You will find the words of our text
this morning in St. Matthew's Gospel in chapter
5, and we shall read verses 14 to
16.
These words follow from the subject we were
considering last time, and you will notice as
we proceed that there is a very close,
a very intimate link between the two designations
of the subjects of Christ's kingdom that we
have in these verses.
Beginning with verse 14 then, You, says our
Lord, are the light of the world.
A city on a hill cannot be hidden,
neither do people light a lamp and put
it under a bowl.
Instead, they put it on its stand, and
it gives light to everyone in the house.
In the same way, let your light shine
before men, that they may see your good
works and praise or glorify your Father in
heaven.
Light to the world, glory to God.
Now this text, as I've already indicated, needs
to be seen in closest proximity to the
words that precede it, referring to believing men
and women as the salt of the earth.
Important as it is to recognize that if
we are truly the subjects of God's kingdom,
then we qualify to be known as the
salt of the earth, and should function as
such.
Important as that is, it is nevertheless a
mere aspect of Christian duty.
As a matter of fact, to act as
the salt of society is simply to act
as a kind of temporary stopgap in preparation
for something else that our Lord requires, requires
us to do, and desires to bring into
the situation of need in this world of
ours.
Simply to frustrate evil from spreading, important though
that may be in itself, it is only
a preparatory measure.
The world needs light.
Light that will disperse the moral and the
spiritual darkness that has made it corrupt in
the first place.
And so we are to act as salt
particularly in order to prepare the way for
the bringing in of the light that will
illumine the darkness, and show the way out
of the world's exigency and plight.
And believe it or not, that is your
task and mine today.
Jesus turned to a group of his followers
2,000 years ago, and he said to
them, without exception, he said to them, you
are the light of the world.
You're it.
I utter these words to no one else
but to you, my people, my followers, my
disciples, subjects of my kingdom.
You, he says, are the light of the
cosmos.
I'm particularly grateful to God for the providence
that has arranged for us to be meditating
on this particular passage today on the occasion
of our 164th anniversary.
There have been here over the years those
who have acted together in concert as the
light of this society, and their light has
been spread far abroad.
We thank God upon every remembrance of them.
But we need to be reminded that this
is the ongoing task of those of us
who may already know what it is to
be the salt of society.
Being salt, acting as salt, we are nonetheless
over and above that to bring something into
our human situation which Jesus speaks of as
light.
You are the light of the world.
It's very apposite, it seems to me, that
we should be thinking of this here on
the occasion of our anniversary, and also particularly
perhaps at the commencement of our missionary conference.
May the Lord in his goodness enable us
by the Spirit to understand something of what
Jesus had on his heart and on his
mind when he sat there on the hilltop
and gathered some men and women together and
addressed these words to them on that first
occasion.
That was a very fruitful sermon.
It has borne fruit down through the centuries.
As we consider these words this morning, may
they be fruitful today in each of our
lives.
Now there are many things here that are
important.
I would like to confine myself this morning
to three main points.
One, and the first, I would like us
to look again at the designation of the
subjects of the kingdom of God, how Jesus
addresses them, what he calls them, how he
designates them.
Does this startle you?
You, says Jesus, you are the light of
the world.
Who are they?
Let me just summarize very briefly, but we've
got to be clear about this.
We've already indicated that they are the subjects
of his kingdom, his followers, but who are
they?
What is there to characterize them?
Well, you read back into Matthew's Gospel or
one of the other Gospels and you don't
have far to go.
You will discover that there are men and
women who have responded to the summons to
repent of their sins, to turn away from
them in faith to the Lamb of God
who had come to bear away the sin
of the world.
There are men and women who've repented of
their sins, come to have faith in the
Lord Jesus Christ, and are now under the
yoke of King Jesus.
Use any language you like, but they've come
into the kingdom of God, under the rule
of God, and they've submitted themselves to that
rule.
And part of the discipline involved, of course,
is that of moving along the lines of
spiritual experience enumerated and outlined in the Beatitudes
that we took some time considering.
Putting their necks under the yoke of King
Jesus, the subject of his rule here upon
earth, that they began to move by his
grace and by his help and by his
teaching and inspiration.
They began to move along the line and
the level of experience enumerated in those Beatitudes.
Now, Jesus looks into their eyes as it
were and he says, look now, he says,
you.
They were not perfect yet.
I, well, don't let me exaggerate, but they
were far from perfect.
Nevertheless, the Savior looks at them and says,
you are the light of the world.
What do we have to say about this
designation?
Well, the first thing and the point I'm
convinced where we should begin is this.
Light is an appellation of God.
It is a name given to God.
It is a description of God.
In our invocatory prayer this morning, we thought
of God as light because the apostle John,
the apostle of love as he is generally
called, introduced his first epistle with these startling
words.
This is the message that we have heard
of him, that is of the Lord Jesus
Christ, and declare to you, God is light
and in him is no darkness at all.
God is light.
So this is a title, this is a
designation of God, of deity.
Now, if you want to analyze this, which
I am not going to do this morning,
but you will find that the designation light
is given to the Father, to the Son,
and the functions of light at any rate
are attributed also to the Holy Spirit.
But here in our text, our Lord Jesus
is looking into the faces, looking into the
eyes of men and women made of the
same stuff as you and of me, fallen
human nature, who had sinned as you have
and I have, who had gone astray, and
who had been recaptured by his grace, and
heard the call of his gospel, and repented
of their sins, and turned to him, and
he says to them, now listen, he says,
you are the light of the world, and
the designation elsewhere given to God, he gives
to his people.
Now, whatever you make of that, you must
make this much of it.
He thought of his people as God-like,
and fulfilling in this world a function that
is according to the nature and the purpose
of God.
He is almost saying, you are to act
as God to those who know him not.
You are to bring the knowledge of the
unseen God to those who don't know he
exists even, and certainly know next to nothing
about him.
You are the light of the world.
Not only is it a divine appellation, but
I want you to notice that it is
a derived qualification.
How did these men and women of yesteryear,
those that stood around our Lord Jesus, how
did they come here?
Well, we've indicated that in one way already.
How did they come to qualify for this
title?
But let me stress something rather different now.
Not one of them, not one of them
had such innate spiritual qualities as to constitute
them the light of the world when they
were first born, or as children, or as
young men, or older.
This was not something innate to human nature,
whether they were Jews or Gentiles, whether they
were cultured or uneducated.
That which constituted them light was something rather
that they had derived.
They had gotten on the way.
It had been given to them rather than
produced by them.
This is very important, very important.
The Apostle Paul brings it out in a
number of places.
Let me just refer to one of his
very conclusive passages, Ephesians 5.8, where he
puts it beautifully like this, and this is
the point I want to make.
Once he says, you were darkness, but now,
but now you are light.
He didn't finish there.
You are light in the Lord.
You see, he didn't say you were a
special species or you are light because you're
Jews or because you're Gentiles.
He didn't say you were born as lights
into the world.
He didn't say you had this always.
It was innate in your very nature.
No, no.
What he says is this.
You are the light of the world, and
if we may take Paul's words as explaining
that and expounding that, it is in terms
of your relationship with me, with Jesus.
And that, of course, is true here.
But what the Beatitudes and the spiritual experience
outlined by the Beatitudes, what they all lead
to is this, is to a submission to
the lordship of Jesus Christ and of God
the Father in Jesus Christ, and thus to
a knowledge of him, an experiential knowledge of
God in Christ.
And this is whence the light comes.
It is as we walk with him under
his rule, going his way, depending upon his
provision, walking with him, for him, he constitutes
us as light.
But notice, it is exclusively because of our
union with Jesus Christ.
See, we still have people, still have people
who come to Knox.
I'm sure they're found in every other church,
and they think that because their parents brought
them early 50, 60 years ago, and they
were baptized with a few drops of water,
they believe that they really have got it.
Though, in terms of a confession of faith
and trust in the Lord Jesus Christ, they've
never confessed him as saved.
And they are suggesting, therefore, that any light
they have is innate, inherent, something they brought
into the world.
No, no, no, says Paul.
No, no, says Jesus.
This is derived.
It's yours in the law.
Let me put it to you like this.
There are bulbs in these lights.
I take it.
I can't see it.
Yes, I can see one or two, but
the light is not in the bulb itself.
You take those bulbs out.
I don't know how you're going to get
up there, by the way.
Don't start imagining things now, but however you
get up there, you get hold of these
bulbs, take them out.
There'd be no light in them, not a
spot of light, not a ray of light.
There's only light there insofar as they are
in touch with power.
And that's true of every believer, of every
man or woman who is the light of
the world.
We are just like dead bulbs, light bulbs.
There is no light in us.
But bring us into touch with the light
giver and the life giver, and that very
moment the light comes on.
It's derived.
It's a derived qualification, as well as a
divine appellation.
Then the third thing here in this connection
is this.
It's very distinctive.
What did Jesus mean by saying that his
subjects were the light of the world?
And what does he mean still when he
continues to say to us, you are the
light of the world?
What does he mean by that?
Now let me divide this up a little.
First of all, I believe he meant that
his true followers are men and women who
have been intellectually and morally illumined.
Now you notice I link together intellectually and
morally.
Doesn't mean to say that you become a
great intellectual at once, but it does mean
to say that you've come to understand something
about God and about his son and about
the way of salvation.
So that in terms of the New Testament,
you have come to believe the truth as
it is in Jesus.
Now, if you live on a very high
intellectual level, that may mean more to you
than it may mean to somebody else.
But every man or woman has to satisfy
his own mind that the Christ of the
Gospels deserves to be trusted.
And every man or woman, boy or girl
must satisfy himself that it is a reasonable
thing to trust in the Lord Jesus Christ.
And to that extent, every Christian is intellectually
illumined of God.
But now that doesn't come alone.
The intellectual illumination is accompanied by a moral
illumination.
It's not only a knowledge of truth as
distinct from error, but also of right as
distinct from wrong.
And this is a characteristic of every true
Christian.
He has come to know the truth as
it is in Christ and he believes it.
And he has come to know what is
right in the light of what God has
revealed.
And he knows the right as opposed to
the wrong.
And he's dedicated to the side on the
side of the right.
So that you see, a subject of the
kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ, who was
the light of the world, par excellence, a
subject of the kingship and the rule of
God in Christ by the Spirit, according to
the word, is someone who has light in
him.
He's illumined.
She's illumined.
Paul speaks of it very graphically in these
words.
2 Corinthians 4, 6.
God, he said, sorry, I should have put
it like this.
For God who said, let light shine out
of darkness, made his light shine in our
heart to give us the light of the
knowledge of the glory of God in the
face of Jesus Christ.
God who said, let light shine in the
darkness on the first day of creation.
God, that same God has said, let light
shine into their hearts to give them the
light of the knowledge of myself in my
glory as it is seen in the face
of Jesus Christ.
And this is part and parcel of the
genuine Christian experience.
A knowledge of God in the face of
Jesus Christ.
Into the innermost soul of a believer comes
light.
Jesus is different from everyone else, and he
knows why.
He has light on the subject.
But a point that must be stressed, I
say it again, is that such light meant
as much the alerting of the conscience to
know right from wrong as the quickening of
the mind to recognize truth from error.
It is both moral and intellectual.
The second thing I want to say about
that is this.
It is a distinctive connotation because starting there,
we have to go on to say that
being intellectually and morally illumined in this way,
such people are thus because they have come
to share in the very life of God.
Have you noticed the way John, in John's
gospel, specially proclaims the gospel?
It is invariably in terms of offering eternal
life as the gift of God.
Life is his great word.
Some people have designated their commentaries on John
the gospel of life, life, life.
He that hath a son hath life, he
says in his epistle, and in other places
of course.
It's all about life, the life eternal.
My friend, when you and I are rightly
related to Jesus Christ, we have the life
of God.
The gift of God is eternal life.
He gives us life, and that life, to
go on from Paul's reference in 2 Corinthians
4, 6, to go on to verse 7,
that life of God we have in our
souls, and it's like having this great treasure
of life which is light in jars of
clay.
Our bodies are like brittle jars of clay.
They may last 60, 70 years, 80 years
even, but they get very brittle somewhere around
mid years there, and they begin to get
a little bit weaker, and you know what
happens.
I don't need to exaggerate.
It's a brittle jar, but inside it is
the light of the knowledge of the glory
of God in the face of Jesus Christ.
The life of the believer is a lamp
illumined by the light within, and the life
within.
In practice, the person who is light, when
he moves into circumstances of darkness, creates an
awareness of an altogether new dimension.
Now we're so familiar with this, it's difficult
to get it across, but when you go
into a place that is in total darkness,
and if there is electric light there, and
there's a switch, and you know where it
is, and you put the switch on, should
there be someone there that's been living in
that condition for a couple of years, man
alive.
It's unbelievable.
It's a terrible shock.
It's really something that cows you, something that
sends you down on your knees.
The light has come, and I'm in darkness.
When a Christian believer, man or woman, moves
into a situation of darkness, it is like
the light coming on where there has been
nothing but unrelieved darkness.
Now, of course, that's not always going to
be received kindly.
Indeed, there will be times when if you
go into a situation like that, you're going
to have a slap in the face, and
more than a slap in the face, Jesus
died on the cross for that.
He brought light where it wasn't welcome.
Light has come into the world, he says,
and men love darkness rather than light because
their deeds are evil.
Everything, everything exposed by the light becomes visible,
for it is light that makes everything visible.
See, when the light comes in, you see
yourself, assuming that you've been in a dark
place, and somebody switches the light on.
It's not been on before.
You look at your hands, they're dirty.
You didn't know they were dirty.
If there is a mirror, you look at
your face, and it's smudgy.
You didn't know it was smudgy.
And you look at your clothes, they're dirty
too.
And you didn't know you were dirty, but
when the light has come on, you know
where you are, you know where you're at.
And if there are anybody, if there's anybody
else with you, the same goes, you see
where they are, who they are, what they
are, how they are, their condition.
And listen, if you shine as light in
a dark place, and there is a way
out of it, the light will show the
way out of it.
Now, a person who has begun to move
the way of the Beatitudes will have begun
also to assume this moral quality as light.
And wherever he goes, he will go as
light into the darkness, sometimes making people uncomfortable,
at other times being the answer to their
prayers and the means of leading them out
into the glorious light of the kingdom of
Jesus.
One contemporary writer puts it like this, your
presence will help expose and sometimes expel the
darkness of this world.
It may not make you popular as you
will illumine dishonest practices in business, gossip in
the secretarial pool, loose talk and still looser
morals at parties, corruption in local politics, racial
prejudice, greed, selfishness, and other things.
And they will come to appear much darker
even to non-Christians because of what you
reveal of the holy character of God in
Christ in you, the designation of the subjects
of God's kingly rule.
You are the light.
Now, let me turn to the second thing
I want to stress, the location of the
present service of those who are thus designated.
Notice Jesus puts it like this, you are
the light of the world, of the cosmos,
of the creation.
Two basic concepts claim our attention here this
morning.
First of all, the concept of universality.
I stress this not just because it's the
beginning of our missionary conference, but brothers and
sisters, we need to be reminded of it.
The concept of universality, you are the light
in your little corner.
Yes, blessed be the name of the Lord.
First in your little corner, but you are
the light of the world.
And that puts some responsibility on your shoulders
and mine for the condition of the uttermost
parts of the earth, of the world.
The subjects of the kingdom of heaven or
of God or of Christ have a universal
mission to perform, and it is as wide
as the world.
Not only is it as wide as the
world, but these disciples of our Lord were
later to hear from the lips of the
same Lord, the same master, these words, which
shows them that it is to continue.
The light is to shine.
His people are to shine as long as
the age lasts.
All authority in heaven and on earth has
been given to me, said Jesus.
Therefore, go and make disciples of all nations,
all nations, baptizing them in the name of
the Father and of the Son and of
the Holy Spirit and teaching them to obey
everything I have commanded you.
And surely I will be with you always
to the very end of the age.
You notice?
All nations to the end of the age
till the climax come when Jesus comes to
consummate his purposes.
As long as time is given us, the
whole world awaits the shining of our light.
I don't know whether there is anybody in
Knox who is not involved in a missionary
venture.
I don't know, but there may be in
a church where so many people are so
dedicated, blessed be the name of the Lord,
and where so many people are prepared to
give sacrificially.
Could it be that there is one man
and woman here, or woman, in the heart
of this congregation, and frankly, you've never begun
to tithe for God, you've never began to
give sacrificially or to pray sacrificially for the
work of God to spread to the uttermost
parts of the earth.
Is there one?
I tell you, friend, you're out of step
with God.
You're out of step with God.
There is a fellowship with God you cannot
know until you begin to move with him.
Enoch walked with God.
You've got to walk with him to have
that quality of fellowship with him.
Next to the account of the invasion of
planet earth by the Son of God, I
don't suppose there is a more wonderful and
exciting story than that of how these subjects
of the heavenly kingdom, the kingdom of God
and the kingdom of his Christ, and those
that gathered around them as the days went
by, moved against all national impulses, moved against
the tide, and went out into all the
world spreading the gospel, sharing their light, shedding
their light.
It's a most wonderful story.
Against their natural and national reluctance, they became
emissaries of the king of kings and lord
of lords and went out to shed their
light anywhere, everywhere.
Read the story.
If you really want something thrilling in these
days, read the book of the Acts of
the Apostles again and read it all through
and see what it's saying and sit down
where you've gone through five chapters and make
notes of the outline and you'll see there's
something marvelous here.
As they move out from Jerusalem to Judea,
from Judea to Samaria, from Samaria to Syria,
from Syria to Cyprus, from Cyprus to Proconsular
Asia, from Proconsular Asia to Europe, down to
the very heart of the Roman Empire to
Rome.
What are they doing, these people?
Who's paying them?
No one is paying them.
Who's seeing to their pensions?
No one is seeing for their pensions.
What are they doing then?
They're being the lights of the world.
They're obeying their lord.
They're going where they've been sent.
Where there's darkness, they go into it.
And in the darkness they shine and some
of them die.
It was all because they loved their commander
-in-chief.
The apostle Paul refers to his job description
as God gave it to him.
And in the midst of it he says
this.
He reports the Lord of glory saying to
him, I am sending you to open their
eyes and to turn them from darkness to
light and from the power of Satan to
God so that they may receive forgiveness of
sins and a place among those who are
sanctified by faith in me.
Have you got it?
Why are you going, Paul?
Well, I've been sent.
What have you been sent for?
To open their eyes.
They're sitting in darkness.
To open their eyes that they may see.
Have you been the instrument of opening anybody's
eyes?
Have you set out on one of your
many days in 18, 20, 30, 40, 50
years to open the eyes of a blind
man or woman spiritually?
You call yourself a follower of Jesus Christ?
The universality of it.
But there is also along with the universality
of this the concept of antipathy.
You are the light of the world.
I want to bring this out.
We've referred to it already.
You cannot read the gospels and the epistles
without recognizing the fact that from the point
of view of Christ and his followers, mankind
is divided into two.
Two camps.
And a deep hostility, a hostility of the
kind that occasioned a calvary divides the two.
What's the difference between the world and the
church?
The world and the true church?
This.
The world will always crucify God incarnate insofar
as it can.
And once in time, the almighty God allowed
it to happen in flesh.
That's the world in its darkness.
It will crucify the Lord of glory.
And if God were here today, the people
of Toronto would want to get rid of
him if he came down as a man
among us.
And they would put the church has received
him, loves him, honors him.
He's under his rule, wants to obey him
and to represent him.
And that's the difference.
So you see, what I want to stress
is this, if you are going out as
the light into a world which is so
different, you're going to feel the antipathy.
You're going to feel the opposition.
I say this because I talk to some
young and older people who occasionally show a
surprise that when they stand for the Lord
Jesus Christ and witness for him, they're not
received all that joyfully.
Well, that should be no surprise.
It proves the theology of the Bible to
be accurate.
It proves that the word of God is
true.
This is exactly what the word of God
says.
You are going as light into the darkness
and people don't like to be shown up
for what they are and where they are
and where they're going.
They don't want to be there in the
darkness of death.
And if you're going to disturb them, you'll
have more than a slap on the cheek.
There's an antipathy here.
And you see, this is all important.
If the Lord is calling you to Christian
ministry, there are people who have a concept
of Christian ministry at home or abroad, which
is almost like that of a philosopher teaching,
who can say his piece and leave people
take it or leave it just as they
like.
My friend, that's not it at all.
We are here to persuade men.
We are here to declare the word of
God, to represent the God of the word.
And if that is the case, we're going
to get hurt.
You're going to get hurt.
I have known young theological college students and
prospective missionary candidates looking for the easiest place
because this has begun to come home to
them.
And they've been frightened.
Thank God for that fright, because it's true
to reality.
And our Lord would have us realistically facing
a world that crucifies his son.
And he says to us, if you're following
me, take up your cross daily and follow
me.
You've got to bargain with that.
There is no service for God and his
Christ that does not bargain for a cross.
Let me come then, let me move to
the last thing I want to stress this
morning, away from the designation of the subjects
of heaven's rule as light in their location.
Stressing these two matters, we have now stressed
to this last thing, the dedication required of
them.
And that's brought out here in verses 14
and 16.
The second part of verse 14, neither, sorry,
a city on a hill cannot be hidden.
Neither do people light a lamp and put
it under a bowl.
Instead, they put it on a stand and
it gives light to everyone in the house
in the same way.
Let your light shine before men that they
may see your good deeds and praise or
glorify your father in heaven.
Now, the first thing I want to stress
on the basis of those words is this,
a Christian is the light of the world
or the church is the light of the
world.
God sends us out into the darkness and
he warns us beforehand that we're going to
be ill-received at the hands of many.
Nevertheless, and this is the first thing I
want to stress, it is our most reasonable
command.
And I can't deal with that as it
deserves to be dealt with in total.
But the one thing I want to say
is this, when the Lord Jesus Christ said
to his disciples, you are the light of
the world, he was not saying anything unreasonable.
He was saying something which was most reasonable.
And for this reason, he was telling the
Christians to be exactly what he had made
them by his grace, nothing more, nothing less.
What is a Christian?
Well, we've already said, we've already referred to
that.
Well, let's refer to it again.
What is a Christian?
What happens to the man or woman that
walks the way of the beatitudes, that he
is the call to repent and to believe
in the Lord Jesus and to put your
neck under his yoke and obey him?
What does that make of you?
Says Jesus, it will make salt of you.
It will make light of you.
It will make you a luminary in the
world.
It will not only illumine you, it will
make you a lamp.
It will make you a luminary.
And you see, Jesus is only telling us
to be what he has enabled us to
become.
He's not telling a carpenter to be a
mason.
He's not putting any square pegs in round
holes.
He's not asking you to do something that
is contrary to your new nature.
He's saying, look, you've changed.
You've moved the way of the beatitudes.
You've seen yourself to be poor in spirit.
You've mourned for your sin.
You've become to hunger and thirst after righteousness.
You become meek.
You become merciful.
You become in some measure, pure in heart
and so forth.
You've gone this way.
Now he says, all that constitutes you as
light.
And the only thing I want you to
do is this.
Be yourself.
Just be what I've made you.
And what you're still in process of becoming
more and more perfectly, more and more adequately
as the days go by.
For there are levels to the experience of
the beatitudes.
My friend, this is what Jesus is asking
of us in the first place.
It's to be what he has made us.
Be what we've become by his grace.
Just be a believer.
Be what you are.
Now, of course, here's the rub.
If there is no desire in you to
shine, and if really when you come to
weigh it up, you feel, well, I can't
shine.
Perhaps you've never been illumined.
The light of the knowledge of the glory
of God may still be in your head
as an intellectual concept, but it's never come
through to your soul, to your heart, and
you've never been illumined, and you've never thus
become a luminary.
My friend, this is the hour to open
the whole windows of your soul that the
light of the knowledge of God in his
son should come in and bring light into
the darkest.
If you have no desire to be light
when your Lord says you are the light
of the world, and if you are feeling
it's totally alien to my spirit to be
a light in a dark place, my friend,
question your real experience.
For this is what the real saving experience
of God in Christ will make of a
man or a woman.
He will make you salt.
He will make you light, and if he
does not make you salt and light, it
doesn't matter what else it makes of you.
It's short of the mark, and it's better
to know it in time than in eternity.
Make sure of the fact that you're truly
regenerate of God, that a deep work of
God has begun in your soul, and you
become salt.
It is reasonable also, and it is something
for which we are responsible.
I like the way our Lord does this,
and with this I'll be through.
I like the way he says this.
There was no teacher like the Lord Jesus
Christ.
He said, a city that is set on
a hill, it just can't hide it.
I don't dogmatize here.
I'm telling you what I think the Lord
Jesus meant, and if you don't agree with
me, I'm willing to talk about it, but
I think this is what he meant.
Interpretations vary, but this is what I humbly
think.
I believe that Jesus was addressing the whole
of the disciples as one body now.
He didn't say to them, now you are
the lights of the world in the plural.
He said, you are the light, and that
meant that he envisaged them being as one
coherent unit.
Now fellows, he says, and women, if you
cling together and walk in my ways and
live under my rule and obey what I
tell you, you, he says, as a body
will be like a city set on a
hill.
You'll be evident everywhere.
Even by day, anybody passing can see a
city on a hill, but at night, provided
people, ordinary people are living there and they
have little lamps in their homes, however little
the lamps, if every home has its little
light, no one can miss it.
If you're set on a hill, it'll be
evident for everybody.
I was interested, I was reading something written
by a Canadian who's now domiciled as a
professor in the United States, and I want
to quote a few lines from him because
it's on this very point.
In Canada, he said, referring to his native
heath, native land, in Canada it is possible
to go camping hundreds of miles away from
any city or town.
If it is a cloudy night and there
is no phosphorus in the area, the blackness
can be total.
A hand held three inches from your face
cannot be seen.
But if there is a city nearby or
even 100 miles away, the darkness can be
relieved.
The light from the city is reflected off
the clouds, and the night, once perfectly black,
is no longer quite so desolate.
I like that.
You, says Jesus, are the light of the
world.
It's a dark night through which we're passing.
Men need darkness, need light in the darkness.
Cling together, says the Lord, and each individual
believer will add to the intensity and the
immensity of that light.
Keep clinging, keep near, keep as a city.
You belong to the one city under the
great King, under the sovereign Lord, in the
kingdom of your Father in heaven.
Keep together, and you will shine.
And then he goes on, and he gives
us something different.
He says, people don't light a lamp.
Generally, he says, in order to put it
under a bushel measure.
Some texts have a reference to the bed,
but I don't know where that's come in.
It's not in the earliest texts, and you
notice that the NIV has left it out,
because it's not found in some of the
most early texts that we have.
And I don't know that I'd put a
candle or a lamp under the bed anyway.
I wouldn't go to sleep with great peace
if I put my lamp there.
What about you?
Well, says Jesus, people don't light, at any
rate, this is the point.
I might have to push a candle under
my bed occasionally for some reason or other,
but what he says is this.
People don't light a lamp or a candle
to put it under a bed, to put
it under a bed.
You don't light it for that reason, that's
not the point.
See, their lamps or their candles, King James,
their little lamps in those days was just
a saucer-shaped thing with a little bit
of a wick and olive oil in it.
And sometimes they did put their lamps, as
they called them, under a bushel measure, an
earthenware bushel measure, like a flower pot upside
down.
And they did do that.
The reason they did that, because before matches
were available, it wasn't always easy to rekindle
a bit of a wick in olive oil.
And sometimes it took quite a long time.
So if you're only going down the street
for a jar of marmalade or something like
that, you weren't going to put the light
out, you were going to put something over
the lamp.
And so it was safe, and when you
came back you only had to lift it
off again and you had light for everybody
in the house.
You didn't have to spend a long time
puffing and blowing in order to try and
relight the thing.
So there were times when you did put
your light under a bushel or whatever, but
says Jesus, you don't light a lamp in
order to do that.
You light it in order to put it
on a lamp stand so that everybody can
see it and everybody can profit from it.
Now listen, he says, you were lit not
to be hidden.
Your good works, and this is important.
Somebody may ask, what is the light that
is seen by men that makes them praise
or glorify God?
Jesus says so.
Your good works, your good deeds were kindled
by heaven and made possible by the Holy
Spirit, and you were instructed to do them
by the Lord of the church in order
that men should see your good works and
say what a good boy you are or
a good girl.
No, no, no.
In chapter 6 we are told not to
pray to be heard of men, not to
give our arms to be seen of men,
not to behave in order to be seen
of men.
That's not the motive, but the motive is
that God should see or that men should
see what God has done in us and
God be glorified.
You are the light of the world.
You are the light.
I conclude.
How far does our light shine?
How far really does our light shine?
Can it be said of us as someone
was saying?
It should be of all of us who
acknowledge Jesus Christ as Savior.
I read here from one of the commentators.
He says, the norms of the kingdom worked
out in the lives of the heirs of
the kingdom really constitute the witness of the
kingdom.
Such Christians will refuse to rob their employers
by being lazy on the job or to
rob their employees by succumbing to greed and
stinginess.
They are first to help a colleague in
difficulty, last to return a barbed reply.
They will honestly desire the advancement of the
other's interests and honestly dislike smutty humor.
Transparent in their honesty and genuine in their
concern, they reflect both the easy answer of
the doctrinaire politician and the laissez-faire stance
of the selfish secular man.
Meek in personal character, they are bold in
righteous pursuits.
For a variety of reasons, Christians have lost
this vision of witness and are slow to
return to it, says Dr. D.
A.
Carson.
But in better days and other lands, the
faithful and divinely empowered proclamations of the gospel
of Jesus Christ so transformed men that they
in turn became the light of the world.
Prison reform, medical care, trade unions, control of
perverted and perverting liquor trade, abolition of slavery,
abolition of child labor, establishment of orphanages, reform
of the penal code.
All these areas were covered by men and
women who acknowledged Jesus Christ as the Lord
and walked the way of the beatitudes and
became salt and light.
Brothers and sisters, this is the challenge to
us.
Has Jesus Christ changed and lost his saving
power and his sanctifying grace with the years?
Or have his people somehow blunted the impact
of all that he has said and all
that he has given and become worldly and
somehow incapable of being what he is?
Oh God, have mercy upon us.
If the salt can lost its savor, we
can put our light under a bushel.
May the Lord enable us on this anniversary
occasion to go to the source whence the
whole process, where the whole process began and
to begin afresh if that is necessary in
order to come where he would have us
be as a people and as individuals among
his people in 1984 and until he calls
us or comes for us.
Oh Lord, let your word illumine our hearts
and our minds afresh today.
We are awed by the sense of privilege
that is ours.
We have entered into a very large spiritual
inheritance passed down to us at the price
of sacrifice and service, the kind of which
we are almost too ashamed to think about
because it was so costly and it shames
us to see how little we do in
comparison with those that have gone before us.
Our Father, grant us the privilege yet of
growing up toward the fullness of the stature
of Christ, that by your grace and your
renewing mercy we may be in our own
day and age light to the world and
glory to yourself.
That we may be the salt of the
earth, and in so being serve your unchanging
purpose for your creation and your church.
Oh Lord, hear us through Christ your Son
our Savior.
Amen.