I Did Not Come To Abolish But To Fulfill #2

So last week we started a new section in Matthew in the Sermon on the Mount. Having finished the Beatitudes, we moved into a section that I think is familiar to many of us. We've probably heard it before regarding being the salt of the earth or the light of the world. And so last week we saw what it meant to be the salt of the earth and also the danger of losing our saltiness, that it's not some simple thing to be salty. And this week we're going to be moving on to the second analogy that Jesus uses to describe Christians. This week we're going to be seeing what it means to be the light of the world and why Jesus warns us not to hide our light but to let it shine before men. My hope this morning is that God will help us to demonstrate our love for him in this world and to repent of the ways in which we've been ashamed of him and hidden our light. Would you please stand as we read the word of the Lord from Matthew chapter 5, verses 13 to 20.

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. Do not think that I came to abolish the law or the prophets. I did not come to abolish, but to fulfill. For truly I say to you, unless heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or stroke shall pass from the law until all is accomplished. Whoever then annuls one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven. But whoever keeps and teaches them, he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven.

For I say to you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven. This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. You may be seated. So I think that being called the light of the world is something that we've probably heard talk of. We've probably heard sermons. Sometimes we ask and say, have you ever heard sermons on this passage or on this topic? And this is the sort of passage or topic that we would all probably say, yes. I've been in a church somewhere, in a youth group, or at a conference or something where this was brought up, that I am the light of the world. We teach our kids songs about being the light of the world. You're right, don't let anybody put you out. We teach this theme all over the place. And so the question before us is, what does it mean to be the light of the world? My goal is not to say everything you've ever been told is wrong. I don't actually know what all you've been told, and I don't know if it's wrong or right.

But as I set out to prepare this sermon, I thought, what is light? Where did it come from and what's it do? Because I'm supposed to be like light. You're supposed to be like light. So we should start by figuring out what light is, where it came from, and what its purpose is. And so my mind immediately went to Genesis 1, to creation, where God said this. This is verses 14 to 18. And God saw that it was good. it means to be light, I think we would do very well to start with the creation of light and learn all we can about it. And so in this passage, and again, I'm not preaching from Genesis chapter 1, so we're not going to spend all of our time here, but we are going to figure out what light is, why God created it, and what it does from this passage in Genesis so that we can understand what it means for us to be light. And so there are at least three things that we can learn from this passage in Genesis chapter 1.

The reasons that light was created or how it was to function. The first is that light is supposed to separate itself from darkness. This is done by creating a contrast. Another way of saying it is that light creates darkness. Now you might think darkness was everywhere. There was nothing but darkness until the light. And I would say that's true, but no one knew it because they'd never seen light. They'd never experienced anything like that. It had not come into existence. And so with the creation of light, there was the creation of darkness. It became a thing. What else did light do? Well, it tells us that it provided light to the earth. He let there be lights up in the expanse of the heavens. Why? To give light to the earth. Why did God need there to be light on the earth? What do we do with the light of the earth?

What do you do on a daily basis with light? Well, you use it very simply to see the things around you. It helps you not walk into walls or stumble over toys or get in car accidents. Light is something we go, I need light to guide me, to show me what's around. You could think of this as maybe a person who is blind. who hasn't got light as a part of their life. And you realize the vulnerabilities that they have. Because they don't have light, they can't see, they can't perceive. They might use their hands to feel and to navigate or a stick or a dog. But without light, there are things that they simply cannot do. Light was also given in this passage to govern or to rule the days and the seasons. So what was created with the creation of light?

Well, one of the things that was created with the creation of light was time. The measurement of time was created with light. It says it will govern the days, the weeks, the seasons. And so without light, we would have no way to measure how long something's been. You've probably heard stories, read stories, or seen movies where someone's thrown into a hole somewhere, some pit, some place, with no light. What is the effect of that on the person? They go crazy. they've lost a very basic, essential, necessary thing. There's light and there's darkness. We need it to govern us. Some of you have worked nights. Some of you do work nights. I've worked nights at times in my life. And you're really fighting against nature to work at night, aren't you? It really messes up all kinds of stuff in you. So light had three purposes here. One was to separate light from darkness. The second was to provide light so we could see.

and navigate. And the third was to govern or rule, to give us days and seasons, to give us time. Light was an essential part of creation. Without it, everything else would have been thrown out of whack. You think of Adam and Eve in the garden, being led around and shown, here's this tree and here's this garden and eat of this and don't eat of that. That was all possible because there was light. And so God calls us, his people, to be the light of the world. And so I'd ask you, if light was essential in a pre-fall world, essential, a necessary part of it, creation would have been all messed up without it, how much more so is light essential now that sin has entered the world? Before the fall, light and darkness didn't have a moral component to them. Light was light and darkness was darkness, but they didn't represent at that time sin and righteousness, good and evil, right and wrong. But since the fall,

They have moral components. Light is good. Darkness is bad. And so when God created light in Genesis 1, he was teaching us what we were supposed to do. In the same way that light before the fall separated light from darkness, we now, as the light of the world, are to do the same thing, separating light from darkness. In Ephesians 5, Paul says, you were formerly darkness. But now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light. For the fruit of the light consists in all goodness and righteousness and truth, trying to learn what is pleasing to the Lord. Do not participate in the unfruitful deeds of darkness, but instead even expose them. For it is disgraceful to even speak of the things which are done by them in secret. But all things become visible when they are exposed by the light. For everything that becomes visible is light.

And so this idea that we're supposed to do what God did in creation is right here in Ephesians. Paul tells us, you're to be the light of the world. He doesn't say, you are to be the light of the world. He says, you were darkness, and now you're light, and your job is to expose the darkness. To expose it. The same is true with the second purpose. where the creation of the sun and the moon and the stars, it provided light so that creation could be observed. It could be seen. It could be understood. It could be perceived by our senses. We are to do the same thing. We are supposed to reveal God's creation, God's truth. In 2 Corinthians 4, verses 6 and 7, it says, For God who said, Light shall shine out of darkness, is the one who has shown in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.

But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, so that the surpassing greatness of the power will be of God and not from ourselves. And so first, we're supposed to expose the darkness, shine light on it, go into the places and say, look at that. And the second is we're supposed to be communicators of the truth. We're supposed to be... pouring out the truth and using it as light to show what God has made, what God has done, what God has said. Paul says we have this treasure, this light, in earthen vessels, in our bodies. This is us. We are here, and this is our job. And he tells us that the end will be that the power of God will be manifested. And finally, we're supposed to provide structure. Light provides structure. In the same way that it provided days and seasons and the creation of time, Christians are supposed to do the same. We are supposed to guide. We're supposed to rule over. We're supposed to subdue creation. We're supposed to govern it. If I asked you, what has been the greatest civilization, the best place to live throughout all time for people generally? I think you would all say it's been Western civilization. And to say that is not to say we're the best and we're great and everyone else is this awful, terrible people.

but simply to say that Western civilization was built on the counsel of God and on the Word, historically. And the fruit of that's been the best civilization that's ever been produced. And there won't be a better civilization produced unless it's more biblical. To the extent, another way of thinking of this is, to the extent that the light is rejected, the governance is rejected, what you end up with is either chaos or tyranny. And so these are the purposes of light in creation, and we are to fulfill these purposes as light in the world. We're supposed to expose darkness, we're supposed to reveal the truth, and we're supposed to guide and subdue creation. Then Jesus moves on and he says, A city set on a hill cannot be hidden, nor does anyone light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a lampstand, and it gives light to all who are in the house. So I want to ask you, is a city or a lamp meant to be hidden?

No. You have to realize for a second, he says, a city set on a hill, you should think, who put a city on a hill? Why'd they put the city on the hill? Did they put it there to be hidden? No, of course not. If you had a lamp, what is it designed for? Is it designed to be hidden? What we'll do is we'll take this lamp, we'll stick it in the closet, and it'll provide light to the living room. No, it won't. It wasn't designed to be put in the closet. It was designed to be put on the end table. And so one of the first things we learn from this section is that the placement of the city or the lamp teaches us about its function. A city is supposed to be seen. It's not supposed to be hidden. A lamp is supposed to provide light. And so light is most effective when it's fully exposed. To hide or to lessen the work.

of light is to deny or to fight against its most basic feature. If you were looking for a city, now this is, you know, you have to think for a second who Jesus was talking to. There wasn't GPS, right? We didn't have smartphones. The cities didn't glow at night so you could see them coming. We didn't have highways with big signs that say, go over there and turn here and in five miles. If you had tucked a city away in the woods or down in a valley, it would be much harder to find. If you were walking through a forest, what can't you do? We can't see very far. So you might look and see, oh, up on the hill, there's a clearing and there's a city up there. Whereas if the city was tucked away in the woods or in a valley, it'd be much less visible. It'd be harder to find. People would get lost. Now, it may be that they would tuck a city away down in the woods or in a valley, but if that was done, it was done for practical reasons, like that's where the water is.

or we can defend against our enemies better from down there. The purposes for putting a city not on a hill would be to maintain its existence, to keep it from being destroyed. So a city set on a hill cannot be hidden. We should be visible. We were created to be visible, to provide light, to be active, to influence and impact the world that we are a part of, that God's placed us in. So then we have to deal with the question of why does Jesus have to tell us not to hide the lamp or the light or the city? Why do we have to be told not to hide it? Well, because we're inclined to hide it. And then you're left going, well, why do we hide? Why is there this pressure in us to hide, to shy away, to want to be unseen? Well, there's two reasons, I think. One, perhaps good, and the other, bad. One of the reasons we hide things is because of their great value.

right? If you had an expensive piece of jewelry, something that was one of a kind, an original, you might hide it to protect it, to keep it from being damaged. But there are other types of things that are of great value that are damaged if you hide them, if you don't use them. An example of that might be a violin. If you take a really fancy violin, and you don't use it, if you just put it away and display somewhere and it never gets played, you'll destroy it. It will break. It needs to be played, or it will be damaged. To give another example, the thing that came to my mind was racehorses. If you had a really fast, strong, cream-of-the-crop, best racehorse, what's the one thing you can't do with that horse? You can't keep him off the track. You have to put him on the track. He has to run.

Because he was created for that. The violin was created to be played. The horse was made to run. Light was created to shine into the darkness, to expose it, to reveal the truth, to govern. So sometimes we hide things because they're valuable, but we better be careful because if we hide things that are valuable, that need to be used, then they will rust and be destroyed. They'll fall apart. I think more commonly the reason that we hide things that we want to hide. is because of shame or embarrassment. If you think back into the garden with Adam and Eve, one of the things we were told, and it's like the uncomfortable part of it, is that they were both naked and unashamed. Now, how did they know they were naked and what nakedness was? Well, there was light, so they could see that they were naked. But we're told before the fall that they were unashamed. And yet after sin, what happened was different. They became ashamed. And so what did they do? Well, they hid.

first with leaves and then with bushes. They hid. And the reason was because of the shame that they experienced. They said, there's something bad now. We need to be covered up. Jesus warns us against being ashamed of him, of hiding the way that Adam and Eve did. In Mark chapter 8, it says he summoned the crowd with his disciples and he said to them, if anyone wishes to come after me, he must deny himself, take up his cross and follow me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the Gospels will save it. For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul? And so this generally is a passage that says, if you come to me, there's going to be a cost associated with it. It will cost you your life. And then he says this, for whoever is ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will also be ashamed of him when he comes in the glory of the Father with the holy angels.

And so we realize that there's a real temptation to want to follow after Jesus and to be a Christian and to wear the label and to receive the blessings and yet to hide because of shame at the same time. To refuse to be light. And I think that this shame that Jesus warns us against in Mark is the primary way that we hide or the primary motivation that keeps us from letting our light shine. Christianity has become a thing that has been moved from being public to being private. I think this really came onto the scene as being possible with a former president, Jimmy Carter, where he said, when the issue of abortion was brought up, he says, well, I'm personally opposed to it, but publicly, I'm not. So what was he saying? Well, he's saying there's a difference between me being a Christian and me having convictions. They're personal convictions, and they only affect or matter to me. No longer do I have to have my...

personal convictions inform my life my work I can separate them and so here we are decades after Jimmy Carter doing largely what he did which is to say I'm a Christian and my goal is to keep my head down and to be as unnoticeable and as passive and to leave as small of an impression as I can now we have reasons for doing it and we say and the reasons sound good well I'm doing it because I'm prioritizing my family or I'm doing it because I want to be a good provider because I've I'm busy with this, that, or the other thing. But at some point, we have to step out of the reasons we give and say, do the people around me know that I'm a Christian and what in the world that means? You realize it's very different for you to say, I'm a Christian, and then to stop and let them define it, whatever that means to them, or for you to say, I'm a Christian, and then to proceed to demonstrate to them, with them,

what it means for you to be a Christian. To be a Christian is a public commitment. It's a public commitment. And it would be a shame if when Jesus comes back, there's unbelievers standing there going, I never knew he was a Christian. When we have baptisms, the way we understand what's going on here is that there is a public profession of faith being made. And you might think, well, public, what do you mean? I mean, we're all Christians. In a church, this is a private setting. And I say, no, it's not. It is true that we're a family and that we all, for the most part, know each other. But it is not a private commitment. And the vows that are taken are not just to be a Christian privately, but to be a Christian publicly, to affect the world that God's put you in as a Christian for the rest of your life.

And you make those commitments to your brothers and sisters who are engaged in the same work. Marriage, likewise, is a public commitment. We're gathered here today in the sight of God and these witnesses to see and to hold you accountable. That's what the witnesses are there for. Historically, those people that are in the wedding party, they're the witnesses. And they're the ones who stand here and say, you can't do that, man. You're married. You're committed to her. So being a Christian impacts every area of our lives. It should. And so we can't hide and think that we will be faithful in our hiding. To desire to be a very dim light is a wicked desire. I've heard it said that the reason Christians don't want to be vocal, loud, outspoken, is that they don't want to take glory away from God. They don't want people thinking all of the good things that they have to say or do come from them.

And so they think it's better to misapply where Jesus says not to let your right hand know what your left hand is doing. They take that and they apply it to all of life. And they say, it's actually better for me to be a very quiet, hidden Christian. Because I don't want to take glory away from God. I just want to serve him personally and quietly. But that's not what Jesus tells us to do here. He says to us explicitly, let your light shine before men. Let your light shine before men. How? In such a way that they may see your good works. So letting our light shine before men needs to be observable, and the things they see need to be good works. Obedience to God. And it needs to be done in such a way that it produces glory for our Father in heaven and not us. And I think many of us say, well, I don't know how to do that, so I think what I will do is just not. Since I don't know how to do good works in a way that gives glory to God,

I'll just give up the good works or at least the public doing of them. But to do that is to work against God's design. It's to take the light and to put it under a bushel or to put the city down in the valley. As a Christian, you were meant to be seen and known. You really were. At school, at work, in your families, you were meant, people, when they see you, sometimes they'll go, oh, here comes the Christian. That is the response that you will sometimes receive. People will be upset. They'll go, oh, here he comes again. If you were in Sunday school, this is what we were talking about at family gatherings. You're going to be the Christian. You're going to be the one that stands out. You're going to be the one who's like, you know, I don't think that's okay. And I'm not going to endorse it or support it. I can't. In good conscience, go along with that. We shouldn't make it a principle to work against God's design. He's made you light. So stop trying to hide.

And if you find that you're always hiding, at some point you have to go, is it just because I'm ashamed? Is it just because the work is too much? Why don't I have anything sweet to say, good to say, faithful to say about my God and my Savior? Why am I so dry? Why am I so busy? Instead, we should have good works, obedience that we offer up to God that other people see and they say, he does that, she does that because they're Christians and they love God. That's why they do it. And they can also see. And the reason I don't do it is because I'm not a Christian and I don't love God. There really is a distinction between light and darkness, a contrast that we're supposed to create. Now, does that mean that you're supposed to create this problem by being mean, nasty, condescending, rude, impatient? No. I often use having a big family as an example, and so here.

It's very easy for me to just be quiet about it because I don't want to deal with the drama or the stress or the questions or the weird looks or the work of it, explaining it. But I'm left wondering, how come you can't talk about it with joy and excitement and contentment and give glory to God to the extent that that's the reason we have a big family? How come I'm not willing to say it? Why do I expect that other people will connect those dots without me saying it? We read this passage that they'll see my good works and glorify my Father in heaven as though there is nothing to be said about it. There's no translation necessary. That they will just look and go, oh, he does that because he loves God. It's clear and obvious. I won't have to tell them. No. Instead, our good works should exist, must exist, should be seen.

And then they should be explained as coming from God. I said to someone recently who's not a believer, I said, you know, before I was a Christian, I made all my own decisions. I thought I was the one who was capable of sorting life out. And what I realized as I was becoming a Christian was that I was a fool. And that the decisions that I made and the things that I wanted were bad. Simply, bad, wrong, and destructive. And me coming to faith was me realizing I need someone else, something else, to guide me and literally to make decisions for me or to tell me what decisions I should make. And I said, that really is the difference between a believer and an unbeliever. You still make your own decisions because you think you make good ones. And the fact that I'm a Christian means that my decisions are made according to the Word of God.

accounting for my own sinfulness, they're made saying, what does God say? What does God want? This is why I do what I do. This is why I don't do the things I don't do. And I said, that really is the difference between you and me. And if you, you know, because the guy I was talking to, his life was in shambles, was a mess. Comparatively speaking, I have the life he wants. And I said, okay, well, if you want the life I want, I have, then you have to do the things that I've done. I've submitted myself to Jesus Christ. I stopped thinking I couldn't get it all figured out myself. That's why I am what I am, and that's why I have what I have. And what I hope was that that was me explaining the differences between us, the light and the darkness, the contrast, and doing it in a way that gave glory to God. I hope that's what God worked out of it. That was my desire.

And I can tell you, even as a pastor, that was hard to do. It was awkward because it's like, is he just going to roll his eyes and think I'm an idiot? Maybe. I think there's been an incredible amount of pressure for a long time put on Christians to be ashamed of the word and of Jesus Christ and to remake Jesus Christ into something that he is not. And I think if we want to see our society, but before our society, our community, and before our community, our church and before our church, our families, and before our families, ourselves, if we want to see those things changed, then we have to repent of being ashamed. The idea that I don't want to be light, I don't want to be prominent, I don't want to be seen, I don't want to have to speak, those are the things we have to repent of. Paul says of himself, I'm being poured out like a drink offering, just taken and just there goes my life, just poured out. I think we've grown far too comfortable with

living private Christian lives and saying and paying lip service to the fact that we love Jesus, but not ever committing to it publicly where there's a cost associated with it, a potential cost. On the one side, we only count the cost. We say what damage, harm, difficulty could come. But we never look at the good that could come from us doing it. And so we don't do it. We don't speak. We excuse our silence. And that's what we ought to repent of if we're to actually function the way light functions and to be the light of the world. Just be a Christian. Love God and let other people see that you love God. And when they can't make any sense of it, it shouldn't surprise you because that's what the Bible tells you it'll be like. That they will get frustrated, that it won't make a lick of sense to them, that they'll mock, that they'll turn away, but also that some will be saved.

That some will be helped by your words and your actions and your testimonies. I look back at my life and there were people long before I became a Christian who were Christians and who were not ashamed of the fact that they were Christians. There's two people primarily in my life. One was my fifth grade teacher who loved my family when my mom got shingles, just decided that she herself would be our food chain for like a month and would bring us a meal every other day. Literally for like a month. And I was not a good kid. I was a bad kid in her class. And she was about that big. And she saw family in Eden. She thought, I'm going to go love and care for them. And in the process, you find out, well, why is she doing all this? Nobody else is doing it. Well, she's a Christian. And my big brother, when I was in big brothers, big sisters, they were Christians. Went to a very liberal church. Had me into their home. Loved me. Prayed for me. Cared for me.

Clear that they loved each other. That was them letting their light shine. And so as I'm telling you, you should act and behave like Christians. I'm not trying to say you should lasso the moon and pull it down to earth. I'm saying could you just let your love be evident to other people? And if you find there's no love in you, then repent of it. That's all. That's all. Let people see that you love your spouse. Let people see that you love your kids. Let people see that you work hard. Let people see that you're patient, that you're forgiving, that you'll sacrifice. Let them see it. If you don't do any of those things, then you're not a Christian. But if you're doing those things, let people see it. It is actually attractive. Having been someone who saw those things before I was a Christian, they were attractive to me. And I went, that's a good thing. That's something I want. And it took a long time for me to come to the end of myself and say, now I'm going to pursue it.

But they were simple people doing simple things, letting their light shine. I think too often we think that because there's not an immediate return on our good works or our obedience, we think, well, then the obedience isn't worth it because it doesn't produce an immediate return. My fifth grade teacher was my fifth grade teacher when I was 10. My big brother was my big brother when I was about the same age, maybe a little younger. I didn't become a Christian until I was 21. But then all the stuff they did made sense to me. I was like, oh, there was something that was really attractive and appealing to me about their life. I wanted what they had. So what if my fifth grade teacher had been like, well, he's just an obnoxious kid who's always bullying other people and won't shut up in class, doesn't do his homework, and is generally a thorn in my side, which is the description of what kind of kid I was. But she'd just been like, well, that's his problem. Well, then she would have hidden her light.

And I wouldn't be telling you about her. And so the message of this passage is very simple. You're the light of the world. You're supposed to affect the world around you. If you're not, you're like a burned out light bulb. And what do you do with burned out light bulbs? Maybe you recycle them. You're just not supposed to throw them away these days. But you're like, useless, worthless. It's like the salt, right? It's not good for anything except to be tossed out. So I don't want that to be you. and I don't want that to be the testimony of your life. Be the light of the world. I don't know how. Well, how do you expect to learn? You're telling me to do something I can't. It's as likely as not that I'm telling you to do something you won't. So if you're a Christian and you love God, then you should act like it, and it should be apparent to the people around you. It should govern your decisions and your words and your priorities.

And you should do it with a smile on your face because that's what we do and we love people. We don't grumble and complain about it. We're delighted to do it. We're happy to do it. So be the light of the world. Do good works and let them be seen. And give glory to God in explaining it and in doing it. And let God produce the fruit of it. It may take 10 years. It may take 20 years. You wonder how long the prodigal son was gone. Don't you? It wasn't like, oh, in two months he... We don't know how long he was gone. But he did remember the kindness and the mercy of his dad to award his employees and said, well, I want that. So do good works by faith and trust God to use them in his time and in his way. Plant seeds. Water the seeds you see planted. And trust God to cause the growth. That is the Christian life. That's what it means to be the light of the world. Give yourself to it. Let's pray.