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Reading from Matthew 5:14-16 where Jesus says that you are the light of the world, and a city set on a hill cannot be hidden, so let your light shine before others. Visit wwutt.com for all our videos!
The world will say that everybody is full of light, and you just need to let your light shine. But what does the Bible say about what's in you? You're full of darkness, until Christ shines his light in you, and then you may shine, when we understand the text.
This is when we understand the text, studying God's word to reach all the riches of full assurance in Christ. Thank you for subscribing, and if this has ministered to you, please let others know about our program.
Here once again is Pastor Gabe Hughes.
Thank you, Becky. In our study of the Sermon on the Mount, we're in Matthew chapter 5, verses 13 to 16. Last week looked at verse 13, but I'm going to go ahead and read that again, as we'll recap the section and then pick up where we left off.
Reading from the Legacy Standard Bible, hear the word of the Lord. You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt has become tasteless, how will it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled underfoot by men.
You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden, nor does anyone light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on the lamp stand, and it gives light to all who are in the house. Let your light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works and glorify your Father who is in heaven.
Last week, I played a sermon that I did out of Matthew chapter 5, verse 13 on being the salt of the earth. I'm going to come to that next sermon today, and I'm splitting this up into two parts. So between today and tomorrow, we'll be in Matthew 5, verses 14 to 16 about being the light of the world.
Here's what I preached about this time, two years ago, when we were walking with our church through the Sermon on the Mount. Before I got married, I had a pastor say to me that you are like a lamplighter.
As a husband and as a father to your family, he gave me this illustration of the lamplighters from back in the 19th century who were responsible for lighting the street lamps. This was in an age before electricity, and not only did they have like this long wick that they would use to light these tall lanterns, but they also had the responsibility to make sure every one of those lanterns had the proper amount of oil in them so that they would stay lit.
And he said, in the same way, you are a lamplighter for your family. For you as the husband and father, you have the responsibility of shining the light of the gospel to your family. You maintain this responsibility.
You teach your children right and wrong according to what God says is right and wrong. And you are the one who shares the gospel with them. Don't leave it to the world to teach your kids. It's your responsibility to teach your kids.
And I'll never forget him saying to me as well, if you don't teach your children, there's an enemy out there who would be more than willing to do it for you. So be a lamplighter for your family. I did not realize after receiving that advice that I would have throughout my marriage and throughout my fatherhood, a constant tangible reminder of this responsibility to be a lamplighter.
Not just in the spiritual sense, but there's even something that I do every single day that's a tangible reminder of this responsibility to maintain the light for my family. For as a dad, every single day, I walk through my house and turn off lights.
Are there any other dads out there that have to do this every single day? Yes. Amen, brothers. We're in this struggle together. But no, I rejoice to do this because again, it's that reminder. It's something that I do physically.
Turn a light off. All my kids are leaving lights on. I'm turning this like light maintenance throughout the house. But it reminds me that I am a keeper of light for my wife and for my children. And so Jesus says to all of us who are his followers, you are the light of the world.
A city set on a hill cannot be hidden, nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket but on a stand and it gives a light to all who are in the house. I think that this is an analogy, a metaphor that all of us can relate to in some way.
The salt thing that we talked about last week, that's a little more difficult. What does Jesus mean by you are the salt of the earth, but you are the light of the world. We understand contrasts between light and darkness.
All of us in some tangible way have been there. We've stumbled around in darkness before and somebody turned on a light and suddenly we can see. We just moved into our new house two weeks ago and I thank you to everyone who has helped us to move in, whether it was moving stuff, getting boxes into the house or coming over and giving us a housewarming gift or helping my wife unpack some boxes.
So I'm still getting acclimated to this new house and I don't yet know where all the light switches are or what they do. Within the first night or two that we were living there, Becky and I decided we needed to make a Walmart run.
So I went to Walmart and one of the things that I needed to buy was a nightlight. And specifically I bought this nightlight for the hallway because we're still waking up our youngest at midnight and taking her potty so she doesn't wet the bed.
Right? So it's good to have a light there in the hall that I'm not stumbling over boxes because we got boxes all over the house still. So I bought this nightlight. I come back, it's, it's already dark out.
The kids are already in bed. I turn on the hall light and I'm walking up and down the hall. I'm even moving boxes out of the way and it suddenly dawns on me. There's no outlet in the hall. Who, who doesn't put an outlet in the hallway?
So there's nowhere for me to plug in this nightlight that I have at least some amount of light I can, I can take my child to the bathroom late at night. Fortunately, Annie said to me, well, she wanted a nightlight in her room so I was able to give it to her and it didn't go to waste, but I'm disappointed.
There's no outlets in the hallway to give me some light. A few nights ago I was the last one up and I, as a dad, I make it my responsibility to check all the doors anyway before we all go to bed. So I'm making sure the doors are locked, doing the dad thing.
I'm turning all the lights off. I had already put my phone by my side of the bed and it was plugged in and charging. I turn off all the lights downstairs. I'm walking to the stairs and I suddenly realized I've made a big mistake.
I don't know where the stairs are. And I hit the stairs and I'm stumbling up all the stairs. I look for a light switch. I'm feeling on the wall. I can't remember where all the light switches are. So I just had to use the wall to guide myself to get to my bedroom.
And I thought to myself, how did we do this before cell phones? Somehow the human race has survived this long before we had that portable little flashlight we carry in our pockets too. Even when they were just flip phones, you would flip that thing open and find your way in the dark, right?
So we've all been in a place where we've stumbled in darkness, literally stumbling in darkness, needing a light to show us the way. And so surely we have at least that tangible experience to be able to relate to the metaphor that Jesus is using here when he says, you are the light of the world and a lamp is not put under a basket.
It's put on a stand. So it gives light to everyone. And he says in verse 16, 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.
Now even though we might be able to relate to this metaphor a little more easily than we could relate to, you are the salt of the earth. There are still people out there who take this scripture, they twist it and they teach it in a wrong way.
So we're going to talk about some of that as well, including and most especially what it means to be the light of the world. But let's go back and let's do a little more contrast than I did last week or a little more comparison rather between the statement that Jesus made.
You are the salt of the earth and the statement that we now look at more intently today. You are the light of the world. Now if you'll remember back to last week, I kind of broke up. You are the salt of the earth into three parts.
These seven words into a three distinct points. You are the salt of the earth. I'm not going to do that so much with you are the light of the world today, but just to remind you what we were talking about as we were discussing what it means to be the salt of the earth.
Salt was such an incredibly important thing in the world at that time. In fact, there were people who got paid in salt. That word salary means salt. So there were some men who did a job and the salary that they would get paid, they would be paid in salt and you've even used some phraseology related to this before.
If a man doesn't do a good job at his work, you say that he is a man who is not worth his salt. He's not worth getting paid. That's essentially what you're saying by that. So salt was such an incredibly important commodity in the world.
I was listening to a sermon from John MacArthur and in this sermon, he said he had just finished reading a book and the very title of that book was just simply salt. It's the history of salt. And he said, when you read that book, it's not just the history of salt.
It's really the history of the world. That's how important salt is. We don't really think about how important salt is to our life until we don't have it. But Jesus saying you are the salt of the earth would have resonated in a very powerful way with his hearers.
Salt was more valuable to the Romans even than gold itself. And he goes on to say, if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored? So there's something, there's some presuppositions that exist here as Jesus addresses his disciples as the salt of the earth and the light of the world.
And those presuppositions are this, that the world is in decay and the world is in darkness. And you as followers of Christ, he has made salt of the earth, that you may slow down this decay, that you may rescue souls who are going to destruction.
When you salt the earth with the message of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the good news that God himself put on human flesh and dwelt among us, that he kept the law perfectly as Pastor Tom is going to talk about next week, that he died on the cross for our sins, that he rose again from the grave, that he ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God where he is interceding for us on our behalf.
And he is coming back again to judge the living and the dead. All those who are in Christ Jesus have nothing to fear of that judgment, but we will reign with him forever in glory. This is the good news of the gospel.
And when we share this gospel with the world, we rescue souls that are heading toward destruction, that are in decay, that are dying. And when they turn from their sin and put their faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, they are saved, they are preserved, they are rescued.
Even more than sharing the gospel, we live out the implications of the gospel. And in so doing, we even reflect the goodness of God that has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit. The Apostle Peter said in 1 Peter 2 that you are a holy nation and it's living in this way among sinful nations that we shine a light of Christ to the world.
We preserve this world from going to destruction. Just think of what the world would be like without Christians in it. And so that the church is still here and that God is still doing a work through the church is in itself a preservation of the earth, which one day will be judged.
It will be salted with fire as is talked about in the scriptures. So we spread the salt of the gospel that those who listen to it will turn from their sin and be saved. If we change the message of the gospel in any way, it's good for nothing.
So Jesus says, if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored? It's no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled under people's feet. We cannot change the message.
For it is only by the gospel, believing in the true gospel, that which the Bible calls the gospel. It is only by faith in this. Jesus Christ, as the Bible describes Christ, not as Gandhi described Christ, not as Oprah describes Jesus, not as even many of these false teachers that stand in pulpits claiming to proclaim Jesus, but they preach a different gospel.
Not even that Jesus saves. It's only the one who is proclaimed in the pages of God's word. If we change the message, then it's good for nothing. If we present a different Jesus, it's not the true Christ.
It's a false Christ. And that message is good to just be thrown out and trampled under people's feet. So we're talking here about purity. When we talk about you are the salt of the earth, we're talking about something pure.
You change the composition of salt. You change what it does. So the same with light. You are the light of the world. We're talking about something pure there. Light is only one thing. You don't have different kinds of light.
Light vanquishes darkness. When you turn the light on, the darkness is gone. If I were to stand up here and I were to have a box in front of me, you know, maybe a little shoe box, got a box, got a top on it.
If I were to ask you what's in this box, and maybe what people would come up with different answers. But the one thing that I think we would all be able to agree on, though, you've not even seen the contents of that box.
We would all agree that inside that box is darkness. There's a lid on it. There's nothing on the inside. Nothing that's giving light. It's just darkness inside the box. What happens if I take the lid off?
Does the darkness come out of that box and then like all the light in the room goes out? No. The light gets into the box and destroys the darkness, right? Let's say all the lights were off in this room.
And I were to stand up here in pitch blackness and I were to light a match, just a match. Everyone could see it. We would still say that there's darkness in the room, but that darkness does not overcome even that small little speck of light.
The darkness does not overcome the light. And as I finished up the sermon last week, we were looking at that last beatitude in verses 10 and 11. Jesus said, Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.
Where does Jesus go from there? You are the salt of the earth. You are the light of the world. Right from persecution into these things that we may understand that though it's going to feel like at times the world is winning, the world has all the power.
The world is the one that is coming down on us. My friends, the world cannot vanquish the light. We are victorious in Christ. The light will overcome the darkness. We not only see that as a physical reality, Jesus has said that it is so.
And so as we go out with the gospel of Christ, the world is not going to overcome it. God will still accomplish the work that he means to do through the church's work in sharing the gospel of Jesus Christ.
Now last week, as we talked about ontology, you are the salt of the earth. I mentioned to you that we don't do something to become the salt of the earth. We are made the salt of the earth by Christ. Likewise, in verse 14, you are the light of the world.
You don't do something to become light. Jesus has made you light because Jesus is the light. Just like the moon is not the source of the light, rather the moon reflects the sun, which is the source of the light, right?
So likewise, we who are called the light of the world, we are reflecting the true light that has come into the world, and that is Jesus Christ. We're not the source of that light. Jesus is the light. Consider these words that John says in his gospel, John chapter 1, beginning in verse 5.
The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. The true light, verse 9, the true light which gives light to everyone was coming into the world. He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him.
He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him. But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, who were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.
So you are made light, not by your own will, but because God has so willed it. And when you heard the message of the gospel, and you turned from your sin, and you desired to walk in the righteousness of Christ Jesus, you reflect his light as the light of the world.
Jesus will go on to say in John 8, 12, I am the light of the world. And it's one of many I am statements that Jesus makes in the gospel of John. These are Yahweh statements. It's Christ proclaiming himself to be God.
In the next chapter, John 9, 5, he says, as long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world. Now that's interesting. The implication there being that a day was coming in which Jesus would not physically be in the world.
He would ascend back to his father in heaven. And giving his Holy Spirit into our hearts, we would go out reflecting the light of Christ that we would be the light of the world. And so we have this statement, Christ saying to his disciples here in Matthew 5, 14, you are the light of the world.
You are his disciples. You're the light. Now Jesus does not make an I am the light statement in the gospel of Matthew. But nevertheless, we have already seen this said of Christ even before we get here in Matthew 5, 14, so that we know he is the light.
And when he says to us, you are the light, we're reflecting the light of Christ. If you have your Bible open to Matthew 5, just look back one chapter in Matthew 4, beginning in verse 12. What is the apostle right there?
He says in Matthew 4, 12. Now when Jesus heard that John had been arrested, he withdrew into Galilee and leaving Nazareth, he went and lived in Capernaum by the sea in the territory of Zebulun and Naphtali.
So that what was spoken by the prophet Isaiah might be fulfilled. Verse 15, the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, the way of the sea beyond the Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles, the people dwelling in darkness have seen a great light.
And for those dwelling in the region and shadow of death on them, a light has dawned. Verse 17, from that time, Jesus began to preach saying, repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. So Matthew has made a direct attribution here of Christ being the fulfillment of those prophecies that were made by Isaiah about the light coming into the world.
Those references there were from Isaiah chapter nine, verses one and two, David read for us this morning from Isaiah chapter 49, showing how Christ is the fulfillment of the prophecy about the light that is coming into the world.
So Jesus is the light as followers of Christ. He says, you are the light now to go out with the light of the gospel message into the world, proclaiming his good news that others who wander in darkness may hear it and turn from darkness to the light that is Christ.
In Ephesians five, eight, the apostle Paul says, for you were formerly darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light. You will hear the world say to you that we're all light. Now we all have this inner light.
Have you ever heard that said before? It's part of yoga. In fact, if you got somebody that's actually teaching some of the more pagan aspects of yoga, a yoga teacher will probably say something to the effect of find your inner light or let your inner light shine.
The Quakers even have adopted this concept of inner light into their teaching, which is really troubling. And you'll probably hear even some of our gurus on TV, those that are those motivational speakers just trying to encourage you to be a good person.
They will say, let your light shine before others. They will say that just as Jesus has said that. But we do not have an inner light. That's actually a Gnostic teaching. The Gnostics taught that we all have this inner light.
What does the scripture say? All of us are darkness. We all have darkness in our hearts. All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. As it says in Romans 3, 23, the wages of sin is death. Romans 6, 23.
We just read here in the fulfillment of the prophecy that Isaiah says, we dwell in a region of a shadow of death. We dwell in darkness. And it's on those who dwell in darkness that the light has dawned.
Christ who shines the light in us, who formerly were in darkness, and now through the hope of the gospel, we walk in light. Second Corinthians 4, 6, for God who said, let light shine out of darkness is the one who is shown into our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.
All right, let's stop there and we'll pick up with the remainder of the message tomorrow. Heavenly Father, we thank you for the instruction that we've been given about being the light of the world. Teach us to know more fully what this means, that we may go out and do it, letting our good works shine before others, the works that have been carried out in God so that they may give glory and honor to our Father who is in heaven.
They may know the Father who has given this light to us in Christ. It's in his name that we pray, amen.
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