Sermon Tone Analysis
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Intro
Last week - soil preparation
This week - Focusing on the produce
Story of William Wilberforce
early life self-serving, hedonist
Entered Parliament with this disposition
Transformed by meeting and befriending Thomas Clarkson, a devout Christian and early anti-slavery leader
Wilberforce took up the devotion and made a repentant move, disavowing his hedonism.
Realizing he could not engage the love of Christ and hide from the world: "My walk is a public one," he wrote in his diary.
"My business is in the world, and I must mix in the assemblies of men or quit the post which Providence seems to have assigned me."
And how would he be able to show God’s love?
By taking up the mantel of Clarkson’s passion - affecting abolition of slavery.
He began introducing bills to curtain or eradicate slavery in 1789 - failed
No less than 8 additional legislative attempts of end the practice over 16 years.
All failed.
But he wouldn’t quit!
Despite mockery, opposition, and financial and political mountains to climb, his determination finally resulted in the shifting of opinion and a bill that outlawed selling slaves in 1807.
There are three things exemplified in Wilberforce’s life that echo the truth found in our passage today.
pray
We have a continuation of Jesus’ last parable - the parable of the dirt.
Or the Parable of the Sower.
There we learned three ways to ignore or rebel from God, and one way to follow and produce.
There we looked at how to have a prepared heart that was able to produce.
Today we look at the process and produce of the growth.
A Light in the Darkness
Commentary on the parables, and on the application of the parables.
This Little Light of Mine
Hidden lamp: If it’s lit, we don’t hide it!
Anyone have a flashlight in the glove box?
It would be silly to turn it on then put it in the glove box.
When you actually needed it, it would be dead!
Jesus takes this obvious example of what is made for the purpose of illuminating, and applies it to something not so obvious…
What’s the Hidden lamp?
The Messiah who was to come?
Then revealed in Jesus
Jesus?
Revealed after His resurrection
The Kingdom of God? Revealed through His church then at the final judgement
These are all so related, that you could hardly determine one and exclude another.
Each points not only to the plan of God’s redeeming the world, but His working and fulfilling that plan.
Will you let it shine?
That plan is as much in the works IN us as it is in the works THROUGH us.
As we are the light of the world as Jesus states in Matthew 5:14
it is only as that light has illuminated our lives by the light of Jesus’ ministry - John 8:12
Nothing is hidden
Jesus addresses the scope of the transforming power of the light.
We all have lights in our homes.
Sometimes they are turned on, sometimes they are turned off.
We don’t leave them on when we are sleeping, or when it’s bright outside, or when we aren’t in the room… unless your a teenager!
For our purpose, light has a time and a place - to reveal somethings and keep others hidden… like that one closet that has all the stuff that doesn’t have a real place to go.
The light of the gospel has another purpose, and another power.
“Nothing is hidden” The Light of God does not serve the darkness, but overpowers it.
Even as believers, there are many things we would like to keep secret.
A thought of anger here, selfishness there.
Pride, indifference to suffering, lust… The list goes on.
But light will shine.
Light will shine by conviction of the Holy Spirit.
As we become aware of our sin and how it separates us from God, and when we first accept Christ as our savior.
Or as a maturing (or discipling) believer who begins to realize the extent of sin in our lives, we let that light make known the things hidden in the dark places.
We tend to have a comfort limit of what God can change.
There are things hidden in our lives that hurt, or are the result of past hurts.
We are afraid, or unwilling to let healing light of the gospel into those places.
Why?
Has He not proven Himself trustworthy of healing your brokenness?
Is He not saving you for His good purpose?
Does He not love you more than any earthly father?
It is far better to let God shine in and heal what is broken that to try and hid it.
The dark things will come to light.
Light will shine by the wages of sin.
The wages of sin is death.
A spiritual, eternal death.
But the death wage of sin is paid out in part now, just as the inheritance of our heavenly birthright is paid out in part now.
When we hid or hold onto the secret things we keep in dark places in our lives, our efforts are not nearly as effective as we imagine!
That darkness is made manifest in the way that sin - secret in it’s details but public in it’s effect - soils our relationships with other people.
You wouldn’t bake a cake then pour salt all over it.
But thinking we are hiding sin is like replacing the sugar in the cake recipe with salt and thinking nobody will notice.
Just because it’s not obvious doesn’t mean it’s not evident.
Light will shine by the final judgement.
Ultimately, all things are revealed in a final judgement by God.
In God’s kingdom, all things are illuminated by the presence and the glory of God.
For those who have not accepted Jesus as their Lord and forgiver of their sins, they will be separated from God forever in eternal punishment.
But those who’s sins are forgiven and cover by Jesus’ taking our death sentence on our behalf - we will have nothing to hide.
God’s word, His presence, His ministry, and His Kingdom are a light and a seed.
Planted and shining in the world and in the lives of those who believe.
Next Jesus gives us application to how this works.
Growing In Secret
The Parable of the Seed Growing
26 And he said, c“The kingdom of God is as if a man should scatter seed on the ground.
27 He sleeps and rises night and day, and the seed sprouts and grows; dhe knows not how.
28 The earth produces by itself, first the blade, then the ear, then the full grain in the ear.
29 But when the grain is ripe, at once ehe puts in the sickle, because the harvest has come.”
Sierra Baptist Association Pastor Prayer 5/2/22
The Kingdom is:
Expectant
God scatters seed in our lives.
Some takes root.
But the results are not instant.
God is patient with us.
So, we must be patient with each other, and with ourselves.
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