Matthew chapter 5, verse 14. You are the light of the world. Think about it now. The Lord
Jesus Christ, God himself in the flesh, sits on a mountainside. He's sitting and teaching his
disciples, and he looks at them, and he speaks to these disciples,
these fishermen, these nobodies, these ragtag people, and he says,
you are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill
cannot be hid. Neither do men light a candle
and put it under a bushel, but on a candlestick, and it gives
light unto all that are in the house. Let your light so shine
before men that they may see your good works and glorify your
Father which is in heaven. you are the light of the world."
What a claim, what a statement that is. How are we who believe
on the Lord Jesus Christ the light of the world? And as I
think about this from scripture, I see at least four ways, and
I'll mention these to help you organize your thoughts around
this. First of all, We are the light of the world because we
are the objects of God's saving grace in the Lord Jesus Christ. We just read in Isaiah 60 about
this and we'll read that more later, but we'll see this also
in another place we're going to look at here. We are the objects
of God's saving grace. This is the way that we are the
light. Secondly, we are the light of the world by declaring God's
saving grace in Christ. We declare it first to sinners,
and we declare it to one another. We are sinners, but we declare
it to those who are believers, believing sinners, for their
edification. And then thirdly, the other third
way I think that we are the light of the world is because we walk
in the light. We walk in the light of God's
saving grace in Christ in our lives. In ourselves, we walk,
we walk in truth and we speak the truth in love to others.
And then fourthly, the fourth way we are the light of the world
is that we show forth God's praise. and His saving grace again by
seeking Christ's glory in all that we do, both in the way we
live and what we say. So these are the four things
that I see here in Scripture, at least four things, that we
are the light of the world. And I'm sure that there are many
that we could discover. Light is a huge subject in Scripture. In the beginning, God created
the heavens and the earth, and the earth was without form and
void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep. The Spirit
of God moved upon the face of the waters, and God said, Let
there be light. Light was the first thing God
created in the world. And when He created the light,
it says that God looked at it, and said behold it's very good.
God saw the light that he had created and he said it's very
good. It was good for God to call light out of darkness because
that's what he did. He commanded the light to shine
out of darkness. He said let there be light and
it wasn't just Let it be. It was a command for the light
to shine. God called the light forth, which
couldn't be seen until God made it known, and he called it forth
out of darkness. Think about it. This was before
the sun, the moon, and the stars were ever created. When I look
at light now, you can hold up your hand outside and you immediately
see a shadow. And light shines, but where there's
shadows, you can't see it so well. And I think that in creation,
when God created the light, He created everywhere. You can see
everything. There was light everywhere. And
so God shows us by this that the light of the sun and the
moon and the stars are a created light. But the light God commanded
refers to a light that doesn't depend on the things of creation. And so when God said, let there
be light, He made the light to shine. Just as God commanded
the light to shine out of darkness in the beginning, so in the beginning
of His creation of us, He commands the light to shine. What is this
light? What is light? Well, as I said
in the beginning, God created it in 2 Corinthians 4. Take a
look at this, 2 Corinthians 4. I know that some of these things
are going to seem very familiar, maybe some not so familiar, but
it's important that we pull these things together as we understand
Christ's words. He says in 2 Corinthians 4, Verse
three, if our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost.
What does hiding have to do with? It has to do with hiding something
so you can't see it. And he says it's hidden to the
lost. What does that mean? Does that
mean that the gospel somehow is covered up so people can't
see it physically? No, it means that they can't
understand it until God makes it known. Men naturally are in
the dark. God describes our condition as
men, as blindness and darkness, like the world was. Before God
commanded the light, we're in the dark. And he says, if the
gospel is hid, it's hid to them that are lost. In whom the God
of this world, that would be Satan, hath blinded the minds
of them which believe not, That's the light of the glorious gospel
of Christ. You see what the light is? It's
the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should
shine to them. And then we read on. He says, what we're doing as
apostles in the church, we preach not ourselves. That would be
preaching darkness. But we preach Jesus Christ the
Lord and ourselves your servants for Jesus' sake. For God, who
commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined
in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory
of God in the face of Jesus Christ. Now, when God commands the light
of the gospel to shine in our hearts, in your experience, if
you're a believer in Christ, when you first heard the gospel,
when you first heard it, it's like you had never heard it before. And not only had you not heard
it before, as you did when God taught it to you so that you
were persuaded of it. But also, it shed light on everything. Everything seemed to come into
focus suddenly. Oh, there's a God who's sovereign. And the sovereign God has a plan,
an eternal will, and a purpose. And he's made promises according
to that will and that purpose. And those promises have to do
with what he's going to do in his son to save his people from
their sins. And he actually performed the
work. And the Lord Jesus Christ finished that work. And now because
he finished that work, Christ is seated on heaven's throne
and from heaven's throne commands the light to shine in the hearts
of chosen sinners. And God reveals it to them. He
shows them their sin and their need of salvation. And he teaches
them that their salvation is all accomplished. by Christ and
everything is done by Him. And we sit and we're amazed that
as sinners we could receive this light of the mystery of God's
eternal will and His work and His glory in the Lord Jesus Christ. And that's what we're going to
see here in a minute. So the first thing we see here is that the
light is something God commands, God has to call it forth out
of darkness, and that light in its interpretation in scripture
is the gospel itself. And so believers are, first of
all, the light of the world by saving acts of God in the Lord
Jesus Christ. And that light is always in contrast
to darkness. I wanna show you this in John
chapter eight. Again, a familiar passage, but
we will read it together and look at this because we will
see here at the conclusion of it, it is stated that Jesus is
the light of the world. I said that the gospel is the
light because the gospel speaks of Him who is the light. Verse
1 of John chapter 8, we'll read through verse 12. Jesus went
unto the Mount of Olives. After he had, in John chapter
7, had been in a discourse with those who were opposed to him,
and there was all sorts of animosity towards him, he leaves the temple,
he goes to the Mount of Olives, and it says, and early in the
morning he came again into the temple, and all the people came
to him, and he sat down and taught them. If it were me and I faced
opposition like he did when I left for the Mount of Olives, I would
have stayed there. But no, in the morning he gets up early
and he comes back to the temple. The Lord Jesus Christ has a will
and he's not going to stop until he's done that will. And not
only does he have a will that he's going to perform, but in
performing that will he's not reluctant to do and to say and
do all that he's going to do in public. He's not like we would
do, doing things quietly or secretly or being afraid that if someone
hears what we're saying, we might have to retrace our words and
back up. He does everything right in public. And so he says here, he sat down
and he taught them. All these people were in the
temple and he's teaching them. Now, he sat there for a purpose.
which is about to unfold here before our eyes. The purpose
is to teach them. And what he's about to teach
us, and what he taught there in the temple, is the most important
thing that God could ever teach. This is the light. This is the
light. The Lord Jesus Christ is the
light of the world. What he says is the gospel. And what he does is to work out
the words of the gospel in this account here. And this is light. It's shining light from God.
The Lord Jesus Christ is opening our eyes to the very truth that's
behind the veil that we wouldn't know unless God made it known
to us. And so this is, he doesn't just
say words, it's actually a drama that unfolds before our eyes
here. It says in verse three, and the scribes and Pharisees
brought unto him a woman taken in adultery. So they found a
woman, and she was committing adultery, and they brought her
to Jesus. And when they had set her in
the midst, all the people in the temple are there, and they
set her right there in the midst. They say to him, Master, this
woman was taken in adultery in the very act. in the very act. Now, Moses, in the law, commanded
us that such should be stoned. But what sayest thou? This they
said, tempting him that they might have to accuse him. Now,
the Pharisees found this woman. Did they just stumble upon her
and said, oh look, here's a woman committing adultery. Let's drag
her before Jesus and see what he says about this. Undoubtedly,
they planned this out. I'm convinced that it was a setup. It was a sting operation. But they didn't do it just so
they could catch the woman. They did it so they could catch
Jesus. Their intent was to destroy, to discredit. what Jesus had
been preaching, who he claimed to be, his mission for coming,
everything about him. And they thought, we have got
him. We'll get this woman, in adultery,
we'll take her before him, and we'll pose the question, What
should we do with her? And that's what they're going
to do here. Their intent was that they might tempt the Lord
Jesus Christ here. It says here in verse 6, this
they said, tempting Him that they might have to accuse Him
But Jesus stooped down. So their intention here was to
accuse him. What did they say? Moses, in
the law, commanded us that such, this woman who had committed
adultery, should be stoned. But what do you say? That was
the problem. Moses said this, what do you
say? Obviously, the Lord Jesus Christ
received publicans and harlots, publicans and sinners. And so
they knew this. He had preached it. He had told
them, I'm not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance. The sick, I mean not the healthy,
but the sick need a physician. All these things were to teach
them. And over and over he repeated from the Old Testament things.
I will have mercy and not sacrifice. These things were to teach them
that there was something in what he said and what he did and what
he was going to do was for publicans and sinners. And they hated this.
They hated it. And so they got this woman in
adultery and they brought her before Jesus and they knew, we've
got him. There's really only two options.
You either take what Moses said and do what he said, or you release
her. You either condemn the guilty
without mercy and honor the law, honor God in justice. Or you
let her go and you dishonor justice at the expense of mercy. I mean,
you honor mercy at the expense of justice. These were the two
options. You either honor God's law and honor Him in justice,
or you show her mercy. And in showing her mercy, what
would He be doing? He would be supporting what He
had been saying. They thought, well, He's preaching this doctrine
of mercy and grace to sinners. So he must be after their praise
and their honor. And so if we can discredit him
and say, all you're after is to make a name for yourself to
get these people, these evil people following you and shouting
praises to you, then clearly you're an imposter. You're opposed
to God. You can't be who you said you
were. You couldn't be the son of God and be opposed to God's
law. And so they thought they had
him. Two options. condemn the guilty and then you have to say
everything I've been saying and all the sinners that I've been
receiving I've been wrong or you have to clear the guilty
and then you have to set aside God's law and in saying so you've
discredited yourself as a prophet of God they knew they had him
two options there's only two here but what they didn't know
is that they were speaking to omnipotence The Lord Jesus Christ
is not concerned that men can pose a question He cannot answer. He's never ruffled by the fact
that men can outwit Him. Can a man approach the throne
of God, the court of God, and argue his case against God's
truth? So, this is what they do, "...and
this they said, tempting him that they might have to accuse
him. But Jesus stooped down, and with his finger wrote on
the ground, as though he heard them not." Now there's two times
in scripture when Jesus, not Jesus, but when the finger of
God is spoken of as riding in the ground. Because here Jesus
stoops down and with his finger he rides in the ground. And it
says here that as though he heard them not. He didn't speak to
them when they posed these two options to him. He didn't say,
well, I'm going to talk to you about what Moses really meant,
or let me justify why I'm receiving sinners. No, he just steps down,
stoops down on the ground and starts writing with his finger.
And there's two times when God is spoken of in Scripture as
writing with his finger. It says in Exodus chapter 19
that God wrote the law on two tables of stone with his finger.
And then in Daniel chapter 5, remember Belshazzar? Nebuchadnezzar's
son. He took the golden vessels of
the temple of God. Remember, the Babylonians had
captured the Israelites and taken them from their land and took
all that was in the temple to Babylon. And now Belshazzar was
drinking out of these golden cups and things and letting his
concubines and everyone not only drink out of them, but they praised
the gods of silver and gold as they did this. And while he was
doing this, a fingers of a man's hand appeared on the wall, writing
on the wall, meenie, meenie, teckle, you farson, this thing
that no one could interpret. And so Belshazzar calls Daniel
in after learning about Daniel and calls him in and says, can
you interpret what this means? I'll give you all this stuff.
And Daniel said, just keep your stuff. Here's what it says. And he reads what it says. And
then he says, and this is what it means. He says, it means that
you have been weighed in the balances and found wanting. That was the first thing he says.
And then he says, God has finished your kingdom. Well, actually,
I think he said this. God has finished your kingdom
and he's going to divide it. And then he says, the Medes and
the Persians are going to come in. Basically this. God, like,
you see the balances of justice, you've seen that portrayed, where
a woman, I think, is holding these balances, this balance,
and there's two sides to it. You know how they work? You put
something on this side and it goes down, and then you put something
on the other side to balance it out. God says, Belshazzar
was put on one side, and on the other side was God's just law. And the law was heavy. He didn't
balance it out. You're found wanting. It's like
a goldsmith or a jeweler. He puts the precious jewels on
one side, and he puts something else to measure them on the other
side, and very carefully measures it out, because it's very precious. And he knows that if it's real,
he'll be able to prove it by the scales. And so men are compared
to this in scripture. And the law of God does this.
It says in Romans 3 19. He says that the law whoever's
under the law, their mouth, let's read that together. It says,
we know, I'll just tell you what it says. It says, we know that
whatsoever the law says, it says to them who are under the law
that every mouth may be stopped and all the world may become
guilty before God. This is what God's law does.
It puts men on one side and it says, you're wanting. And it
stops men's mouths and it finds them guilty. And so here in John
chapter 8, it says that they said these things to tempt Jesus,
to accuse Him. But Jesus stooped down and with
His finger wrote on the ground as though He heard them not.
So when they continued asking Him, it's almost like they were
standing there not even looking at what He's writing. You know,
leaning over him, telling him, what are you going to do? What
are you going to do? Irritatingly, annoyingly, like
a donkey's brain, not thinking. And so he says here, When they
continued asking him, in verse 7, he lifted up himself and said
to them, with just one phrase here, he silences them, he says,
he that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone
at her. Look at Romans chapter 2. Romans
chapter 2. The same principle is spoken
of in scripture in many places, but here we see it clearly. Romans
chapter 2, after the apostle Paul, by the Spirit of God, convinces
all who serve divers lust and pleasure are enslaved to sin. He convinces them of their sin
and then he says in chapter 2 verse 1, Therefore thou art inexcusable,
O man, whoever you are that judges. For wherein thou judgest another,
thou condemnest thyself, for thou that judgest doest the same
things. But we are sure that the judgment
of God is according to truth against them which commit such
things. So what did Jesus write on the
ground? He stooped down and he writes
on the ground. These men continue asking him, what are you going
to do? Are you going to do what Moses said or are you going to
do something else? And Jesus stands up and he says,
whoever is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone
at her. Because what he wrote on the
ground, undoubtedly, was to stop their mouths. How do we know
that? Because immediately it says, it says here in verse 8,
again he stooped down and wrote, he's starting to write again.
And they which heard what he said, being convicted by their
own conscience, went out one by one, beginning at the eldest,
the wisest, even unto the last, and Jesus was left alone, and
the woman standing in the midst." So, here Jesus is now starting
to write again on the ground. These men, because of what He
said, and because of what He wrote, their mouths were stopped,
they had nothing to say, and they quietly left. What Christ
did was convince them of their own guilt before the law. And not only convince them of
their guilt, but convince them that they who judged were not
only guilty of the same thing, but the judgment they wanted
to bring on the woman was the judgment God would bring on them. And because They thought to condemn
the woman with this judgment from Moses, that was the only
thing they knew. It either had to be what Moses
said or death. So Jesus leaves them to their
own judgment. If that's what you want to say,
if that's what you want, then here it is. And undoubtedly,
the Lord Jesus Christ, whatever he wrote on the ground, I suppose
he would have written this, thou shall not commit adultery. Isn't
that what Romans 2 says? He says, You that preachest a
man should not steal, dost thou steal? Thou that sayest a man
should not commit adultery, dost thou commit adultery? You see,
God always turns it around. You want to judge the woman as
guilty. Are you guilty? You want to bring
death to her. Then if you're guilty, then you're
pronouncing your own death. And so they left. They had nothing
to say. all of their wisdom, all of their
craftiness to bring this woman to accuse her and condemn her
in order to get at Christ resulted in their case condemning themselves
and sending them out from the Lord Jesus Christ. And so you
see here really a mini courtroom. This account here is man bringing
his best accusation against the Lord Jesus Christ in order to
discredit him who is the advocate of this woman. Now notice here,
what did the woman say in this account? What did she say? She
said nothing. She simply stood there. She was
guilty. She had nothing to say. What
could she say? There was no excuse she could
bring. She didn't know how in the world she could be free.
Isn't this the way the gospel comes to us? God convinces us
that in yourself, you're guilty before God. You deserve the wrath
of God. That's what these men were saying.
Moses said it. Have you ever read the scripture
and said to yourself, I have to admit. That's me. And according
to what God says there, I have to admit. I'm under the judgment
of God. This is what God's word says.
And so the woman stands guilty. Guilty. But here the Lord Jesus
Christ is doing something to her accusers. First, he silences
her accusers. They come to the bar. They bring their arguments from
God's law. The balances are God's justice.
They lay the law on one side and they lay the woman on the
other side. And they're found to be in the same balance, wanting.
And so the justice, God's scales of justice are set there and
the men are found wanting. But the Lord Jesus Christ introduces
a third option, something they had never thought of, something
that men cannot know until God makes it known to them. We think
that there's only two options. If God says that He will by no
means clear the guilty, and the law says the soul that sinneth
is guilty and shall die, what's the only conclusion you can draw?
I'm guilty, I've got to die. There's no hope. And so we look
for something, and we don't know what to do, and the Lord Jesus
Christ does it here. He says, when they had continued
asking him, and he rose up, then he told them, he that is without
sin among you, let him first cast a stone, and then he stooped
down again. He stooped down again, and he
writes the second time. Now the first time, undoubtedly
what he wrote was convincing them of their sin. It had to
be the law of God in some form. Whatever it was, whether it was
the commandment, thou shalt not covet, or thou shalt not commit
adultery, or whatever it was, but it also included the judgment
that came with that. because they were so convicted
by it. If they had no sin, they could
cast a stone. Since they couldn't claim that
to be sinless, then they were guilty and they were condemned.
The law was written there. But the second time, the second
time the Lord stoops down. Now, this stooping down teaches
us what actually happened. First of all, when God wrote
the law, it was God's finger that wrote it. It wasn't man's
finger, it was God's finger. And God doesn't have fingers. God doesn't have fingers. But
the Lord Jesus Christ took on the nature of a man. You see,
when the Lord Jesus Christ stooped down the first time, it signifies
how that God, the Son of God, humbled himself. That's what
it means to stoop. It means to humble yourself.
He emptied himself. He made himself of no reputation.
He stooped down to write on the ground. And he stooped down at
the accusation of sinners. He who is the Son of God emptied
himself. He took on the form of a servant.
Here he is, bowed down to the earth as a servant. And not just
as a servant, but in the form of man, in the likeness of sinful
flesh. This is what he did. And then
he rose up. Because when he was on the earth,
the Lord Jesus Christ went around speaking to men the truth of
God's Word. That would be like his first
stoop. But the second stoop is something more significant. Not
just in his life did he write, as it were, with his words, with
his finger on the ground. But in the second stoop, he stoops
down and humbles himself a second time. Because in the second stoop,
it signifies the fact that Christ not only took on the nature of
man, and came to serve God and serve his people to save them
from their sins. But how he would do that is he
himself would become sin. He says in Psalm 22, I am a worm
and no man lower than a man because he was made sin. And so he was
made sin for his people and in the second stoop, in riding on
the ground, in riding on the ground in the second stoop, He
stands up, and we know that this second riding, this second stoop,
had to do with clearing the woman. Because when he stands up, there
was no man there, no accusers. And he looks to the woman, and
it's just him and her standing in the midst of this crowd. Remember
the setting, he's teaching. And he says to the woman, Woman,
where are your accusers? Has no man condemned you? And
she says, no man, Lord. So she knew that the men who
accused her were gone, but now undoubtedly there's this second
question in her mind. No man, Lord. What about the
Lord? That's the issue, isn't it? And
the Lord Jesus says to her, neither do I condemn thee. Go and sin
no more. And then look at the next verse
in chapter, in verse chapter 12, on chapter 8, verse 12. Then spake Jesus again and said
to them, I am the light of the world. He that followeth me shall
not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life." The
light of life. What does it mean to be the light
of the world? The Lord Jesus Christ has just
shown light on how God can receive a sinner like this,
this woman, undoubtedly guilty. She had committed adultery, a
sin, God said, and His law and justice is worthy of death. And
yet the Lord Jesus Christ stooped down. He honors God's law the
first time. in stooping down, and in bringing
the accusation against those men who thought to condemn the
woman, and then he honors it even more the second time, in
his second stoop, by himself taking the sins of his people,
and honoring that law. Remember Hebrews chapter 10?
the whole chapter. He says, sacrifice and offering
you would not. You didn't have any pleasure
in them, but a body hast thou prepared me. In the volume of
the book it is written of me. I come to do thy will, O God. The will that Jesus came to do
was to fulfill the law for his people, fulfilling all of its
demands in order that he might clear God cleared them before
the law and set them free of all accusers, especially the
bar of God's justice. He did what no one could have
done. It required the wisdom of God. How can God, who is inflexibly
just, have mercy and actually say that a sinner is perfectly
righteous in his side? That's not possible until you
add in the Lord Jesus Christ, the mediator between God and
men, who himself took all that God demanded of us and met it
in his own person. So that all that God requires
of his people, he looks to his son and finds it all in him. That's the gospel. That's what
the Lord Jesus Christ did. He did what no man could imagine
had it not been revealed and what no one but he could do.
He took away, he took on himself the sins of his people and took
them away and satisfied God's law both in his precept and his
penalty for them. And he stands in public and he
says, neither from the court of heaven, neither do I condemn
thee. Why? There was nothing to condemn
her for. God cannot clear the guilty. The woman had to have her guilt
laid on Christ. Christ had to bear it away. He
had to fulfill the punishment of that guilt before God in his
own person. The wrath of God poured upon
him. And she therefore could go free. Free, not because she
was guilty and Jesus just swept it under the rug, but free because
the balances were set right. Christ laid himself in the place
of his people. Every sin laid on him. And the
law was fully magnified and satisfied. And all of God's perfections,
his wisdom and his grace, and his justice were magnified to
an extent that could never have been done had it not been by
the death of Christ. That's what happened here, and
that's the light. That's the light that shines
through the Lord Jesus. That's the gospel light. And
Jesus said, I am that light. I am the light of the world.
He that followeth me shall not walk in darkness. What does it
mean to follow the Lord Jesus Christ? Well, what does it mean
to come to the Lord Jesus Christ? Remember what Jesus said? Whoever,
whoever, look at John chapter six. It's right here, just a
page back. John chapter six and verse 35.
He says this, Jesus said to them, I am the bread of life. He that cometh to me shall never
hunger. And he that believeth on me shall
never thirst." Coming and believing are synonyms for the same thing.
When we believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, when we come to God resting
on the fact that everything God requires of His people, everything
God requires of me, Everything that I've done that demands God's
punishment against me, He has met in the Lord Jesus Christ
and taken it away. Did I deserve it? Did I do something? Absolutely not. Could my sin
be so great as to Make what Christ did not enough? Absolutely not. There's nothing about me that
could stop Christ from satisfying God's justice. It all hinged
upon His worth, His righteousness, His merit and not mine. But coming
to Christ is resting. It's coming to Him and saying,
I am a sinner. I am guilty. There's nothing
I can do. and then leaving it all there.
Grace is God doing everything. And not just doing everything,
attempting to do something to save us, but actually saving
us in Christ. Grace is those two things. It's
of God, God's plan, God's bringing it, God's doing it, God doing
everything, and then God actually fulfilling what He would do.
So it's not just an attempt, not just a run-up or filling
a bag of something that we can then reach in and grab and take
out of. No, God actually brings it and puts it on us and gives
it to us and saves us. He commands the light to shine
out of darkness. He raises the dead to life. He
does all that because the Lord Jesus Christ satisfied God for
His people. And coming to God, coming to
Christ, is resting on that. And so therefore, following Him,
following Him is continuing. You come to Him and you follow
Him. That's continuing in believing.
It says in Hebrews 3, 6 We are the house of Christ if we hold
fast the confidence and the rejoicing of the hope firm unto the end. Or in verse 14 of Hebrews 3,
we're partakers of Christ if we hold the beginning of our
confidence steadfast to the end. So everything here is spoken
of as coming and following has to do with resting everything
on Christ. You see, we don't come to do
something. We come to receive. We come to
be washed. We come to have our eyes open. We come to have life from the
dead. We come to Christ for everything.
What do we need? What do you need to be saved? Christ alone. If Christ alone
is not enough, then you don't believe him. You don't have,
there's not enough in the universe to save you if he's not enough
all by himself. Christ alone, by grace alone. When God chose his people, he
determined who would be saved. When Christ died, he actually
saved them. And when he rose to heaven's
throne, he actually sent his spirit to raise them from spiritual
death and to open the eyes of their spiritual darkness to give
them light. And so he says, if you're following
me, you don't walk in darkness, you have the light of life. So that's the first thing. We're
the objects of God's saving grace in Christ. And therefore, we
have this light of life. And we are the light of the world.
Then in Isaiah 60, which we read earlier. Just go back there briefly.
I don't want to take too much time in Isaiah 60. We already
read through that. But look at this together. Because
Isaiah 60 is a prophecy that this is what would happen. It
says, Arise, shine, for thy light is come, and the glory of the
Lord is risen upon thee. The church is spoken of here.
A church is the body of believers. It's every believer as together,
and it's each believer individually. You arise, you shine. When God
says rise, we think, well, how am I going to do that? I can't
walk, or I'm dead, or I can't believe. What do we do? Remember
when God created the light in the beginning? Was it possible for the light
to disobey? God said, let there be light. He commanded the light to shine
out of darkness. God shines the gospel into our
hearts. He commands it. But in our experience,
we hear the command to believe, and what do we immediately do?
I can't believe. I don't understand. I don't know
what to do. And the answer of God is always
the same. Look unto me, all the ends of
the earth, and be ye saved, saith the Lord, for I am God. That's
Isaiah 45, 22. He says, look unto me. And so
when he says, arise and shine, he's saying, Receive the gospel. Believe the gospel. Hear what
God has done. Listen. It says in Isaiah 55,
hear and your soul shall live. You stop thinking about what
you're going to do. You stop thinking about the limitations
of yourself. You stop thinking about the sin
that prevents you from coming to God. And you look at the Lord
Jesus Christ, and you find that God has done everything in him. you realize that it's Christ
who died. And God commands us to rise and
shine, for your light has come. And then he compares the darkness.
He says, Behold, the darkness shall cover the earth, gross
darkness the people, but the Lord shall arise upon thee, and
his glory shall be seen upon thee. Who would arise? The Lord. Who is the light of the world?
The Lord Jesus Christ. What does he do when he comes?
He tells us what he's done. He tells us how God gave him
this to do, to save his people from their sins, how he's accomplished
that in himself. And he says, this is your light.
This is your light. This is the glory of God shining
on you. As the Egyptians were in darkness,
And the Israelites had light in their dwellings, or as the
cloud in the wilderness shined light on the Israelites, but
was darkness to the Egyptians. So God gives the gospel to his
people. And until God gives us his word
and makes it ours, so that when we hear it, we embrace it. We're persuaded of it. This is
all my hope. This is all my salvation. This
is my joy, that God would receive me for another's sake, for Christ's
sake. And we rest upon it. And in that
resting upon it, it becomes a light to everything, a light in all
of our darkness. We now can know how we can come
to God. And now we see how God could
save sinners for Jesus' sake. It's just light. It's everything
to us. And so God declares His saving
grace to us that we might be saved and we declare this to
others so that they might be saved because this was the message
of Isaiah 60. You, the people of God, You are
the ones on whom God has given this light. Now, Gentiles, the
islands, everything's gonna be flowing together to you to build
up this city, and this city is the city of God, the people of
God. Mentioned in Revelation, this
is the church of God. We are the light of the world
because God has made us so, and in being the light of the world,
the objects of God's saving grace, we now hold in ourselves the
only way that God can receive sinners in Christ, and we declare
it as such. So the third way we see this
is in walking in the light. Look at 1 John 1. We walk in the light as he is
in the light. How does God save me in all my
sin? We feel tempted to sin, or we
fall into sin, and we're guilty. What do we do? What do we do
at that point? Do we say, well, I knew I couldn't
keep up my Christian walk, and I'm just a failure. I just can't
help myself and go from there. Or do we come like this in 1
John 1? If we walk in the light, as he
is in the light, We have fellowship one with another, and the blood
of Jesus Christ His Son cleanseth us from all sin. What does it
mean to walk in the light? Well, what's the light? It's
Christ. What He's done to save sinners.
What is it to walk in that? It means to stand in it. It means
to live to God. Coming to God. Walking in faith.
That's what we do. We walk by faith. Do we not?
And walking by faith. Don't we see Christ? Isn't following
Him and coming to Him and walking by faith. Isn't that all walking
in the light? It is. It's looking to Christ
in everything. And not straying from Him. Not
going somewhere else. Not thinking, well I couldn't
do it, so therefore I'm going to give up. Or, I couldn't do
it this time, but man I'm going to do it the next time. No, we
look to Christ every time. I never found strength in myself.
I never found worth in myself, but I find it in Him. And so
that's what we say. In verse eight, if we say we
have no sin, we deceive ourselves. That's not light, that's darkness.
And the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is
faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us
from all unrighteousness. That's light. Someone who walks
in the light, they know how God saves sinners. and they confess
their sins, and they do it sorrowfully, like David in Psalm 51, but they
do it openly, knowing that God looks at His Son, and they come,
Lord, consider Christ for my sake. and receive me for his
sake. And then he says in verse 10,
if we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar and his word
is not in us. That would be to deny that we're
sinners. But in verse one of chapter two,
my little children, these things I write to you that you sin not. And if any man sin, we have an
advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ, the righteous. What a
comfort that is, isn't it? Jesus told the woman, go and
sin no more. Neither do I condemn thee, go
and sin no more." I was thinking about this the other day. As
a believer, we want to obey God in everything, don't we? But
we don't trust anything that we do. We trust Christ alone. And those two things are always
together. I want I want to obey God in
everything. And yet, I have to trust only
Christ. Because I know in myself, I can
do nothing. And I have nothing. And I am
nothing. But Christ is all. And so we
walk in that. Lord, help my unbelief. Isn't that what the man prayed?
All things are possible to him that believeth. Lord, help my
unbelief. Or like the disciples, Lord,
increase our faith. And so that's walking in the
light. And then lastly, I want to show in Ephesians chapter
5. Look at this with me, this one
more thing. I don't want to over tire you
with these. Ephesians chapter 5. We're going to read verse 1.
We could read chapter 4 as well, but I'll just restrict it to
verse 1, the first 17 verses. I'm just going to read through
this. He says, Be ye therefore followers of God as dear children. Verse 2 of Ephesians 5, And walk
in love, as Christ also hath loved us, and hath given himself
for us. an offering and a sacrifice to
God for a sweet smelling savor. Sometimes I wonder, where does
it say that, this or that in the scripture? How do I know?
How can I be comforted? Remember these verses. Mark,
put your pen down on a piece of paper or on your Bible or
whatever it takes and underline it. Christ has loved us and given
himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet
smelling savor. That means God has accepted him
because he loved us and gave himself for us. Verse three. But fornication, And uncleanness
or covetousness, let it not be once named among you as becometh
saints. Remember what Jesus said, I don't
condemn you, go and sin no more. Neither filthiness, nor foolish
talking, nor jesting, which are not convenient, but rather giving
of thanks. For this you know, that no whoremonger,
nor unclean person, nor covetous man, who is an idolater, hath
any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God. A man who
lives his life, a man or a woman, a boy or a girl, who lives their
life seeking their own way, and longing to satisfy their own
desires. They live for themselves. They
have no concern with Christ. That's an idolater. An idolater
is someone who seeks the silver and gold, that's covetousness,
and thinks of that like men thought of idols. It's something to be
worshipped. They spend their time seeking silver and gold. But if God has given us this
light, then we see the emptiness of those things. And even though
we still have this old man who desires the foolish things that
are empty and darkness, yet we have the light also and we confess
our sins and we say, Lord. Give me grace. Your grace alone
will deliver me from the dominion of my old man. Give me grace,
Lord. And we keep walking. Verse 6.
Let no man deceive you with vain words. For because of these things,
these things he just mentioned there, comes the wrath of God
upon the children of disobedience. Be not ye therefore partakers
with them? For you were sometimes darkness,
but now are you light in the Lord. Walk as children of the
light. For the fruit of the Spirit is
in all goodness and righteousness and truth, proving what is acceptable
to the Lord. Have no fellowship with the unfruitful
works of darkness, but rather reprove them. For it is a shame
even to speak of those things which are done of them in secret.
But all things that are reproved are made manifest by the light. For whatsoever does make manifest
is light. Wherefore he saith, Awake thou
that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give
thee light. See then that you walk circumspectly,
not as fools, but as wise, redeeming the time because the days are
evil. Wherefore, be not unwise, but understanding what the will
of the Lord is." You see that? It's exactly what Jesus said
in a shorter way, I don't condemn you, go and sin no more. And
we say, Lord, help my unbelief and help me not to do those things
that lead my mind to confusion and separate me from your grace,
from your comfort of your grace. We lose the sense of Christ's
presence when we give ourselves over to the things of the flesh.
Let's pray. Father, thank you for the light
of the Lord Jesus Christ. He is that light, and what He
said and what He did shows us the heart of God, how that He's
not only just but merciful, and how He can reconcile His justice
and His mercy in the person of the Lord Jesus because of His
love for sinners to His glory and our salvation. Thank you
that Christ has borne all our sin. Help us to be thankful and
to be giving thanks and have our minds stayed on these things,
whatever is pure, whatever is holy, whatever is good and right,
and not these things that were mentioned here, fornication and
uncleanness and covetousness and idolatry. Lord, we're so
prone. to wander like sheep out of the
way. We're so prone to go after what
things satisfy our physical desires and our mind instead of the things
of Christ. We pray, Lord, your almighty
grace would hold us fast. You would shine the light of
the gospel to show how much you've saved us from and what it took
to save us. the reality of eternal glory so that we would depart
from these things and cling to Christ. Give us grace, Lord,
for your namesake. Make us light in this world.
Help us to speak the truth as we've been saved and to walk
in the light we know. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.