The Light of the World
There were only 2 Primary Purpose for creation:
1. To bring Glory to God. (Isa 43:7)
2. To create a people that would live throughout eternity as the family of God. It is in God alone that we live and move and have our being. (Acts 17:28)
Everything in scripture can be seen to fall within those 2 purposes and so we ought not to be surprised to see that immediately after creation, the very first image that we are given in scripture is one of the Lord seeking to find Adam and Eve in the Garden. God was in the habit of walking and talking to his children and the Lord’s heart to be in relationship with us has never changed. God’s desire will always be to be in relationship with his children. (Gen 3:8)
Relationship is so important to our Heavenly Father and our first clue might me that God Himself exists as 3 in 1. It is no accident that the Holy Scriptures begin and end with pictures of relationship in action. In Genesis Chapter 3, we find a picture of God walking in the garden, talking with His children, and in Revelation (Rev 3:20) we hear Jesus knocking on the door of our hearts, asking us to open the door to invite him so that he can eat with us. To sit at the table to eat with others is an intimate thing that we generally only do with those we want to be in close relationship with. As I stated at the outset, there were only two purposes for creation. The first being that as God’s children we will give glory to God and the second one, is that God created us to spend eternity with Him. Here we discover a secret in the making. You see, it turns out, that both these purposes can only ever exist together, as one. We will only ever learn what it means to bring glory to God by being in close relationship with Him and that is to be the focus of this teaching.
Because of sin, the relationship between the Lord and his children was broken and Adam and Eve had to be removed from the garden. This did not change God’s purpose to be in relationship with his children but because of the choice that Adam and Eve made, that Lord had to come up with a plan to deal with sin so that our relationship could be restored. That’s why the Lord chose to offer His son, Jesus, as the once and for all sacrifice for sin. Once the price for sin was paid, the way was once again be cleared for our relationship between our Lord and His creation to continue as it had in the beginning.
While there may be many believers who have learned to hear the voice of God, there remain very many more who have not. In fact, if we visit any Christian bookstore, we would likely find the shelves filled with books on the subject of hearing the voice of God. It is one of the most popular subjects in Christendom. What we can easily deduce from this is that there are a great many believers who are asking for help to learn how to be communication with God. In the book of Jeremiah, we find a promise that remains as true for the people of God today as it was the day the words were first written.
Call to me and I will answer you and tell you great and unsearchable things that you do not know. (Jer 33:3)
The Lord is eager for His people to seek Him and when we do, He promises that He will answer. Interestingly, when a child of God encounters the voice of God it is as though we are filled with life. We seem to come alive. The invisible void that is in all of us feels as though it is suddenly being filled and we recognize that we are feeling hope and joy in a way that it is absent when we are not close to the Lord.
In the New Testament we discover that the children of the Lord know how to recognize the voice of the Lord. Those who are close to the Lord depend on this truth. In the word of God, we read:
His sheep follow him because they (recognize) know his voice. (John 10:2-4)
Sometimes believers are going to need help as they learn how to hear the voice of God. In the story of young Samuel the prophet, we see that he needed to solicit the help of his mentor, the priest Eli, before he would learn how to recognize the voice of the Lord for himself. Sometimes, just like Samuel, we may need somebody to point the way and that is my purpose in this teaching.
As pastors and leaders, we are not going to be the only teachers that believers are able to lean on. One of the most important truths in all of scripture are words spoken by Jesus before he ascended into heaven when he said:
The Spirit is our teacher. (John 14:26)
We need to recognize that we have a teacher that lives in us. Sometimes, just as it was for Samuel, we will need to run to the teacher for help to point us towards truth. The thing we may need to understand is that there are going to be occasions when we will need to learn to ask for help. In life there are going to be any number of things we don’t understand, and at times like that, we must be willing to run to the Spirit of God to ask him to reveal His truth because that isone of the primary reasons that he was given. He was given to be our teacher and our counselor.
As I mentioned earlier, one of the most direct scriptures on the matter of Jesus willingness to talk with us was included in a word from the Apostle John’s book of Revelation where we read:
“Behold I stand at the door and knock, if anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him, and him with me.” (Rev 3:20;)
as we dig deeper into the word of God on the matter, we discover that to come to know the Lord intimately there is going to be a price to pay.
Last month I shared some stories about three bible characters who had so much passion for God that they were willing to go to extreme lengths to be able to spend time with Him. Samuel for example, slept in the presence of the Ark of the Covenant. David, got up in the middle of the night just to be able to be alone with God to sing praises to Him and talk to Him. Jesus went to all sorts of lonely out of the way places, just so that he could be alone with God, and it was that kind of willingness to do whatever it took to meet with the Lord that set these men apart. Without that kind of passion for God in our lives, we will discover that the distractions of this world will too easily draw us away from the things of the Lord. I believe that is why we read in scripture:
The eyes of the Lord Range throughout the world to encourage those who are devoted to him to Him wholeheartedly. (2 Chron 16:9)
Without the kind of passion that drives to go to these lengths to meet with the Lord we are not going to be the kind of people who can understand what it means to be fully devoted to God. As we see in the above scripture, finding such people is no easy task. We read that the Lord searches throughout the whole earth to be able to find those who are fully committed to him.
Let us turn our attention to another matter for a moment. We read in the gospel of John,
“The devil is the prince of this world.” (John 14:30)
As the Prince of this world Satan’s design is revealed in the meaning of his name. Satan is called deceiver and liar and the way that he deceives the people of God has not changed since the very beginning. Just in the same way that he told Eve not to believe what God had told her about eating the fruit of the tree, he is whispering to us that we need to taste all the good things that the world has to offer. The word of God however tells shares a very different truth,
For we read in James 4:4 ‘you adulterous people, don’t you know that friendship with the world is enmity towards God. Anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God.’ Satan’s purpose is the very opposite purpose of God. His design is to ensure that we are not able to remain in relationship with God. God desires relationship with us and Satan wants to make sure that doesn’t happen. The way that he does that is to tempt us to become a friend of the world by tempting us with the things of this world. If we will love the world enough, we will not have any time or energy to want to seek after the things of God.
Satan’s way is to tempt us with the things of this world and he has been so successful. Humanity is so easily distracted by the things of this world. The things of the flesh tempt us away from the things of God and Satan uses this approach more than any other to distract the people of God.
The scriptures declares that there were at least two reasons for Jesus to came into the world. The principal of all reasons was to provide for humanity a substitute sacrifice for sin. In context we need to understand that it was because of sin that relationship between man and God was broken and so the Lord chose to send His son to die as the solution to the problem. We begin to recognize that a second purpose of Jesus coming to earth was to fully restore the relationship that man had with God at the moment of creation and so we see that Jesus second purpose was
“To destroy the works of Satan.” (1 John 3:8)
Jesus came so that the destroyer might be defeated. Jesus wanted to be sure that Satan’s evil agenda would not succeed. God desire relationship, Satan’s desire is to destroy relationship. When Jesus defeated Satan at the cross Satan was defeated however his final sentence will not be carried out until Christ assigns him to eternity in the fires of Hades after the battle of Armageddon. Until then, Satan remains as the prince of this world.
If we are to have any possibility of overcoming the design of Satan, it will have to be by way of strength that comes because of our relationship with God. That is why the Lord is not seeking tohave a casual sort of relationship. The kind of relationship where we are neither hot nor cold is the very kind of relationship that Jesus speaks of in the book of Revelation when he says,
“I know all the things that you do, that you are neither hot nor cold. I wish you were either one or the other! So, because you are lukewarm neither one nor the other, I am about to spit you out of my mouth.” (Rev 3:16)
Our Lord wants us to have the kind of relationship that find its strength in our ongoing desire to come into His presence. He wants us to have the kind of relationship that is filled with fire and passion to share all that He deposits into our hearts. Just as it says in Jeremiah, the kind of relationship the Lord is calling us to have with Him is this,
“When you seek me, you will find me, when you seek me with all your heart.” (Jer29:13)
The Lord is looking for those who are ready to seek Him with all their hearts. If you are anything like me there will have been times when you will have felt empty inside, and it is at times like those that God’s Spirit in us wants to come alongside to strengthen us and build us up. There is therefore the responsibility upon each of us to fan into flame the spirit of God that is in us. Fan the flame of the spirit of God that is in you. (2Tim 1:6)
The passion that Samuel and David and Jesus had for God was a passion that required fuel and that fuel was provided as they spent time in the presence of God. The plans of God are revealed in the presence of God. Of course, there were certainly times when David may not have wanted to get up in the middle of the night to be with the Lord. However, if we are to fan the flame it will require that we need do the things that bring us close to the Lord so that we continue to fill our spiritual tanks with spiritual fuel.
Our world is in a very dark place and, it’s getting darker with each passing day. The Lord has declared in his word that it will only be His light as it shines in and through us that we will be able to overcome such a smothering darkness. The word of God tells us:
The light shines in the darkness and the darkness (did not) had no ability to overtake it. (John 1:5)
Since we have been told that we are to be the light of the world, should we not learn what to do to become those who properly reflect the light of the Lord? We read in God’s word that faith comes by hearing God’s word:
Faith Comes by Hearing the Word of God. (Rom 10:17)
Have you ever noticed that God has filled his word with stories. Lots and lots of stories. The Old Testament from cover to cover is packed full of stories and when we look at the life of Jesus,we discover that his primary means of sharing truth was also through stories.
Stories are the mainstay of scripture because they help people to discover truth. Stories not only teach truth but they also help us to know how to apply that truth. Stories stay with us. We remember the stories because stories impact us more than dry facts and that’s why from cover to cover the bible is filled with stories.
When the Lord meets up with us personally, we discover that we have a story to tell. Not only that but as we begin to share our stories with others, about the ways that God has chosen toencounter us in the days of our lives they see our passion for God rise up as we share. It’s a passion that causes those who hear our stories to want to have their own God moments. The spiritual fire in us that is burning starts to light a fire in the lives of those that we share with.
Too often, we miss the importance of sharing our God moments with others, but we need to recognize how powerful sharing our stories with others can be. Stories allow others to connectwith truth at an emotional level. Also, the stories we share often move people to action in ways that just reading the bible themselves may never do.
It has often been said that it is better to disciple one person into the faith that we have, than it is to lead ninety nine to pray a prayer of salvation, and then leave them at the altar. Discipling people is what we are doing when we share the stories of our God moments with them. When we share our stories, we are doing real life together.
Our stories help us to be the light of the world. When Jesus was on here on earth, he told us that he came to be the light of the world and when he went to be with the Father he told us to continue to reflect his light that is now in us by the Holy Spirit.
It turns out that our light shines particularly well when we encounter God. If we have not learned how to talk to God, we will not have many stories to tell, however as we learn to perfectthe spiritual rhythm of spending time with God, one of the biggest by-products will be the stories we have to tell. We begin to light up the room as we share the stories our spiritual encounters with God, and we become the light of the world.
Now let’s put all that we have talked about today in the context of God’s purpose for creation. The bible tells us that we are created to bring Glory to God but for many of us we don’t understand what that means. There is something that the Lord has hidden deep in His word and that is His dual purpose for creation. You see bringing glory to God and being in relationship with God was always intended to work hand in hand. If we want to learn to bring glory to our God we will have to have learned how to first of all be in relationship with him. To do that we will have to choose to Seek Him with all of our heart. (Jer 29:13) That is going to require purposeful agreement with God so that like Jesus we will choose to take time to go into the quiet places to be alone with God.
We will also need to ask the Spirit of God to help us to find the discipline we need to do this until it becomes a normal part of the rhythm of our lives. When meeting with the Lord becomes a part of the daily rhythm of our lives, we will know because we will not be able to imagine living any other way. We begin to make choices for God rather than the things of this world.
As we learn to spend time with God, we will have begun fanning the flame of the Spirit that is in us. (2 Tim 1:6) We will need to continue fanning the flame or it will begin to disappear. As the flames begin to rise however, we will discover that a passion for the things of God in our life will also have begun to rise and our appetite for the things of this world will begin to fade. (enthusiasm in the Greek is from two words, en/theos, which means ‘God in us’
As we choose to spend time with the Lord, we will begin to see that He begins to intersect with us in the days of our lives, in real time, and as that happens, we will find that we have stories to tell. As we share our stories, we begin to see God’s Spirit passion in us rise. It is as though we are coming alive as the light of God shines in and through us and we ‘bring glory to God’.
Amen, Amen and Amen
