Sermon Transcript
Well, we’re going to look at that passage that speaks about shining the light that God has given us. And so we’re going to be in Luke chapter 11 today. Some of you know that we were planning to be in Luke chapter 16, but we’re going to save that study for next week. It’s just too long to do at the beach, and so we’re going to save it so that we can have both services and get the most out of that passage that talks about the one shrewd financial dude. That will be next week’s study.
But today we’re gonna look at Luke chapter 11 and a couple other verses here, so you may want to pull out your Bible, The Message note sheets, and be able to follow along. Hasn’t this been a great summer? You know, I mean, just that song, that was enough to make a great summer right there. But it really has been a great summer. So many different things.
That God is doing in the life of the church, whether it’s, you know, the Sports and More camp or students up at camps or the Story concert that we so thoroughly enjoyed here recently. And now just to, you know, be talking about another concert where Jon’s gonna come in, and I know many of us have seen him play. It’s an amazing, you know, opportunity. And to support Freedom House. That’s, that’s great to hear as well.
Uh, it’s the worship night that is coming up, but the hymn sing that we just had a week ago, there just have been so many extra things on the calendar. And so I, I just thank God. I hope you do too. I hope you realize that the Lord is doing a wonderful work in our midst. He truly is.
And we talked about financially, you know, we need to get caught up and Things are still moving along that way. You could see it in the bulletin. We’re really grateful for the gracious giving and the additional giving that’s been given, and we’ve got a big month ahead of us, but Lord willing, we’ll make the financial goals that we have. So, so many good things are happening. Well, today in the second hour, we’re gonna be over at the beach, thus my beach attire, to get straight on over there.
We’re gonna have a service on the beach, and we’re gonna be at Seabright Beach, and Seabright Beach is one of the 33 places along the coastal California coastal line where there’s a lighthouse. There is the Walton Breakwater, Walton Lighthouse at Seabright Beach. And this lighthouse actually somewhat new. It was just built 15 years ago. The money, most of it was donated by this man who lived in Los Gatos.
And had a desire to see the post that was over there— it was a light post— turn into something more substantial. And so they built this, this lighthouse. It’s one of the 33, as I said, that’s along the California coast. Why build a lighthouse? I mean, why have one at Seabright Beach?
Why have 32 others up and down California? And of course, we know it’s because there’s danger lurking. There are possible hazards there, shipwrecks, a potential if there wasn’t a lighthouse here in that area. So basically, a lighthouse is all about preventing tragedy from happening before time, right? And so this lighthouse is lit 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
Every day, every 4 seconds, there’s a green light that shines and it protects against the loss of life. As I was thinking about that, I was just thinking, you know, really Jesus talked a lot about shining our lights and a lighthouse is just a simple reminder of the light responsibility that his children have. Just as a lighthouse has a responsibility, if you want to say it that way, Jesus gave his followers a light responsibility, and I want you to just think about this just from his teaching as he built this responsibility. In John chapter 8, verse 12, Jesus said, I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness but will have the light of life.
Jesus said, I’m the light of the world. That was something that he claimed and demonstrated by his life and the things that He taught, the things that He did, by who He is. Jesus came into a spiritually dark world, a world where basically anything goes, where people are doing what’s right in their own eyes, just like in the period of the Judges. For instance, yesterday I had a conversation with a woman. I asked her if she had any spiritual beliefs, and she said, yes, I have all kinds of spiritual beliefs.
Well, that’s a tip-off. So I said, well, tell me a little bit about your all kinds of spiritual beliefs. And we had an interesting conversation, and I didn’t hear anything coming from her that had anything to do with Jesus Christ, who claims to be, claimed to be, the light of the world. He came into a world of darkness where people have all kinds of spiritual beliefs or other beliefs to show us the way, to lead us out of darkness into the light.
So we need that kind of light, right? I mean, we need somebody to come and to push away the darkness and to show us the direction that life was ever meant to go. Just a week ago, I was over in Phoenix speaking last Sunday morning at the church that I had the privilege of pastoring at for 7 years. And they are in a transitional time over there, and so they asked me if I would come back and, you know, speak. And there is a hallway over there that when I was the pastor, I used to walk through this hallway before the worship service began, and I would come out this certain hallway to get into the worship center.
And so I decided that I would take the same hallway, but the hallway was, was black. It was dark. There was no light on. I don’t remember where the light switch was. And so I decided that I would do this by memory.
What I didn’t remember were that there were stairs in the darkness. So the next thing I know, I’m falling down the stairs. Right? And the next thing I’m thinking about is this is not gonna be good when I walk out with a broken ankle right now. Probably won’t be able to preach this message that they’ve asked me to preach.
And really it was the difference because, the difference was because there was no light. There was no light there. So I was trying to do it, you know, as I kinda remembered it. Jesus came into a world that was dark. And he said, I’ve come that you might have light, that you might have the light of life.
Jesus went from there then, and he said in Matthew chapter 5, verses 14 and 15, 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 a stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. So having said, I am the light of the world, then Jesus said, You, speaking to his followers, those who came to believe that he was the light of the world, you are the light of the world. So Christ followers are the light of the world.
Every one of us that is a Christ follower is a light in this world. You say, how so? Well, because in Jesus’ light, we know the way. We might say we’ve been enlightened. We know the source of light.
We know the one who is light. We have scriptures that teach us the light, the Word of God. We have been given light so that we know more about God and we are growing in our relationship with God. We know who Jesus is. We are growing in our relationship with Jesus.
We know that God the Father sent the Holy Spirit. To dwell within us. We know about salvation. We have the light about salvation that there is a way to have a relationship with God now and forever. We know something about heaven, that there is life after this life.
We are learning more about love. We know something about work from God’s perspective and family from God’s perspective and We have insight into the matter of sin, and we have insight into the matter of salvation. You see, all of that is God giving us light through his Son Jesus Christ so that we are the light to the world now. Jesus was the light, and now he— we are the light to the world. You are the light, Jesus said, and I have given you a A GGS advantage, a GGS advantage.
What’s that? Well, we already have probably a GPS. If you have a phone, you got a GPS, a navigation system. Well, God gives to his children a GGS, not a Gudgel Guidance System, a God’s Guidance System. And he has given us a guidance system, a guidance system that directs us into the light, that leads us in the light.
And that being the case then, Jesus went on to say in Matthew 5:16, let your light shine before men that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven. I am the light of the world. You are the light of the world, Jesus said. And then he says, and so you let your light shine before everyone. Now, we’ve heard that.
In fact, we just heard that this morning, but many of us who’ve been around the church for a while have heard that since we were kids, where we were taught that song, This Little Light of Mine, I’m going to let it shine. I’m not going to hide it under a bushel. No, I’m going to let it shine. I mean, We have been taught that, but it only makes sense, right? If you have a light, it only makes sense that a light would shine because that is what lights do.
They shine.
They shine. If you are a light, you are made to shine. Now, what is interesting is that Jesus calls attention repeatedly to this matter because his children, his followers didn’t get it the first time. You want me to shine?
Yes. They didn’t get it the first time, so he often, look at the New Testament, he often talked about this matter of you’re light, you are the light to the world, now I want you to shine. I want your light to shine. He told a story. Call it a story, a parable, or an object lesson.
It’s found in Luke chapter 11, verses 33 to 36. It’s really a repeat of what he said in so many other places. He said, no one lights a lamp and puts it in a place where it will be hidden or under a bowl. Instead, he puts it on its stand so that those who come in may see the light. Your eye is the lamp of your body.
When your eyes are good, your whole body is also full of light. But when they are bad, your body is also full of darkness. See to it, then, that the light within you is not darkness. Therefore, if your whole body is full of light and no part of it dark, it will be completely lighted, as when the light of a lamp shines on you. Now, when Jesus said that, he was actually speaking— if you go down to the end of the chapter, you’ll see he was speaking to some religious leaders.
He was speaking to people that should have understood this because they were Jewish people. And from the very beginning, God chose a group of people, the Jewish people, the Israelites. He chose them to be a light to the world. Do you remember this? He chose them to be a light to the world.
But the fact of the matter is They did not fulfill that responsibility. They kept the light to themselves. They became sort of an exclusive club, came up with their own rules and regulations. They, they did not shine the light to the world. And so repeatedly God intervened to call them to shine the light.
And one of the things that ultimately happened was the people were judged because they basically turned their back on God and ultimately God spoke through various prophets to them about what it was that he expected from them and what he wanted. And one of those prophets was Isaiah. It was Isaiah. And Isaiah, this in chapter 49, you would find this passage and it’s very interesting. It’s— but I’ve given it to you in The Message translation where the Lord is speaking to Judah.
The Lord is speaking to his Jewish people and he says, I’m setting you up as a light for the nations, So that my salvation becomes global. See, this wasn’t a new thing for them. This is something that God wanted for them. It was part of the reason he chose them out so that they would be a light for the nations. And that through the light that they gave to the nations, salvation would come.
Salvation beyond them. Salvation would become global. And in this moment when Jesus is teaching this story, this parable, giving this object lesson, he’s basically saying to a crowd of Jewish people, you guys still have not got this. You still haven’t got it. You are lights who are not doing the job of a light.
Now, you may remember a couple of years ago on a Sunday morning, the electricity went out in this building. It actually went out during the service. In fact, it was kind of like this.
Yeah, that’s about what it was like. And that particular morning, however, I didn’t have Nate’s lantern with me. But I got Nate’s lantern with me this morning.
And we kind of fumbled around, if you remember when we were here that morning. We started scrambling and looking all over the building for candles and anything that we could find. And of course what we did was we brought the candles, we went into the back and we brought the candles in. What we didn’t do was we didn’t take the light and put it into the back closet.
We didn’t take it in the— we didn’t hide the light because we needed the light. That would have done no good.
And we didn’t bring the light out and then say, well, you know, it’s kind of nice actually to just have the light, but really what we really want to do is we want to cover the light up. That’s what we want to do. We want to cover it up. And so we didn’t cover it up that morning because it’s not going to do anybody any good if it’s covered.
Well, what we did was we took the light and And we put it on these candle stands and we spread it around and we had a service that was something that we had not planned for, but it was a service where there was light and the light was projected through the candles and it made all the difference in the world.
And Jesus is saying here, I want you to make all the difference in the world.
Because if you’re light, for you to make all the difference in the world, you can’t hide it. You can’t hide the light. You can’t hide your light in the closet, and you can’t cover the light up with a bowl, he says. I mean, that would just be crazy, wouldn’t it? If you take the time to light this lamp, and the picture here is that they had these lamps, and if you’re gonna light the lamp, you wouldn’t even be thinking about taking the lamp then that you’ve lit and putting it in a closet somewhere and hiding it.
And you wouldn’t be thinking about this lamp that you lit and putting it underneath a covering or a bowl or something like that. I mean, put it out. So why would we do that? I mean, why would Christ’s followers who are the light, we are a light, we are a light, why would Christ’s followers who are a light hide the light? Why do we do that?
I mean, what’s the most common reason that we would do that for? What would be connected to that? Well, I think it would be fear.
Fear that somebody might find out that we’re a Christ follower. Fear by association, kind of like the fear by association of the disciples with Jesus after he was arrested. You remember that? And they took off and they hid. They did the very thing that Christ did not want them to do because He wanted them to be lights.
He had already been talking about this very thing. But oftentimes, fear can turn us into closet Christians.
Or we could cover the light. And how do we cover the light? Well, I think what he is talking here about is we cover it by primarily chasing darkness. So that the light of Christ then is dimmed, or the light of Christ is darkened. Jesus says in verses 34 and 35, your eye is the lamp of your body.
When your eyes are good, your whole body is also full of light. If you are pursuing righteousness, it is going to show up in you. But when they are bad, your eyes are bad, your body also is full of darkness. See to it then that the light within you is not darkness. Your eye, our eyes are our lamp.
It’s the lamp to the body. It’s the gate to life. And when the eye is bad, when the eye is bent on darkness, the light of life is diminished. It’s diminished. That’s why he says in verse 35, so see to it that the light within you is not darkness.
Pay attention to what’s happening within you. Note carefully. Be concerned about what is happening to you because darkness or a life of sin will cover, it will diminish, it will obscure, it will just cloud the light. The light will not be seen. Have you ever had cataracts?
Some of you could speak to this, others of us have just heard about this. I have been told that when you have cataracts it can blur your vision, it can dim your vision, it can darken your vision, and if left untreated cataracts can lead to a loss of vision, legal blindness, and even total blindness. In fact, there was a recent report on 60 Minutes where this group of people were involved in a Himalayan cataract project in Burma. I don’t know if you remember seeing that. It was a fascinating, fascinating show where they go in and they have a new form of surgery, a cataract surgery, and they’re able to go in and literally do hundreds of people.
I mean, give them new eyes. It was incredible. But cataracts take away your sight. It can put you into a state of darkness, and that’s the last thing that you want is for your eyes to be dim. And Jesus is saying the same thing.
Your life can dim by the darkness of sin. Don’t let that happen. The opposite is, is what he’s talking about in verse 36. The hope is, is that we would have in this world maximum impact day after day, and so he says in verse 36, and I like the Living Bible translation here, it says, if you are filled with light within, with no dark corners, then your face will be radiant too, as though a floodlight is beamed upon you. It’s just gonna show up on your face.
It’s just gonna be there. People are gonna be able to see there is something different about this person. There’s something different that’s happening on the inside that’s showing up on this person’s face. People will see Jesus in us. People will see the light in us.
Shortly after we moved, Bernice and I, we moved from Sunnyvale to Mountain View, from one church home to another one of our church homes. If you didn’t know, we have 3 church homes, Many years ago, this church saw, I guess prophetically, that this area would go crazy financially with regard to housing. I have no idea. God just orchestrated that whole thing. And so we have a foundation and they run the homes and we’ve now lived, we’re in the second one of the 3 homes that we’ve lived in.
But when we moved into this home, there’s the living room area there, it has no light in it. No light. So we added a couple lights in that room, and one of the lights we put next to a chair that we use for reading and sleeping. It’s the reading and sleeping chair. Sometimes that’s how it goes, right?
It’s an overstuffed, you know, chair that’s very comfortable. You love to be in the chair, but it would do you no good to read in the chair without the light there. And so we added a light, and of course we benefit by that light all the time. It’s the picture. Yes, you’re— we need a light to benefit by hopefully the light of Jesus Christ so that it transforms our lives.
And our life hopefully then is revealing that light. It’s not concealing the light so that wherever God has us, whatever neighborhoods we’re in, whatever places of business we frequent, wherever our occupations are, whatever it is, so that wherever the Lord takes us, wherever the Lord places us, wherever we are, we are revealing, not concealing, the light. Now, to not do that is to buy into the myth of private religion. What’s the myth of private religion? You’ve heard this, that faith is a private matter and it’s something that you should not be talking to others about.
I mean, decent people don’t talk about their faith with other people. They don’t broadcast their faith to other people, that faith or religion is something to be hidden. Well, that’s just exactly contrary to what Jesus taught. He wants it to go public. He wants people to see this in us and through us so that what we do, what we say, conversations that we have, people come to find out about the light, the light that’s living in us and the light that’s transforming us and the light that has strategically placed us in the world to shine the light wherever we go.
So the point of this is very simple. It’s so that others may come to the light of life through me. That’s it. It’s so that other people through my life, through your life, might come to the light of life through us. So that’s really the bottom line of, of today’s focus is helping people through the light of Jesus Christ, come to the light of life through me.
Is that in focus for you? Is that in focus for me? Yesterday I had a conversation with a guy who was in the airport coming back from Phoenix. I had gone there 2 weekends in a row. It’s kind of unusual, but I went there to be a part of a funeral for Louise Solheim.
Friend that died at 99, and the family asked me to come in and to be a part of this service, and it was an incredible opportunity. But on the way back, I was sitting in one of the coffee places there, and I had a water bottle with me, my Dutch Bros water bottle. I don’t know if you’ve ever heard of Dutch Bros. It’s another coffee place. And so anyway, I had my Dutch Bros sitting there, and this family sat down at the same table.
And after a few minutes, he looked over and said, hey, I see you got a Dutch Bros. I said, yeah. He said, yeah, well, we live by one. I said, well, then you must live in Oregon. He said, yeah, we do.
And so we got in a conversation about Oregon and all of that, and it was a really nice conversation. And but within a few minutes, He started into spiritual belief matters. It was fascinating. He started talking about spiritual matters with me. I had not done that, and he started talking about spiritual matters.
So I went with it. I didn’t tell him I was a pastor. I just went with it just to see where this would all go. And we had a really nice conversation as he was just sharing a spiritual part of his life with me. It was It was really fun.
And then eventually I shared with him a little bit about my spiritual beliefs, and then he told me he’s a pastor.
And I said, well, so am I. And so like 2 pastors trying to convert each other.
I loved it. I mean, here’s this guy that’s just— he doesn’t know me and I don’t know him, and He’s just going down the road. He’s just shining his light. That’s it, isn’t it? I mean, that’s it.
It’s just shining your light. It’s not hiding the light. It’s not covering the light up. This week I was over at the Y and I overheard one of the trainers who was explaining to a new member how to do a certain exercise on a weight machine there in order to to make sure to exercise the rhomboid muscles, okay? A couple muscles back here that help you with your posture and stuff like that.
And anyway, at one point in this conversation, he’s explaining to this person, you know, how to do this exercise correctly. He said this, God made those 2 muscles to keep you from slumping over. That’s what he said. He said that in public. God made you with those 2 muscles.
He gave credit to God right there. What was he doing? He was shining a light. He was talking to God. He wasn’t, you know, I’m gonna be real careful here.
He wasn’t regulating his conversation based upon whether or not that person might raise their eyebrows.
He just came out and said it. God made you with those 2 muscles. He did that. He’s shining the light.
Gay Pastel, this— oh, was it a week or so ago you were at Yale? He went to Yale. Awesome.
You look like such a studious person. But he and a few others from the school here went to Yale and they went to a conference there. And while they were there, they were also able to kind of see some of the sights around and they got over to Harvard as well. And Gabe told me that when he was looking around the campus there, that he spotted this plaque, this plaque that was on the wall and it had this inscription on it. I don’t know if you’ve seen this plaque.
But it’s really a statement of the intention in the early days of why this institution was founded. And it’s connected, it’s connected to God, and it’s connected to Christianity, and it’s connected to churches, and it’s connected to ministers. In fact, if you look at their papers and their early days, Harvard was established, and I’m not gonna read from this one, but from another piece, it was established that every encouragement would be given to the serious, impartial, and unbiased investigation of Christian truth. That’s why Harvard was established. Well, I kinda think that’s been forgotten, that that’s not like front and center at Harvard any longer, just as this is not front and center any longer.
It was interesting because Gabe said, yes, we found this. It was hidden away behind a tree. That’s part of the tree there. It was hidden away behind a tree. It absolutely fits what we’re talking about this morning, that we can start out with the absolute best of intentions that we’re going to take this light that we have received that’s transforming our lives and we are going to be a light to the gospel to the whole entire world.
But then things change and people don’t receive it like we hoped they would, and so we go undercover. We hide. Is it no wonder that the gospel is not spreading in the Silicon Valley? Can you just imagine what would happen if the over 200 of us that are sitting here this morning decided we’re going to be a lighthouse wherever we are?
And we’re not going to shine the light, you know, like once every 4 weeks. We’re going to shine the light every day, every day in ways that God gives us the opportunity, whatever that might be. We’re going to go public. We’re not going to hide this faith. We’re going to show people who Jesus Christ is.
We’re going to talk about Jesus Christ in our various arenas and various opportunities. Do you remember Tim Tebow? I don’t know if— I just finished reading the book that’s out called Shaken. It’s an amazing account of this guy’s faith. Tim Tebow played quarterback for the University of Florida, played during a time where they won 2 national championships.
He got the Heisman Trophy one year. He then went on to play 3 years in the NFL. He’s not playing in the NFL right now. I don’t know if he’ll have a career in the NFL again. Who knows, but he played for Denver Broncos, he played for New York Jets, and he played for the New England Patriots.
Right now, if you follow Tim Tebow, he’s actually pursuing a professional career in baseball. He’s a baseball, professional baseball player in one of the minor leagues right now. But if you follow this man, he is so bold in letting his light shine. He is unafraid. To talk about Jesus Christ, to show Jesus Christ through his life.
In fact, you may remember, because this became such a big deal, in one of those college national championship games in 2009, he decided that he was gonna come out in that game with his eye black with John 3:16 written underneath his eyes, which he did. He came out and he had John 3:16 under his eyes, on his eye black. You know what? During that televised game, 94 million people Googled John 3:16. 94 million people.
They didn’t know what John 3:16 was, so they Googled it. That’s always what you do, right? You Google something with— you don’t know it. So they Googled it, and they found out about how God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son.
After he was in the pros, there was one particular game in 2011 where there was an amazing comeback win that they were in over Miami Dolphins. And there was one particular play that he made. It was a passing play, and after they scored the touchdown, Tim Tebow Tebowed. Do you remember the Tebowed? That’s him T-bowing.
Tim Tebow T-bowed as an expression of thanks to God. It was his way of publicly saying, thank you, Lord. And that took off as a national phenomenon. It was really something as a result of what happened there, and it spread to kids and all kinds of people. 3 years after he put the John 3:16 on his eye black, He was in a professional game where he was playing for the Broncos and they were playing against the Pittsburgh Steelers and they came back.
I mean, it was shocking that they came back. They won the game 29 to 23. And so this game got all kinds of press. But part of the reason why it got all kinds of press was because it was 3 years after the John 3:16 event. And at this particular game, Tim Tebow threw for 316 yards.
And his pass completion in that game was 31.6%, and the time of possession of his team was 31.06 seconds, and the ratings, the television ratings for that night was 31.6 million.
And during that game then, 90 million people Googled John 3:16 again.
Or after it.
He’s just letting his light shine, and God used it. Now, I honestly believe that God wants to use us. I honestly believe this, don’t you? I honestly believe that he wants to use every one of us, just like those lighthouses, all 33 of those lighthouses up and down the California coastline, just like all of those lighthouses are making a positive difference in the lives of many people, I’m not talking about our Mariners class at this point, but just as they’re making a positive difference up and down California’s coastline, God wants to make a positive impact, lighthouse difference through every one of us. And can you just imagine what that would mean if we would just let the light shine?
Shine. So you get the point. We are lights. The light is already shining. The question is whether or not we’re squelching it, we’re putting it out, we’re hiding it, we’re covering it up.
It’s already shining, so let it shine. Don’t, don’t cover it. Don’t let Satan put it out. I’m gonna let it shine till Jesus comes, and just imagine the possible impact on those that we come in contact with. Who knows?
You may be a pastor converting a pastor. Who knows?
Imagine, imagine what that would mean if we would be the lighthouses that the Lord wants us to be every day of the week, wherever he puts us, so that people see and hear the message, and Lord willing, they come to Jesus Christ, they come to faith through Jesus Christ, and they ultimately come to bow down and to praise and worship the one that is our God.
Let’s pray. Lord, would you help us do that more?
Would you help us not just talk about shining the light and singing that song, but would you help us do that? May our lights be bright in this world of darkness. And so keep us from concealing the light even today, even this week. Thank you for the opportunity we’re gonna have soon now to be on the beach and to shine the light for people to see, to have a public worship service and then a public baptism. And may people see the light, but may that also be a catalyst to remind us that this is how you want us to live every day, so that every day, wherever you have us, we are people of light And people, in seeing your light, come to the light, and lives are changed now and forever.
And so thank you, God, for the opportunity to be your lights in a dark world. May it transform us, but more importantly, may it transform the world for your name’s sake. For we pray all of this in Jesus’ name. And everybody said amen. Well, friends, let’s go.
Let’s shine the light. And let’s be the light that the Lord wants us to be. The Lord bless you. Have a wonderful week.
