must speak the truth regardless of the consequences? Then do it!

· Has God’s Word impressed on you that you must stop a certain activity? Do it!

· Has God’s Word impressed on you that you must make a gift? Do it!

· Has God’s Word impressed on you that you must bear witness to someone? Do it today if you can!

· Has God’s Word impressed on you that you must leave all to serve him? Do it!

A little oil lamp holds tremendous power. It has the ability to dispel darkness. It gives its light at great cost to itself. As the lamp gives away its light, its very life is consumed.

This is a perfect illustration of what Jesus did for us. He paid a high price to bring His light to the lost. He died on the cross so that we might have life and light. When He saved us, He kindled that light in our hearts. We must let our lights shine so that a world lost in darkness might see the way to come to God.

It may cost us everything to give the light to others, but we must be willing to pay the price. We must never be guilty of hoarding the light; hiding the light or hindering the light. We must let our light shine for the glory of God!

Listen to me, you can’t hide from the light!

The truth of God’s Word will confront you some day. It may have already done so today. Maybe He has spoken to your heart; revealed your sins; and pointed out the truth of the Gospel. If so, you need to come to Him and be saved!

Don’t reject the truth!

The truth is, He loves you. He died for you. And, He will save you if you’ll come to Him. You can’t hide from the light! If you reject Him as Savior in this life, you’ll face Him as Judge in eternity! Don’t let that happen! Embrace the truth and be saved today.

Has He spoken truth to your heart today? Is He calling you to share the Light with a lost world? Today would be a good day to renew your commitment to Him to obey Him in sharing the Gospel with a lost world.