Sermon Series: “Light of the World”
(Preaching: Pastor Stephen Magee)
Matthew 5:14-16 14 “You are the light of the world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden. 15 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. 16 In the same way, let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven.”
Introduction: Now and then
Matthew’s gospel was written in the first century. That’s a long time ago. What was the world like back then? In some ways it was very different than the world that you and I live in. Of course there were no cell phones and no car alarms. J In some ways life was much simpler. An event in Israel would not have been immediately known to the residents of these shores. Your buddy list only included those people that you knew in person. But life was also harder than it is for most of us here. The way of life was hand to mouth for most people. If you became very sick you were more likely to die.
Life was different in some significant ways, but in other ways that are very important, life in the first century was very much like life today. This may surprise you, but in 1st century Israel and throughout the Greek and Roman world of that day there were many, many people who were skeptical about faith. In other words, it was not exactly the Bible belt, and that is also true of us today in Northern New England. I spent some time in Atlanta over the last week, and if the folks from the Bible belt are to be believed, even the Bible belt is not the Bible belt anymore. There is a lot of spiritual interest around us today, and it comes in many shapes and sizes. That was also the case in the first century world. They had all kinds of interesting and competing ideas about God and the purpose of life, and so do we in Exeter in September 2004.
On a scale of minus ten to plus ten, if minus ten is as far from the faith of the Bible as you can get, and plus ten is the perfect Christian life, with zero being what the Bible calls being “made alive” (Ephesians 2:5), the spiritual climate in Northern New England today is probably about a minus 8. Most people have little interest in the way of salvation and only the sketchiest knowledge of the facts of biblical religion. Even those who know some basic Christian facts may have no real sense of how to put them together. This would have also been the case in the 1st century.
Jesus is telling His disciples in Matthew 5 that they are the light of the broader world around them. If you lived back then as a disciple of Jesus Christ and heard the Lord command you to “let your light shine,” the challenges that you would have faced in living and communicating Christian faith would not have been all that different than they are for you today. If it seems like a hard thing to let your light shine today, remember that this has always been a task requiring courage and grace. Remember this also: that God has been using people like us, with all our weaknesses, to shine forth His light into the world for many centuries, and I see no reason why he will not use you who are gathered here this morning as well.
The text:
“So”
Let’s take a look at a couple of words in our translation before we try to apply the point of the passage most directly to our context. The translation we are using begins verse 16 with “In the same way.” This comes from one Greek word that used to be translated “so.” If you know this verse from another version, you may be familiar with the words “let your life so shine.” The “so” in that phrase means “thus” or “in this way.” Let your light shine in this way. In what way? In a visible way (“that they may see”) and in a God-glorifying way (“that they may… glorify your Father in heaven.”)
If the light of the church is not seen by the world or if it is seen to be just the result of good people working hard and doing good things rather than entirely the product of God, then we are not shining in the way that we need to be shining. We may think that our light is bright, but unless we shine in this way, we are not glorious in the way Jesus is speaking about in this verse.
“Before”
One other word to look at – Let your light shine in this way before men. That word “before” means “in the presence of.” There needs to be an openness and clarity in the way that the church serves here in Exeter. We are not a secret society. We do not have a special handshake that only the insiders know. We are to be around all kinds of people all the time acting in ways that are a blessing and we need to present a coherent message that can be readily understood by all that would receive it.
Deeds and Words
There is no way to accomplish this good job of letting your light shine in the presence of our fellow citizens in a way that is visible and God-glorifying unless you combine deeds of compassion with words of glory. The deeds part is explicit in verse 16 – “that they may see your good deeds.” The words are equally necessary. Otherwise, how will people who live at minus 8 on a spiritual awareness scale know that God is the source of any good thing that we have done?
Let’s look at an example from the Scriptures of this combination of deed and word. The deed in this case is Peter’s miraculous healing of a man who was lame from his mother’s womb. This created quite a stir of course. In the absence of any word of explanation, what would have been the obvious conclusion of the crowd? “This Peter is an amazing healer! What power and godliness this Peter must possess in order to perform such amazing works.” But Peter does not allow people to think that. He adds the word that explains the deed, giving God all the credit.
Acts 3:12-16 When Peter saw this, he said to them: "Men of Israel, why does this surprise you? Why do you stare at us as if by our own power or godliness we had made this man walk? 13 The God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the God of our fathers, has glorified his servant Jesus. You handed him over to be killed, and you disowned him before Pilate, though he had decided to let him go. 14 You disowned the Holy and Righteous One and asked that a murderer be released to you. 15 You killed the author of life, but God raised him from the dead. We are witnesses of this. 16 By faith in the name of Jesus, this man whom you see and know was made strong. It is Jesus' name and the faith that comes through him that has given this complete healing to him, as you can all see.
What is Peter doing here? He moves the attention of the watching world away from himself and toward God. Peter is saying, “God did this. God, who is the author of life, and who gave His Son that you might have life, is the one who did this.” Apparently he feels the need to explain this to them, because he can tell that they are supposing that it was Peter who did this.
Here’s the point, if Peter needs to say something about God in the case of an obvious miracle to prevent people from getting the wrong idea of where life is coming from, how much more necessary is it for us to give the credit to God in our good deeds. People will certainly assume that our good deed just comes from us. By the way, we really need to be convinced that our good deeds truly come from God if this is going to work. We can’t just tack on a “glory to God” if we really think that our deeds come from our own goodness. We need to really believe that God has done it all. I think that people can readily tell the difference between religious self-righteousness and true thankfulness to God. Our obedience to God’s word this morning needs to spring from genuine gratitude.
Gratitude comes when we realize what God has done for us through the cross of Christ. This kind of gratitude is a sign that on a scale of minus ten to plus ten, we have passed out of the negative numbers, and have been given the gift of life. With that in mind, the point of this text should be plain enough for all of us here this morning to hear and understand. Jesus Christ calls us to shine forth His light into the world through good deeds in such a way that God gets the glory.
Good Deeds Alone?
I have two applications. First, if you are here this morning, and you are committed to good deeds, but not particularly committed to God, I want you to see that there is more to real life than your own good deeds.
You may not be entirely sure where you stand in terms of faith today. Consider this hypothetical. What if someone does not believe in God, but simply does a great act of kindness for someone else. What’s really happening in that situation? What is the message that the deed communicates? It is hard to escape the conclusion that the message is one of two things. Either the one who does the act is just a good person, or the one who benefits from the kindness is just a good person, or maybe their both just good people. Either way, that is not the message of the Bible. Good people don’t need God to die on the cross for them. The message of the Bible is about the love of God for sinners.
If our acts do not bring praise to God, then who do they bring praise to? But God will be praised. He is working out everything toward that great goal. Why not see Him in all His greatness this morning, and live your life for the praise of His glory from this day forward?
How can you speak a good word in this place and time?
Secondly, how can we apply this verse to those who are deeply grateful for the forgiveness that we have in Christ, and sincerely desirous to live more consistently for God? Our mission as a church is to faithfully love and serve God and neighbor. We express that through worship. We express that by making disciples for Jesus Christ. We express that by showing the mercy of the Lord. There are so many great ways to show mercy. Let’s help each other to do this. Let’s come alongside one another as a church so that none of us feels like we are trying to do this alone.
Let’s not debate whether deed and word are both important. We know that they both are essential. It is a good thing for us to help one another in the tasks before us. When it comes to good deeds, we can recognize and affirm the gifts of others, and add our own gifts to a common endeavor to make the result richer and better. When it comes to opportunities for good words that mercy may provide, let us admit together that the world that we live in, like the 1st century world of Jesus, is not a “just-about-zero” world where everyone we know is ever so close to faith in Jesus Christ. There is much resistance to good news. We need to remain in contact with those around us. We need to be available more than once with words that give glory to God if people are to see that the mercy we show them is not about us, or even about them. It’s all about God.
Conclusion: An Invitation
Finally, I want to say one more thing to those of you who sense that God is calling you here today to have a more explicitly Christian life. Let me invite you to discover your faith within this community of faith, where your good deeds will flow from God’s mercy to you. Do you know that mercy? If you think that you need to be good enough in order to win His pleasure, than you do not know that mercy yet. Come and discover the real message of mercy. That’s what our newcomer’s class is all about. Spend six 30-minute sessions over the next several Sundays, and get the clarity that you need to know God’s love for you and His purpose for your life.