Light of the World | Matthew 5:14-16
Brian Hedges | July 31, 2022
Let me invite you to turn in Scripture this morning to Matthew 5. We’re going to be reading verses 14-16 here in just a moment.
While you’re turning there, let me share a little story that comes from Max Lucado’s book God Came Near. This is a fictional story, as will soon be obvious; a humorous story; kind of even a silly story, but I think it makes an important point.
It’s about a group of candles, and it seems that one night when the electricity blacked out during an electrical storm, Max went to a storage closet to look for candles. He found four of them, which would work nicely to light the various rooms in the house. But he was deeply surprised when the candles began to protest.
The first one said, “I’m not ready; I need more preparation.” He goes on to describe how he had been studying wind resistance and is listening to a series on tapes on wick buildup and conservation and is reading the new bestseller on flame display, called Waxing Eloquently.
The second candle also protests that he is busy meditating on the importance of light. “It’s an enlightening experience,” he claims.
The third candle says, “I’m waiting to get my life together. I’m not stable enough. I lose my temper easily. I guess you could say I’m a hothead.”
The last candle explains, “I’d like to help, but lighting the darkness is not my gift. I’m a singer. I sing to other candles to encourage them to burn more brightly.” With that, she began singing “This Little Light of Mine.”
Finally, Lucado confesses that one by one he blew the candles out, since they refused to do their job of giving off light. The punchline of the story comes when he goes back to his wife and asks, “Where did you buy these candles anyway?” to which she replies, “Oh, they’re church candles. Remember that church that closed down across town? I bought them there.”
That’s a silly story, I know. I heard the groans. The sad thing about this story is that it works. Too often in the church those of us who are called to be the light of the world give excuses for why it’s not our gift to do evangelism, it’s not our job to shine the light, we’re not ready yet, we’re busy preparing, or we’re busy with our other spiritual activities, but we’re not actually doing the work of evangelism and of shining light.
Well, Jesus calls us to be the light of the world. We see that in Matthew 5:14-16. We’re going to read this passage. This is the second message in a series of four on living on mission. It’s the second of four word pictures for evangelism that we find in the New Testament. Last week we looked at “salt of the earth”; today, “light of the world.” Next week we’ll look at “fishers of men” and then in the fourth week “sowing and reaping.”
The reason we’re doing this series is because the leaders of our church have perceived this as a need among us. This is a need among all of us. This is not just for you; this is for me, this is for all of us. In fact, our leadership team was on a retreat a little over a month ago, and one of the first exercises we did in this retreat was just try to make a list of the things that we think our church is known for. We were just trying to make an accurate list. What do we think our church is actually known for?
We made a list, and it was a good list. There were a lot of good things on that list. There were probably seven or eight things we think our church is known for. We got to the end of that list, and one of the glaring absences of things that were missing from that list was anything related to evangelism, anything that was related to mission. We realized, you know, that is a glaring absence, because it’s one of the core values of our church: mission, sharing Jesus in word and deed. This is one of the most important things that we are called to do and to be as the church, and yet this is something that we do not perceive as a strength.
Now, I say that recognizing that there are some of you who are regularly sharing your faith. I know that there are some of you who really do have a gift of evangelism, and I’m so grateful for those of you for whom that’s true.
But if this stings a little, and if you think, You know, maybe I do need to change something in my life so that I am becoming a more evangelistic person, then I hope this message will be helpful to you this morning. I hope it will be helpful to all of us as Redeemer Church.
Let’s read the passage, read the text, Matthew 5:14-16. These are the words of Jesus to his disciples. He says, “You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden; nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.”
This is God’s word.
I want you to see three very simple things this morning about being the light of the world. I’ll give you three words and connect it to three parts of the passage. The three words are identity, community, and visibility.
1. Identity: "You are the light of the world."
2. Community: "A city set on a hill cannot be hidden."
3. Visibility: "Let your light shine."
Let’s look at each one of those three things.
1. Identity: "You Are the Light of the World"
The point I want you to get here is simply this: To shine as light, I must first be light. To shine as light, you must first be light.
This is the underlying assumption of the whole passage. Jesus begins by saying to his disciples, “You are the light of the world.” It’s an amazing statement that he makes, and it’s actually a statement he makes about himself in another context. You remember that in John 8:12, one of the great “I am” statements of the Gospel of John is when Jesus says, “I am the light of the world.” If you read through the Gospel of John you’ll see that this is a motif that runs through this entire Gospel, that Jesus is the word who became flesh, the word who dwelt among us, and in him was life, and that life was the light of men. He is the light of the world, the light has come into the world and the darkness has not received this light, because their works are evil. The light exposes them. So there’s this constant tension in the Gospel of John between darkness and light. Jesus is the light of the world.
But what Jesus says here is also very significant, it’s also true; that you, if you are a disciple of Jesus, you are the light of the world. It implies something. It implies that something has happened in our lives as followers of Jesus that has changed us, so that we who at one time were characterized by darkness are now characterized by light. To shine as light, you must first be light.
I think this is nowhere more clear than in Ephesians 5. I want to read a passage to you from Ephesians 5:7-10. This is Paul’s great letter to the Ephesians, and this letter is characterized by a number of before and after pictures, where Paul talks about what they once were before and what they now are as believers, as followers of Christ.
One of those pictures is in Ephesians 5, and it uses this metaphor of darkness and light. Listen to what he says in verses 7-10.
He says, “Therefore do not become partners with them . . .” He’s talking about the children of wrath, the children of darkness. He’s talking about the darkness of the world, the ungodly, those who do not know Christ. He says, “Therefore do not become partners with them, for at one time you were darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light (for the fruit of light is found in all that is good and right and true), and try to discern what is pleasing to the Lord.”
I was listening just yesterday to a sermon from a great 20th-century preacher, Martyn Lloyd-Jones. It was on this passage, Ephesians 5:7 and following. He just drew out the contrast in a way that only Lloyd-Jones could. You were—you are. Darkness—light. Something’s changed; something’s different. Something has happened in your life if you are in the Lord. Listen to what he says. “At one time you were darkness.” It’s not just that you were in darkness; it’s that the darkness was in you. It’s that you were darkness; this is what characterized your life. But now you are light in the Lord. If we are in the Lord, if we are in Christ, united to him by faith and by the Spirit, we are light. We are children of light, and therefore we are called to walk as children of light.
Has this ever happened to your life? Has this ever happened in your experience, that your fundamental identity as a human being has been changed from someone who walked in darkness, whose life was characterized by darkness, to someone who now walks in light? Have you had that experience that Charles Wesley wrote about in that famous hymn? He said,
Long my imprisoned spirit lay,
Fast bound in sin and nature’s night;
Thine eye diffused a quick’ning ray,
I woke, the dungeon flamed with light.
My chains fell off; my heart was free;
I rose, went forth, and followed thee.
Amazing love! How can it be
That thou, my God, shouldst die for me?
Here’s someone who once was bound up in darkness, absolute bondage to sin, but then the quickening light of God invades his life and completely changes him and transforms him. He is now a child of light.
Is this true for you? Has this happened to you? Here’s the deal: You will never fulfill the vocation of a light shining in the world if you are not yourself made light, transformed from darkness to light. How do you know? How do you know if you are a person of the light instead of a person of darkness?
Well, you can see it right there in Ephesians 5:9. He says in verse 8, “Walk as children of light (for the fruit of light is found in all that is good and right and true) . . .” Those three things—good. That which is good rather than that which is evil, that which is bad. Here’s someone who now delights in things that are good and pure, things that are wholesome, things that are not tainted by the sin and the wickedness of the world.
The fruit of the light is found in all that is good and right. This means that which is righteous, that which is just, that which is equitable, instead of that which is wrong.
Then also, that which is true. Someone who delights in truth, not in error. Here would be one practical way that works itself out in our lives: if we are the children of light, there is a growing, increasing appetite for truth, for the truth of God’s word, for the truth of the gospel, and not just for an intellectual acquisition of that truth. It’s not just to have my head full of facts about the Bible, but it’s for the application of that truth to my life, so that my life is increasingly becoming a good life, a righteous life, a wholesome life, a life that is conformed to the truth.
If that happens in our lives, if we are light, then shining that light will become inevitable. If you are light, you’re going to shine.
Have you ever been in a completely dark room, totally dark? No light from the windows, nothing coming in, and you just turn on one light, or you just light one candle, and all of a sudden you see in a way that you did not see before. The light is inevitably shining. If the light is present, it’s going to shine. If the gospel takes this kind of residence in our hearts that it transforms us, then we are going to shine the light of the gospel.
I just read a book this week that I highly recommend to you. It’s [Evangelism] by Mack Stiles. Unfortunately it’s not on the book table, but we’re going to add it. We’re going to add this to the table soon. But you can order this off Amazon; this is a cheap book. It’s short. This is not a thick book; it’s maybe 100 pages; really easy to read. This is one of the best little things on evangelism that I’ve read.
This is what Mack Stiles says in the book. He says, “The hope in evangelism is that we so steep ourselves in gospel truth and gospel living and so apply ourselves to gospel study that the gospel can’t help but come out of us.”
To shine as lights, we must first be light. To share the gospel with others, I must first embrace the gospel for myself. I must be a gospel person if I am going to share that message with others. It’s a change in our identity. We just did a whole series on identity, but here it is again—changed, transformed identity because of faith in Jesus Christ. That’s the first thing needed if we are to be the light of the world.
2. Community: "A City Set on a Hill Cannot Be Hidden"
Jesus says, also in verse 14, “A city set on a hill cannot be hidden.” One of the commentators says, “The image here is of a brightly lit city on a hilltop, representing the corporate effect of the combined lights of individual disciples.”
Try to get the picture here for a minute. Remember that in the ancient world, in the time when Jesus lived, there was no electricity—electricity had not been discovered yet. Benjamin Franklin had not yet flown the kite and discovered electricity. So there were no electric-powered lights. Instead, cities were lit at night by candles or by lamps with oil, torches, things like that.
If you lived out in the country, if you were out, say, traveling on the road between cities, and you were traveling at night, the darkness—especially when the moon wasn’t shining brightly that night—the darkness would have been palpable. If you’ve ever lived in a rural area where you’re far from city lights, maybe you’ve experienced this. I’ve lived in this kind of setting a couple times in my life, and there are times in the month when you can go outside and, if all the lights are out, you can’t see your hand in front of your face, it’s so dark. That’s what it was like in the ancient world. It was so dark.
But imagine that you are traveling, and you’ve been traveling even through the night. You’re trying to reach a city, and you come over a hilltop and you see there on the horizon, at the top of a hill, miles and miles away, you see all of the lights of this city. Every candle that’s burning, every lamp that’s burning . . . I don’t know how far you would have been able to see light of this nature in the ancient world, but you would have been able to see it from a distance, and it would have been unmistakable on a pitch-black night, and you see the combined light of the city.
Jesus gives this as a picture, again, for his disciples. “You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden.” I think it gives us another principle for evangelism, the principle of community, and here it is: We shine best when we shine with others. There’s more light when you have multiple candles and oil lamps together than if you have one by itself. A city set on a hill, a city full of light.
In other words, a transformed community of people who have all had this experience of moving from darkness to light now are walking together as the children of light. They are a city set on a hill.
Mack Stiles in this book—this is one thing I love about this book so much—he fills it with stories of evangelism, but with a particular philosophy of evangelism. Last week I talked about how the culture has changed, the world has changed. We live in this westernized, postmodern, post-Christian world, and the fact of the matter is that the old evangelism methods, the methods of the 20th century, are not as effective as they were back then.
There was a time when door-to-door evangelism worked a lot better than it does now. But how many of you—let me just see a raise of hands—how many of you like it when a stranger knocks on your door to give you information of any kind? Let me see your hands. Does anybody like that? I don’t see any hands. Nobody likes that! How many of you like it when you get a phone call from someone you don’t know, a telemarketer? None of us like that! None of us like cold-turkey sales, right? We’re burned out on that. We’re tired of the marketing techniques of the 20th century. That’s what evangelism in the 20th century was largely like.
Some of it was effective. Listen; God used that. He brought people to Christ through that. I’m not saying that was all wrong, but I’m saying that’s not going to work anymore, and what we need is something entirely different. What we need is a pattern that I think conforms much more closely to the New Testament, and it’s what Mack Stiles calls a culture of evangelism. It’s not just an evangelistic program, it’s not just an evangelistic method, it’s not an evangelistic service; it’s a church where the entire church has a culture of evangelism.
He gives a list of the attributes of what that would look like. You can see the list here. I’m not going to expound on all of this; I’d love it if you would read the book. But here are some of the things he says.
It’s a culture motivated by love for Jesus and his gospel, and a culture that is confident in the gospel. It’s a culture that understands the danger of entertainment, and he means in particular the danger of entertainment in the church, where the church essentially becomes an entertainment service with a little gospel tag at the end. I don’t think that’s an effective evangelistic method. It’s a culture that sees people clearly; that is, sees people in their spiritual need. People are either in Christ or out of Christ; they are either saved or they are lost. They are either converted or unconverted; they are either believers or nonbelievers. They are either regenerate or unregenerate. They are either in the light or in the darkness. It’s one way or the other, and we need to see and understand that clearly, and we need to understand that people who are outside of Christ are in danger of eternal condemnation.
It’s a culture that pulls together as one, so that as the church together we are involved in this evangelistic project or outreach, this culture of evangelism.
I think, better than giving you a list of descriptors, let me just read you what this would look like. I’m going to read you a couple of pages from this book. I know it’s hard to listen to somebody read; I’m going to try to read it in an interesting way. It’s a story. I think this will grab you. I think you will see what Stiles means by a culture of evangelism.
He asks this question: “How then does a healthy culture of evangelism work?” Here’s just one example.
Abigail, a full-time mom, sat on the bus going to Washington, D.C. from the Dulles airport. It had been a long trip back from a funeral in Texas, and she looked forward to being with her family. She was sitting next to a young Asian woman, but rather than burying herself in a book she struck up a conversation.
The girl’s name was Van. As they spoke, Van told Abigail that she had just arrived from China and these were her first few hours in America. Abigail knew a divine appointment when she saw one. She wanted to reach out, but she knew she needed to be sensitive, too. As she thought through things going on at her church, she remembered an upcoming wedding of two strong believers. She knew the gospel would be presented there. The church encourages all members to come and bring friends to hear the witness of a wedding, so Abigail asked, “Would you be interested in coming to a Christian wedding?”
Sure enough, Van jumped at the chance. They exchanged emails and Abigail arranged to pick Van up.
Notice that Abigail trusted in a healthy culture of evangelism. There was no need to call up the pastor and pressure the staff to start a church program for Chinese evangelism. She didn’t have to wonder whether the gospel would be clear at the wedding. In a church with a healthy culture of evangelism, the gospel saturates all ministries. Abigail picked a wedding, but she could have invited Van to any number of things.
Sure enough, the wedding focused as much on the Bridegroom of heaven as the bride and groom on earth. Both the couple and the pastor shared the gospel, but best of all, after the service was over and the reception began, Abigail took her four-year-old out to the church playground and Van went with them. Van began asking questions about what made a Christian wedding different from a secular wedding. Abigail, well-schooled in the gospel message, took the opportunity to explain from the wedding the entire gospel to Van.
Abigail then asked Van if she would like to have a Bible. Since the church stocked Bibles for international students at its bookstall, the two of them walked back into the church and Abigail gave Van a Bible in Mandarin, the first Bible Van had ever seen.
Abigail then offered to get together with Van and read the Bible, which they did. Abigail even invited some church members who spoke Mandarin to meet with Van and share their testimonies during one of their Bible readings. When they did, Van was touched and asked penetrating questions.
The story goes on, but you get the idea. That’s a culture of evangelism.
Now, let’s just ask for a minute—I want you to dream with me for a minute. What would that look like here at Redeemer Church? What would it look like?
Let’s say that you have an unbelieving neighbor or coworker. All of you do. All of you are either living within a neighborhood where there are unbelievers, or you’re working with unbelievers, or you have some kind of contact. Maybe it’s some other setting, but all of us have some contact with unbelievers.
Here would be a first step. You are befriending this person, and let’s just say you invite your unbelieving neighbor or coworker to a small group cookout where she will meet some other Christians. She comes, and she’s meeting other Christians. You haven’t had a deliberate gospel conversation yet, but you have invited her into a setting where she’s going to be around believers.
You get to know her a little better, and then you initiate a Jesus conversation, maybe by just asking this question: “What’s your church background?” or, “Do you have a church background?” You listen to her story.
It may be a story where there’s a very negative church background. If that’s the case, that’s okay; you be sensitive to that. You express sympathy. Then you might respond, not trying to defend the church, but you say something like this—you might say, “You know, my church isn’t perfect either, but the reason I love Jesus is because of who Jesus is and what Jesus has done for me. Can I tell you what Jesus has done for me?” Then you share your testimony of how you came to faith in Christ.
You end the conversation like this—you might say, “You know, if you’d like to learn a little more about Jesus, if you’d like to give another church a chance, why don’t you come to my church? Just visit my church. There’s no high pressure of things going on at the church; just come and hear about Jesus.”
Let’s say she comes, and when she comes she’s greeted by Jenni Lindgren or Deb Millin or Tim and Kalynn, or some of the other people who serve on our greeting team, our welcoming team. She meets someone who is friendly and smiling and engaging and warm and welcoming. But not only that, she meets other people, because you’re all introducing yourselves and you’re being friendly. Maybe she meets someone that she saw at the small group cookout that she came to some time ago. She’s struck by the friendliness of these people.
Then let’s say somebody invites her to the Wednesday evening women’s prayer meeting, and she decides to give that a try, and she comes, and she is struck by the honesty and the authenticity of women who are sharing their struggles and they’re praying for one another. She starts to attend—maybe sporadically, just a little bit here and there, but you’re having conversations with her. She is forming connections.
Over time, she slowly begins to understand more about the message of Jesus. She attends a service one day where there’s a baptism, and she hears someone tell about how they came to faith in Jesus Christ, and she sees and hears that baptism is a picture of the gospel, of an old life being buried and a new life, walking in newness of life as we are raised with Christ in new life; and she becomes curious about that. She hears that there’s a Gospel and Baptism class (our next one is August 28th, by the way), and she comes to a Gospel and Baptism class, where she hears very clearly exactly what the gospel is and she learns what baptism means.
Then, about six months later, after maybe a year or so of being in a community where there’s a culture of evangelism, she’s baptized.
Now, what would have just happened? There would never have been a high-pressure gospel sales pitch. There would never have been an altar call. There would never have been an entertainment-driven seeker service. But someone would have come from darkness to light; she would have come to Christ by being immersed in a gospel-shaped culture, a culture of evangelism—a city set on a hill, where the light was shining. That’s the idea.
If you want to know what my plan for evangelism is in our church, that’s it. That’s the plan. You’re the plan. We are the plan. The church being the church is the plan! It’s if we really are children of light that we are walking in light and we are shining that light and we are doing it together and we’re doing it intentionally, we’re doing it deliberately, we’re doing it in order to win our friends and neighbors who do not know Christ, to win them to Jesus.
3. Visibility: "Let Your Light Shine"
What, then, does that require of us? Point number three—visibility. We have to let our light shine, and we let our light shine through gospel words and good works, for the glory of God.
Look at verses 15-16. “Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.”
Let your light shine. How does our light shine? Jesus says, “Let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works . . .” So, it seems here that especially in view are the good works of believers, that these works are the way we let our light shine. This is what has sometimes been called “service evangelism,” where we are serving, meeting the needs of others, in order to evangelize.
I think more is implied here, and I want to read to you John Stott’s comments here, because I think he’s right on this. Stott says, “It seems that good works is a general expression to cover everything a Christian says or does because he is a Christian—every outward and visible manifestation of his Christian faith. Since light is a common biblical symbol of truth, a Christian’s shining light must surely include his spoken testimony. Thus, the Old Testament prophecy that God’s servant would be a light to the nations is said to have been fulfilled not only in Christ himself, the light of the world, but also by Christians who bear witness to Christ. Evangelism must be counted as one of the good works by which our light shines and our Father is glorified.”
I think he’s right. The bottom line is this: it’s both our gospel words and our good works. In fact, I think the two always have to go together. It’s sharing Jesus in word and deed, and we need both. We need the words because the words explain the reason behind our good works, and we need the good works not because good works save us, we need the good works because the good works validate the message that we proclaim and they show the reality of our faith.
Let me give you one more passage of Scripture, Philippians 2:14-16. Paul says, “Do all things without grumbling or disputing, that you may be blameless and innocent, children of God without blemish, in the midst of a crooked and twisted generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world . . .” Then notice what follows. “. . . holding fast to the word of life.”
Shining light goes hand in hand with holding fast to the word of life, “so that in the day of Christ I may be proud that I did not run in vain or labor in vain.”
Shortly after our oldest son, Stephen, was born, we noticed a yellow hue to his skin. Some of you maybe have been through this with your children. He had jaundice. You know what the doctor prescribed for jaundice? He prescribed phototherapy, or light therapy. We got this blanket; it was called a bilirubin blanket. It was basically a blanket of (I guess) fluorescent light. We plugged this blanket in, lay little baby Stephen on the blanket, where he’s just laying on this light blanket, and put him in the sunlight. We did this for, I don’t know, a week or so, for several hours a day. The light caused the bilirubin count in his blood to go away, and eventually the jaundice disappeared. It was light therapy to bring healing to baby Stephen.
Brothers and sisters, you and I are called to bring light therapy to a world that is jaundiced with sin. We are called to shine our lights, and we do that by sharing the gospel, gospel words, Jesus conversations—talking about Jesus, sharing what Jesus has done for our souls—with others, and through good deeds—generosity, service, compassion, care, ministries of mercy and justice. As we do that, we do it with this motive in mind: that men might see our good works and glorify the Father who is in heaven. There’s the motivation. The motivation is the glory of God.
Identity: you are the light of the world. Community: a city set on a hill cannot be hidden. Visibility: let your light shine.
Let’s pray.
Father in heaven, would you work in us as individuals and would you work in us as a church? I pray, first of all, that we would each take a few moments of self-examination to just ask the question, “Am I light? Am I in the light? Am I a child of light? Or am I walking in darkness?” I pray that wherever we see darkness we would repent, and that our lives would be characterized not by walking in darkness but by walking in the light of Jesus Christ.
I pray, Father, that you would help us at Redeemer to develop this culture of evangelism, of gospel witness, where in partnership with one another we are shining the light together. May this become forefront in our minds. May we think of everything we do, from Sunday morning to small groups to Bible studies to prayer meetings to children’s ministry and youth ministry to specific outreach events, may we see all of them as opportunities to shine the light of the gospel and to share Jesus with others. We pray, Father, that your Holy Spirit would go before us, and that in the weeks and months to come we would see many God-ordained opportunities, many divine appointments, for inviting people to learn about Jesus or to talk about Jesus or to meet fellow Christians or to come to church. May we do it, Lord, with the right motivations; not to make Redeemer Church a bigger place. May we do it so that souls will be saved, so that people will be rescued from darkness and from eternal condemnation, and may we do it so that your name would be glorified.
As we come to the Lord’s table this morning, I pray that these moments would be moments of turning to and reaffirming once again in our hearts faith in Jesus Christ, that we would remember the sacrifice that he has made for us, what it cost Jesus to rescue us from darkness and make us children of light. As we take these elements of the bread and the juice, may we by faith feed on Christ who is the bread of life. So draw near to us, we pray in Jesus’ name, amen.
Brian G. Hedges
