The Light of the World

Once upon a time there was a baby eagle that fell out of its nest. Since that little eagle was too young to know how to fly, he started walking. He walked a long way, out of the mountains and down into the valley where he came upon a chicken farm. Since he was very hungry, he asked the chickens if he could stay there. The chickens took him in, gave him something to eat, and made him feel at home.

He grew up there in the chicken yard. Although he looked different from the other birds, that little eagle learned how to walk like a chicken, squawk like a chicken, and do all the other things that chickens do (except lay eggs!)

One day, he was waddling around the chicken yard pecking at seeds on the ground when something caught his eye up above. He looked up into the sky and there was a beautiful eagle soaring high above. He thought to himself “Oh, I’d love to be able to do that!”

As he soared over the chicken farm, that mighty eagle looked down from his lofty height and spotted the little eagle down below. So he swooped down and landed on a fence post beside the chicken yard. “What are you doing here?” he asked the little eagle.

“Well sir, I’m just minding my own business here in the chicken yard where I’ve always been.” said the little eagle.

The big eagle eyed him up and down and said “Spread your wings, boy. You do just what I do. Follow me.” And with that, he flapped his mighty wings and took off. The little eagle started flapping his wings, and he too lifted off. “Wow, this is fun!” he cried.

The big eagle said “Son, you’ve been living among those chickens so long that you were beginning to believe that you’re something you’re not. But if you follow me, you’ll find out what you really are.”

“But I’m scared.” the little eagle said. “I don’t know how to live outside of the chicken coop.” “Just follow me and you’ll learn.” the big eagle replied. So the little eagle began to soar and fly. He loved it.

But the chickens down in the chicken yard called up to him and said “Hey little eagle, get back down here before you get killed. You don’t belong up there, you belong down here with us.”

“No I don’t,” said the little eagle. “I used to belong down there, but not anymore. Now I’m doing what I was created to do. Now I know what I am. I’m an eagle, I’m not a chicken. I don’t belong with you guys anymore.”

Many Christians have the same problem as that little eagle. They just haven’t figured out who they are as disciples of Jesus, so they’re living an inferior existence. Spiritually speaking, they’re waddling around on the ground when they really should be flying.

In Matthew ch. 5, Jesus tells us who we are. In verse 13, he says “You are the salt of the earth” and we learned something about what that meant last week. In verses 14-16, he says “you are the light of the world” and today we want to find out what that means. We want to find out who we are.

There are three things I’d like you to notice about what Jesus said:

1. He said “You”. In the Greek, that’s emphatic. It’s as though he were saying “You, and only you, are the light of the world.” He was talking to His disciples, as you’ll notice back in verse 1.

The Jews thought that they were the light of the world, simply by dint of the fact that they were Jews. Over in Romans 2:19, Paul says “Now you who call yourself a Jew… are convinced that you are a guide for the blind, and a light for those who are in the dark…” The Jews thought that, since they had the Law of Moses, they were the “enlightened” ones.

But Jesus said “No. My disciples, and only my disciples, are the light of the world.” If you want light, that’s where you’ll find it. You won’t find it in the New Age religions, you won’t find it in Buddhism, or Islam, or Hinduism, or Judaism. You won’t find it in psychology, or philosophy, or science. You’ll only find light in the church, which is made up of the true followers of Jesus Christ.

2. He said “You are…” He didn’t say “You should be”, or “You ought to be”, or “Here is your assignment; here is what I want you to be…” He said “You are the light of the world.”

Being the light of the world is an integral part of being a Christian. It is not an optional extra. You can’t not be light. Because being a Christian means having Jesus living in your life, and Jesus is the light of the world. If He’s in your life, He’s going to shine. So your being light is a function of the fact that He is the light.

3. He said “You are the light of the world.” He didn’t say “You are the light of the church.” It’s when we’re out in the world that our light shines brightest, not when we’re in church.

I do my banking at the Meridian Bank over on Schadt Ave., and I like to use the Automated Teller Machine. But there’s a problem with the ATM at that bank. It’s located outside, facing south-east. And on a bright sunny day, you can hardly even see that little computer screen. Those lit-up numbers and letters can’t even begin to compete with the brightness of the sun.

But if you go there at night, you can see that little computer screen from far away. Because the light always shines brightest when it’s darkest. As Christians, we’ve got to take our light out into the world, where it is dark. We can’t be the light of the world if we stay in church all the time.

Now what is it about light that would make Jesus want to use it as a picture of a Christian? Three things:

1. Light reveals the pathway.

The other day, our church went before the South Whitehall Zoning Board. We want to increase the size of our parking lot. One of the things they told us is that we’ll have to put in more lighting. It’s important that our parking lot be well-lit, so that people won’t be out there stumbling around in the dark, tripping over curbs, hurting themselves, and suing the church.

Light reveals the pathway. It shows you where you need to go, and what you need to do to get there.

The other day, I was doing some wiring at home. And after fumbling around in the dark for a few minutes, I realized that if I was going to get that job done properly, I would need a flashlight. Once I got the flashlight pointed in the right direction, I could see exactly what I needed to do, because light shows the way.

And that is true in the spiritual realm as well.

Just this past Thursday evening, I had the joy of leading three people to Christ. And one of them shared with me, “You know, I listen to Charles Stanley a lot. And I’ve heard Dr. Stanley say the very things that you’ve told me tonight. And I’ve known for a long time that I needed to do something about my relationship with God. And now I see what I need to do, and I’m ready to do it.” And he prayed to receive Christ.

Dr. Stanley was shining the light. If you shine God’s light for people, it’ll show them what they need to do. It’ll show them the pathway. As Christians, we are the light of the world. We should be like spiritual streetlights, showing people the pathway to eternal life so they don’t have to stumble around in the dark.

2. Light warns of danger.

In our living room, we have a picture of the Montauk Lighthouse. It is located out on the Eastern tip of Long Island where there are dangerous shoals and rocks. They didn’t put that lighthouse there to be a decorative fixture, or a tourist attraction. The job of that lighthouse is to warn ships away from the rocks. When the sailors see the light, they know where the danger is.

One of the functions that we have as Christians is to warn the world of spiritual danger. Now, I’m not talking about becoming one of those weird characters who goes around with a placard preaching doom and destruction.

But there is a sense in which we need to shine God’s light on things that will destroy people. We need to speak out against things like abortion, and racism, and pornography—things which devastate people and do great damage to society.

I’ve been reading the biography of Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Bonhoeffer was a Christian who lived in Germany during the dark days when Adolf Hitler was in power. And Bonhoeffer, and a few other believers, dared to speak out against what the Nazis were doing. Most of the rest of the Protestant church in Germany remained silent.

But Bonhoeffer and a few others—they called themselves the Confessing Church—dared to challenge the crimes of Hitler’s government. Bonhoeffer was ultimately jailed and executed for daring to shine the light of God’s truth on the spiritual darkness that was all around him.

It may be that you, as an employee, need to speak up about some dishonest practice, or some immoral policy of your company. It may be that you need to intervene in the life of a friend who may be about to do something that is against the will of God. It may be that you need to speak up as a parent at a school board meeting, or as a citizen in a letter to your Congressman.

Now this kind of thing doesn’t earn you very many points in a popularity contest. But one of the functions of light is to warn of danger. And when we raise our voice against sin and evil, we are being light in a dark world.

Just remember to do it with love, because too many Christians have tried to shine the light harshly, and angrily, and used the tactics and weapons of the world rather than of God.

3. Light isn’t meant to be concealed.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer said “A community of Jesus which seeks to hide itself has ceased to follow Him.”

Jesus said “You 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.”

When Jesus said this, he was sitting on a hillside overlooking the Sea of Galilee teaching his disciples. And as they sat there, they could look out across the lake and see a large city on top of a hill on the far shore, about halfway down the lake. The white limestone buildings of the city gleamed in the strong Middle Eastern sun.

That was the city of Hippos, one of the cities of the Decapolis, and it was about ten miles from where the disciples were sitting. But they could see it clearly. Jesus may have pointed to that city as he said “A city on a hill cannot be hidden.”

The church is like a city on a hill for a world that is in darkness.

We live in the age of electricity, when light is all around us. But it wasn’t so in Jesus day. In those days, the people would use oil lamps made of pottery. They were little shallow dishes, pinched in at one end to hold a wick in place, and with a handle at the other end. They used olive oil as fuel, and a wick made of flax. Now to light one of those little lamps took some doing.

The usual way that you would kindle a flame in those days was to use a fire drill. That’s a dowel of wood, a bow, and a base made of wood in which there was a little shallowed-out part.

To light a fire, you’d put a few scraps of wood shavings, or cotton lint, into the shallow-out part of the base, and then you’d set your dowel in there and start spinning it with the bow. The friction of the rapidly spinning dowel would eventually ignite the tinder, and that’s how you’d light your lamp.

The point is that you wouldn’t go to all that trouble to light a lamp only to hide it under a basket or a bowl. That lamp would be the only source of light in your house at night. After you lit it, you’d put it up on a special lampstand to give light to the whole house. A lamp on a lampstand is doing what it is meant to do.

But in spite of the fact that Jesus says we are the light of the world, there are Christians who go around with their lamp under a bowl. They’re afraid to show the light; they’re afraid to admit to people that they are Christians. They want to be “secret disciples”.

But Christianity is meant to be seen. Someone has said “There can be no such thing as secret discipleship, for either the secrecy destroys the discipleship, or the discipleship destroys the secrecy.”

If you are a disciple of Jesus, that fact should be perfectly clear to everyone who knows you. It should be clear in:

- the way that you treat your neighbor

- the quality of work you do for your employer

- the way you conduct yourself on a baseball diamond or at a bowling alley

- the way that you give thanks in a restaurant before a meal (see NL article “People are Watching”)

Jesus said “Let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven.”

The Greek word for “good” used in that verse is an interesting word. It means more than just simply “good”. It means attractive. It means fair. It means beautiful. It means warm, winsome. It means a goodness that is warm and attracting and inviting, not cold and hard and repelling.

So much of the time, I fear that as Christians, we do the right thing, but we do it with the wrong attitude. Our goodness is cold, and hard, and unattractive. We turn off our non-Christian neighbors. We frustrate our children. We stifle our witness when we practice a righteousness devoid of warmth and love.

We are the light of the world, and we need to be what we are. We live in a spiritually dark world that desperately needs the light.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe was one of the most brilliant men who ever lived. He was a poet, a scholar, a philosopher, a novelist, and a playwright - one of the giants of German literature who, in his writings, tried to discover the meaning of life. Goethe was also a scientist who made advances in botany and the comparative anatomy of the human body. He had a giant intellect. His IQ was estimated to be 250 - the highest possible to measure.

But as he lay on his deathbed—this intellectual genius, one of the most brilliant men who ever lived—said with his last breath “More light! I need more light.”

If you are a follower of Jesus, you have the light that Goethe was looking for. And people all around you need you to let it shine.