"The Lamp that Lights the Way"
Notes
Transcript
As we begin, I need to warn every one that I am going to place an image on the screens overhead that at least some of us in the room will not be prepared to see. Responses may include anger, maybe even tears, so parents, you may need to shield the vision of your children from the reaction that others may demonstrate. We’ll take a moment before I place the image over head.
That horrendous image is the popular form of transportable data storage the last time the Dallas Cowboys won the Super Bowl. As I was scrolling through the countless reactions that football fans had to the Cowboys’ shocking loss last Sunday, I came across this photo and it really stung. If you can’t make it out, on the label it says, “Cowboys Superbowl Pictures.” I showed it to Yvette hoping to get some sort of sympathy from my wife, but I got the same eye roll that I did when a few weeks ago I started talking about what I thought Dallas could accomplish this season. Then she got a little grin on her face and she suggested that I show this picture to people more than half my age to ask them if they even knew what this thing is.
I polled six young people, ages 20, 16, 13, 12, 10 and 9. Do you know how many knew that this is a 3 1/2” floppy disk that had a whopping capacity of 1.44 MB? Zero. Can you guess how many of them knew it was even something for computers? Zero.
Things change, don’t they? I’m not sure that you can buy any sort of computing device that has the ability to receive any type of disk any longer. If you’re lucky, you’ll find one with the latest USB technology for a USB drive, but really, everything has largely gone to the cloud for where our data is stored.
In reality, overall we aren’t very concerned with a vocabulary of technology, we just care that the stuff we buy is the latest and greatest and actually works. But, you know, a vocabulary of technology isn’t the only thing that we lack these days. It may not surprise you to know that by in large, we lack a vocabulary of faith. And this is true for our children, for sure, but it’s also alarmingly true of many adults across this nation.
A pastor from South Carolina recently shared an incident from a counseling session with a set of parents that visited with him. They came to his office and they brought with them a list of their teenager’s faith-related questions that they were hoping that the pastor could help them answer. At the top of the list was this question: “What is that guy doing hanging up there on the plus sign?”
How is it that we in this nation could arrive at a place where Jesus is just the guy who is hanging on a plus sign? How does that come to be? The American Bible Society has conducted a survey now for thirteen straight years about how Americans engage with the Bible. The survey asks, “Aside from attending services at your church, do you use the Bible three or more times a year?” Let’s be clear… This isn’t asking if you read something from your Bible every day. This isn’t asking how you are doing on your Bible-in-a-year reading plan. This is asking, do you bother to crack open the Word that God has given to reveal himself to you at least 3 times in a year. Do you know what percentage of Americans use the Bible at least three times in a year for the last couple of years? 39%. And that’s down from what was about 50% for the first eleven years of the survey.
I don’t know about you, but this is alarming stuff for a pastor. It’s alarming because God has given us the Bible so that we can know him personally. There are aspects to God that will remain a mystery until we enter into eternity, but what God has determined we should know about him, he’s given to us in the Bible, and yet if we are not spending time with the Lord in his Word, then we are like what the Bible describes as people who are just tossed around by the waves of the ocean, carried every which way the wind may blow because we hear something that’s compelling and crafty, but nonetheless deceiving. (Ephesians 4:14)
Last week we saw Jesus teach us from the parable of the Sower, which taught that as the Word of God is preached and taught, the Word will fall upon the hearts of men and women as a farmer’s seed falls upon soil that is either ready to receive and multiply that seed, or never truly receive it. When the Word of God is truly received by a teachable heart, then there is fruit that comes from that which multiplies that one seed to many more. This morning we can see that Jesus is on the same subject…he’s still concerned with the Word of God. Jesus is concerned about whether the Bible is central to the life of those who say they love God. So at our outset, I want to ask you to consider the following question:
What place does the Word of God have in your life?
What place does the Word of God have in your life?
As we work through today’s message, we will find that there are three things that Jesus is telling us about the Word of God. Three things that Jesus says that God intends for the Bible to accomplish in the lives of men and women, boys and girls, like you and I. The first thing that we can see from our text is that Jesus would have us know that
God’s Word Illuminates
God’s Word Illuminates
As we begin to understand how God’s Word illuminates, I want to first clarify what the Holy Spirit led Luke to record here in contrast to what the Holy Spirit led the other gospel writers to record, namely Matthew. I would never want to be understood as discouraging anyone from study of their Bible and to find just how often the Bible cross-references and explains itself. In what Luke has recorded as a teaching from Jesus that involves the imagery of light and a lamp stand, you would find that Matthew also has recorded a teaching from Jesus that uses similar imagery. You’d find this in Matthew 5:15-16, which is the beginning of what you and I know today as Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, the greatest sermon ever preached. And from what Jesus is communicating there in Matthew 5, Jesus calls all those who are his disciples to function as light. They are not to hide God’s Word from God’s people, but to preach it clearly and the exhortation Jesus tells us there in Matthew is to let our light shine before others. But we would be wrong to conclude that because we see Jesus using the lampstand illustration in Luke 8:16 that Jesus must be using the illustration to bring us to the same application. If I can let you in on a little secret about preaching, when you find a good illustration, you milk the thing for all it’s worth. And Jesus is the greatest preacher of the Word - I mean, he’s the Word himself! So what we have here is Jesus using the lamp on the lampstand illustration in a different setting, so we have to be good readers and interpret what Jesus is teaching us within the context of this passage that the Holy Spirit led Luke to record.
What we have here in Luke 8:16 is Jesus clarifying what he taught in
Luke 8:10 (ESV)
[Jesus] said, “To you it has been given to know the secrets of the kingdom of God, but for others they are in parables, so that ‘seeing they may not see, and hearing they may not understand.’
He’s doing this so that all his disciples do not mistake his point. Jesus’ teaching is the light that is put on the lampstand. His words are not given for the primary purpose of concealing God’s truth, but for revealing God’s truth. But, the same light that reveals truth also exposes sin. Because of this two-fold function of the light of God’s truth, no one can respond neutrally to Jesus’ teaching. Either we respond obediently and draw closer to God or we ignore it and deceive ourselves. What we think we have will one day be taken from us.
Let’s consider how what Jesus is saying in Luke 8:16 applies to us. The lamp was a small clay pitcher with a spout, filled with oil and a wick. Obviously, a person didn’t light such a lamp for the purpose of putting it under a container or under a bed. It was lit so that it could be set on a stand and light up a house. In other words, the lamp had a very practical function. Without it, a person would bang his shins against low-lying furniture. He would trip over the kids toys that had been left on the floor. He couldn’t see to cook or read or do anything. The lamp was lit to be used, not to be hidden.
In the same way, God has given us the Bible, including the teachings of Jesus, to shed light on how we should live so that we don’t grope around in the darkness, whacking our shins on the obstacles that the Word warns us about. Many people want to know the will of God for their lives. Young people will seek answers to questions like, “Whom should I marry?” Or, “What should I do with my life?” As we age and new challenges and opportunities present themselves to us, we seek to understand God’s will for our lives.
God’s Word reveals principles on each of these crucial questions so that you don’t whack your shins on the wrong ways of the world. Addressing those hypothetical questions that we seek God’s will over… Clearly, God’s will is that you should marry only a spiritually minded, God-centered Christian, because the Word commands us not to be unequally yoked with unbelievers (2 Cor. 6:14-18). God’s will is that we should spend our lives serving the Lord Jesus Christ, no matter what we do to earn a living, because we are to seek first his kingdom and righteousness (Matt. 6:33). God’s will is not for you to be happy, but to make you holy. When you come to faith in Jesus and among all that God endows upon the person, he gives the Holy Spirit for the purpose of making us more holy and morally pure. That’s called sanctification. These and many other vital principles for right living are revealed to us in God’s Word of truth.
Something about me and my family is that we love to tent camp. I know it’s not for every one. You don’t have the perks of your furnace and central air. Some people call tent camping “roughing it”, but we don’t really see it like we rough it. We’re sorta in the middle on this stuff. We stay at places that you can drive right up to, there’s usually a firebox where you do all your cooking and marshmallow roasting, picnic tables to serve your meals from, and most of the places we stay have public restrooms within a reasonable walking distance. But it’s far from the comforts of home…I mean, when you go camping, you’ve got to build your home when you get there and tear it down when you leave.
A couple of springs ago we went camping out in West Texas in the Davis Mountains. It’s beautiful country out there. West Texas is home to many different creatures and the one that introduced itself to us that camping trip was the opportunistic javelina. These are generally nocturnal creatures and the first night we’re there, they raided our camp. First of all, we were awakened to the soothing feeling of javelinas sniffing and pressing on the side of the tent. Then when morning came, we found that they’d hit an ice chest and took the package of bacon I was gonna cook for breakfast. Disturb my sleep and I can look past that, but steal my bacon…
So the next night I was ready. I had decided I was going to run them off when they came to raid us again. They came right in the dead of night and when I heard them, I sprung up, burst through the door of the tent and tried to give them chase. And I made it as far as the first guy line on my tent, which I never saw, because I was trying to do something completely in the dark. That thud from me hitting the ground really showed them.
Here’s the thing… Without God’s Word, people are wandering in this dark, dangerous world without illumination from God. They’re falling into the open holes of drug use, sexual immorality, anger, bitterness, self-centeredness, greed, and a host of other sins. God’s Word is the light that tells them how to walk so that they don’t destroy themselves with sin. As believers, we must live in the light of God’s Word ourselves. Then, by our example and our words, we must help others see God’s ways.
You may wonder, why wouldn’t everyone want God’s light to illumine their lives so that they can see how to avoid the holes and dangers of the dark? Jesus explained, John 3:19–20 “…people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed.” This shows us that
God’s Word Exposes
God’s Word Exposes
We all are inclined to hide from the light rather than to allow it to expose the foulness of our hearts. Nothing is hidden that will not be revealed. Nor will any secret not become known. In other words, whatever is hidden will become visible, secrets will become known.
Years ago, a wealthy Chinese businessman visited England and was fascinated by a powerful microscope and the wonders it uncovered. So he bought one and took it back to China. He thoroughly enjoyed using it until one day when he looked at some rice that he was planning to eat for dinner. To his shock, he saw tiny living creatures crawling in it. He didn’t know what to do, since rice was a staple of his diet. Finally, in frustration, he smashed his microscope to bits. It had revealed something distasteful to him, so he destroyed the source of the discovery!
That was foolish, but how many people do the same thing with the Bible or with sermons from the Bible that expose their sin. They don’t feel comfortable with what they see, so they get rid of the source rather than deal with the sin! Sadly, it’s also a reality today that many of your celebrity pastors deny the purpose of God’s Word to expose sin for the sake of building followings. Messages that minimize, soften, or even ignore the parts of the Bible that some might consider as unsavory. God’s Word corrects every false worldview and it exposes false teaching.
We approach the Bible ready to receive what God has revealed to us as he seeks to make us more holy. You may not always understand every part of the Bible, but trust that with what you do understand, God’s Spirit has made it so that you can understand, so that you are confronted by your sin, so that you grow in your love and affection for Jesus and his cross, and so that you would seek to remove the presence of that sin in your life. I appreciate the honesty of Mark Twain in this quote:
Most people are bothered by those passages in Scripture which they cannot understand; but as for me, I always noticed that the passages in Scripture which trouble me most are those which I do understand.
Mark Twain
In other words, it’s easy to get hung up on what you don’t understand in the Bible so you can distract yourself from what you do understand and what God is calling you to change in your life…as discomforting as that may be…
God’s Word is like a medicine that will do no good unless it is actually applied.
That is what Jesus exhorts us to do in Luke 8:18 where we find that
God’s Word Enlightens
God’s Word Enlightens
Jesus says, Luke 8:18 “Take care then how you hear, for to the one who has, more will be given, and from the one who has not, even what he thinks that he has will be taken away.”
There are two things I want us to see from this verse. The first is that
If we listen carefully, we will be given more light
If we listen carefully, we will be given more light
Listening carefully to God’s Word involves several elements:
First, listening carefully means taking the time to read the Word and meditate on its meaning.
Even among those who attend church regularly, so many are simply ignorant of what the Bible says because they do not take the time consistently to read it and think about what it means. In our busy schedules, we often rush through devotions (if we have them at all) without taking the time to chew on what the text means and how it applies to our lives.
A few years ago there was a man in his eighties named Carl Sharsmith who had spent over 50 summers as a guide in Yosemite National Park. This man delighted in the spectacular beauty of that place, and he was always discovering some new facet of it to revel in. But often he got hit with a question that a lady asked him one afternoon: “I’ve only got an hour to spend at Yosemite,” she declared. “What should I do? Where should I go?” When Carl finally found a voice to reply. “Ah, lady, only an hour. I suppose that if I had only an hour to spend at Yosemite, I’d just walk over there by the river and sit down and cry.”
Just as there is enough in Yosemite to spend a lifetime of summers exploring, so there is enough in the Bible to spend your lifetime digging out and meditating on. If we do not understand it, we must ask God to open our minds to its meaning. We must go back and spend more time observing what it says and does not say. We must read the context over and over to get the flow of thought. Take the time often to spend with the Lord in his Word.
Second, listening carefully means always looking for Christ in the Word.
Jesus chastised the Jews by saying, John 5:39 “You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me.” With the two men on the Emmaus Road, Luke 24:27 “…beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, [Jesus] interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself.” Whether we’re in the Old Testament or in the New, we ought to draw closer to the Lord Jesus if we are listening carefully to what God has revealed.
“We find Christ in all the Scriptures. In the Old Testament He is predicted, in the Gospels He is revealed, in Acts He is preached, in the epistles He is explained, and in Revelation He is expected.”
Alistair Begg
For sake of time I mention only a third way to listen to God’s Word carefully: Listening carefully means always seeking to apply the Word to my own heart and life.
The two questions that Paul asked the Lord on the Damascus Road are good ones to ask when you read the Word or listen to it being preached: “Who are you, Lord?” and, “What shall I do, Lord?” (Acts 22:8, 10). Those two questions are linked: If Jesus is the risen Lord and Savior, who gave himself for my sins, then it has a great deal of bearing on how I must live.
To read the Word without applying it doesn’t do us any good. The Word was not given to fill our heads with interesting facts, but to change our hearts into conformity to Jesus Christ. I have met Christians who can tell you the tense of Greek verbs in the New Testament and who will argue the subtle nuance of some theological point, but they are angry and insensitive toward their families. The whole point of Scripture is summed up in the two great commandments, to teach us how to love God and to love one another. If we aren’t learning to do that, we’re missing the point. If we listen carefully to God’s Word, he will give us more light so that we can grow more. But, …
If we listen superficially, what we think we have will be taken away
If we listen superficially, what we think we have will be taken away
We will find later in this book that Jesus’ warning in this verse applied to the Pharisees, who thought they knew the Scriptures, but missed the Messiah of whom the Scriptures foretold. God judged them by taking away their temple and their land in the great destruction under Titus in A.D. 70. His warning also applied to Judas, who superficially listened to Jesus’ teaching, but did not apply it to his own heart. The Pharisees and Judas were not atheists or something like that. They seemed to be zealous for the things of God. Judas was one of the twelve. Yet both the Pharisees and Judas were deceived. They thought they knew God, but they didn’t know him at all because they didn’t apply his Word to their hearts. In the end, they lost everything.
Because there is this element of self-deception, we must be very careful here. It’s easy for spiritual pride to slip in, where our knowledge of the Bible fools us into thinking that we are spiritually mature because we know so much. We must constantly confront ourselves with the standards of Scripture applied to our thoughts, attitudes, and behavior, especially as seen in our relationships at home. Is my thought life pure? Do I deal with my grumbling, unbelieving, unthankful spirit? Does my family see the fruit of the Spirit in my dealings with them? If I put on a good front at church, saying, “Lord, Lord,” but I don’t practice his Word in private and at home, I will be shocked some day to hear him say, “Depart from Me, I never knew you, who practice lawlessness.”
We must each turn ourselves fully over to God and lay ourselves bare before his Word. The gospel is God’s message of salvation, that Jesus is King of all. It’s God who writes the rules and sets the terms. This is a message for you and me and it’s a message that God has delivered to us achieve his glory and consequentially, our eternity at heart. God’s Word will change us. It will make us die to our ways, but when that seed finds fertile soil…when we are made to see the light of the gospel, we are God’s children who can thank God that
The light of God’s Word illuminates the darkness, exposes false teaching, and enlightens the careful hearer
The light of God’s Word illuminates the darkness, exposes false teaching, and enlightens the careful hearer
If this is what Jesus said… If this is the effect that the Bible should have in my life and in your life... I’ve got two questions for you. The first question is for anyone here this morning who has yet to surrender their life to Jesus Christ. Why do you hear this and reject it? Jesus said that eternal life is knowing him! With all your sin that God’s Word brings out from darkness into light, all that which you’re made to feel terrible over, you can be forgiven of! The cross upon which Jesus died is where God has accomplished earning the forgiveness you need. All that Jesus did and taught constantly pointed to that glorious cross. Why do you reject it?
The other question I have is for the Christian. We cannot pick and choose right and wrong. When God exposes something false we’re holding on to or a sin that is present in our lives, he’s inviting us into the comfort of a deeper understanding of the gospel as we release the sin and embrace the cross.
Do you know what would solve a lot of problems in the lives of everyone in this room? If we started to obey the command of the Father given at the transfiguration of Jesus. You remember that, don’t you? Jesus ascends upon the top of a mountain and he was transfigured…his clothes became radiantly white…and Moses and Elijah, men who had departed time centuries before, appear with Jesus. It is an incredible scene to envision let alone witness and Peter is as overwhelmed as anyone. And if we’re not careful, we might miss what was the most fantastic aspect of the event. The voice of the Father was heard on that day. The Father in Heaven declared, “This is my beloved Son; LISTEN. TO. HIM.” (Mark 9:7)
Listen to the voice of King Jesus. Is he calling you to his light today? You will find no peace in life or what comes after until you surrender to the Price of Peace, Jesus Christ.
And in every way, when light has been shone into the darkness of our condition, exposing what was once hidden, as we are careful to hear, we are obligated to do what we heard.
Let us allow God’s Word to have it’s full impact upon us, so that we might delight to speak of it to everyone. God’s Word illuminates, exposes, and enlightens all who hear it by the power of the Spirit.