Our Light
Notes
Transcript
Call to Worship: 1 Timothy 6:15b-16 // Prayer
Call to Worship: 1 Timothy 6:15b-16 // Prayer
Adoration: God, you are holy, holy, holy. Some of us are living through deep sorrows right now. God, be our treasure, our light in darkness until our faith is turned to sight. You are worthy of all praise, and you have guaranteed our glory.
Confession: Yet, though you have graciously shone your light on us, we still so often turn to darkness. When we suffer, we are not like your Son, whose righteousness was perfect in his suffering. But as we have suffered, so often it has turned up pride and selfishness in our hearts. Father, have mercy on us, and forgive us, for we have sinned against you.
Thanksgiving: But we know that you have redeemed + forgiven us in Christ, and therefore the light that you have shone into our heart cannot be quenched, and our inheritance in glory, sealed by your Spirit, cannot be lost. In this, we rejoice.
Supplication: Father, we lift up to you our sorrows + those among us who are suffering. Son of God, please comfort them with your own sufferings, your own cry of abandonment from the cross, and the bright light of your resurrected life at the Father’s right hand. By your Spirit, help us see that we also are enthroned with you in the Father’s presence // DCC: praise for the work that you are doing there—comforting their sufferers, glorifying your name among them, raising up young leaders who are dead serious about your gospel; please provide for their new building needs // For the saints in Nigeria: in the face of violence, love; in the face of opposition, gospel boldness; in the face of error, truth; in everything, hearts filled with the glory of Christ // We lift up the wars in Ukraine, Burma, Israel, and violence in so many more places—please, by your mercy and sovereign power, shut down the violence and provide for the oppressed, suffering, and poor // to the word… help us to see the brightness of your glory in the face of Jesus
Family Matters
Family Matters
Congregational meeting + thanksgiving potluck!
Benediction
Benediction
The sun shall be no more your light by day, nor for brightness shall the moon give you light; but the Lord will be your everlasting light, and your God will be your glory. Your sun shall no more go down, nor your moon withdraw itself; for the Lord will be your everlasting light, and your days of mourning shall be ended.
Sermon
Sermon
Intro: You Need Light
Intro: You Need Light
Well, I have some good news for you: Portland is not the gloomiest city in America. Gloomier than Portland is Seattle. Up in that city, from November through February, only 28% of daylight hours have sunshine. Down here, a whopping 29% have sunshine.
Well, you probably already knew that PNW winters are famously gloomy. And not just gloomy because the skies are grey, but gloomy because the constant lack of sunlight causes depression or Seasonal Affective Disorder for many who live up here. But actually, Portland is only the third most gloomy city in the US, and Seattle is only the second. What is the gloomiest city?
Anchorage, AK. The winter skies of Anchorage are a little less cloudy… but today, the sunrise was at 9 am, and sunset will be at 4:30 pm. So during the winter, their day is about 2 hours shorter than ours! On December 16, their sunrise will be at 10:10 am, and their sunset at 3:40 pm. I’ve never lived in Anchorage, but I imagine that those are the days when you long for sunshine and summer.
But now, go one step further. Imagine a land and a people designed for sunlight, but locked permanently in darkness. Friends, that’s us.
The world that was made to delight in God’s glory now sits in the shadow of evil, death, and judgment. It’s not hard to see. The shadow is found in the evil of war, in the downhill slide of health in old age, in the spiritual darkness which lingers even in the most devout heart. And in so many other places. This is the common condition of all nations: the shroud of darkness is cast over us.
Now, you might object: “There is so much good in the world. How can you say that we are living in darkness?” Actually, there is even more good than we realize: God gives life, breath, rain for crops, family and friends… and so much more. And yet, these gifts themselves are tainted with the darkness of the world: life and breath are cut short; rain doesn’t come when needed; family and friends fail. And beneath all of this is the hidden spiritual darkness of our hearts—pride, selfishness.
You might say, “OK, maybe you’re right. Maybe the world is a dark place. But I really don’t want to think about it. Shouldn’t we just focus on the good?” Friends, if the darkness will never lift—if there’s no way out of it—then it might actually make sense to pretend that the darkness isn’t there, just to protect yourself from the depressing reality of it. Ignoring the darkness might lead to a more pleasant life. But here’s the problem: if you ignore the darkness of this world, you will also never notice the light that is piercing the darkness.
And as Matthew will explain to us this morning, the light is Jesus himself, who has dawned on the world as the light of divine love.
And we’ll see this in three steps:
First, we’ll see how the location where Jesus began his ministry signaled the dawn of God’s redeeming love.
Second, we’ll consider how the dawn of this love has saved us.
And third, we’ll think about what it means to gaze at this saving love forever.
And all this will show us, who live in this present darkness, that the light has already dawned, and that nothing could be more wonderful than to gaze at the light himself—Jesus, who is the light of divine love.
The Light Dawning in Galilee
The Light Dawning in Galilee
[Geography]
Now, when Matthew starts, it looks like he’s just giving us a geography report. “Yeah, so Jesus went back up to Galilee, to his home town of Nazareth… and then he moved to Capernaum, and that’s all in the territories of Zebulun and Naphtali.” OK. Sure.
But notice in verse 12 why he began this movement…
John the Baptist had just been arrested. So the area around Jerusalem—the Southern part of Israel—was hostile, and so Jesus withdrew to the North.
It’s like Jerusalem rejected the light. Jerusalem—supposed to be the City of the Great King, and the place where God dwelled with his people at the Temple—and it imprisoned the prophet who came to announce the light. And so the light went north, and dawned in far off Galilee.
But notice, also, that Matthew gives us a lot of details about where exactly in Galilee Jesus lived. This is in verse 13:
And leaving Nazareth he went and lived in Capernaum by the sea, in the territory of Zebulun and Naphtali,
Why are these details important?
Well, imagine a map of Galilee. It’s an area about as wide as Mt. Hood National Forest, with the Mediterranean Sea on its Western border, and the sea of Galilee on its Eastern border. Nazareth is smack dab in the middle, in what had once been the territory of the tribe of Zebulun. And then Jesus moved from Nazareth to Capernaum, which is on the shore of the Sea of Galilee, in what had once been the territory of the tribe of Naphtali.
So Jesus conducted a lot of his early ministry in lands that had once been given to the tribes of Zebulun and Naphtali… and as it turns out, this fulfilled a specific prophecy made by Isaiah. Verses 15 and 16 give the prophecy:
“The land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, the way of the sea, beyond the Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles— the people dwelling in darkness have seen a great light, and for those dwelling in the region and shadow of death, on them a light has dawned.”
So then, the light of God’s redeeming love dawned there, in Zebulun and Naphtali, as the Messiah began to minister to the people.
[Exile and Redemption]
But why Zebulun and Naphtali, of all the 12 tribes of Israel? Why were they significant?
Well, in verse 15, Matthew has simplified Isaiah 9:1, to show its fulfilled. But I want to read you the whole verse, so that you can see why it matters that the light dawned in Zebulun and Naphtali specifically:
But there will be no gloom for her who was in anguish. In the former time he brought into contempt the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, but in the latter time he has made glorious the way of the sea, the land beyond the Jordan, Galilee of the nations.
[Exile] So, Isaiah says that God brought Zebulun and Naphtali into contempt, in the former times.
This is talking about how Zebulun and Naphtali were two of the first tribes of Ancient Israel, in the Old Testament, to be conquered by the Assyrian Empire and removed from the land. And within 200 years, Jerusalem itself was conquered. And all of that happened about 600-800 years before Jesus began his ministry there.
But why did God bring Zebulun and Naphtali into contempt? Why did he exile his people from the promised land? As you read through Isaiah, and through the rest of the OT, you find that God did this as punishment for the sins of his people.
You could say, they were removed into gloom. They were separated from the light of God’s presence in the promised land. The darkness of their sin led to the darkness of the judgement against them—the darkness of their exile.
[Restoration] But the point in Isaiah chapter 9 is that, just as God sent them into the darkness of exile, so he will also redeem them from exile, and make them glorious again. He will bring them home. That’s the promise that God gave his people through the prophet Isaiah: “I will bring you home from exile.”
But wait a minute… hadn’t Israel already come back from exile by Jesus’ day? Doesn’t Matthew’s gospel itself picture the Jews living in the promised land? It does.
So, if they’re already back in the promised land, doesn’t that mean that Isaiah 9 had already been fulfilled before Jesus came on the scene?
If you were an ancient Israelite reading the book of Isaiah, when you read Isaiah 9:2, “those who dwelt in a land of deep darkness, on them has light shone,” you’d think, “ ‘a land of deep darkness’—that must mean the places that we were exiled to, like Babylon and Egypt. And the light is God’s kindness to us when he brought us back home to the land of Canaan.”
But the way that Matthew quotes this verse, he is calling the promised land ITSELF a land of darkness. He’s saying, “yes, God’s people may have returned physically to the land, but in reality, they’re still in exile. They are still in their sins, still separated from God, living in exile within their own land. Still living in darkness.
But now, here’s the Son of God, and he’s gone to the exact geographical region that was the first to be conquered and exiled, and he’s living among them. So, Now, Matthew tells us, in Jesus the light of divine love is shining into the darkness. Now God’s people will actually return from the darkness of sin and exile into the light of God’s presence.
The Light Dawning for All People
The Light Dawning for All People
Brothers and sisters, I don’t think I have to tell you: this rescue from darkness was for more than just the Jewish people.
At the end of verse 15, Matthew says that this light has dawned on “Galilee of the Gentiles”
He’s not outright telling us, quite yet, that Jesus came to rescue Gentiles also. But he is hinting at it, and by the end of his gospel, we’ll read Jesus saying:
Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,
So, this light of divine, saving love is for all nations—every kind of person on the face of the earth.
And this is good news, because every person has the same basic darkness problem that Israel had.
“God is light, and in him there is no darkness at all” (1 John 1:5)
But by contrast, the human heart is laced with darkness. Sometimes, the darkness erupts like a volcano, such as when terrorists murder innocent civilians, or fathers abandon their families. But more often, it’s the quiet darkness of a heart which ignores God and focuses on self, and which lives selfishly toward other people from day to day.
This contrast between our darkness and God’s light is a problem.
Think of it this way: a room can be either light, or dark—not both. In order for darkness to exist, light has to be covered, or blocked, or snuffed out. But if the light is to powerful to be snuffed out, then the darkness is removed. The two don’t coexist. The darker something is, the less light it has. The brighter it is, the less darkness.
This is even more the case with the light of God: God is Light, it is not possible to commune with him when your heart is tainted with darkness.
Like Israel, we are—apart from Christ—in spiritual exile from God. We are rightly condemned for our evil, and removed from any hope of communion with him.
And this is why verse 16 is so meaningful:
the people dwelling in darkness have seen a great light, and for those dwelling in the region and shadow of death, on them a light has dawned.”
Do you see it? It’s not that we must light a lamp in our own hearts, to chase out the darkness, so that we can then approach God...
But instead, while we were still covered in darkness and the shadow of death, God’s own light dawned on us in Christ—the light of a love which would redeem the dark-hearted in the midst of their own darkness.
And notice: there are two perspectives in verse 16:
One is that the light has dawned on the land of darkness. OK. So, it’s happened, whether you’ve noticed it or not.
The other is that the people living in the darkness have seen it. Their eyes have been opened, and they have seen the redeeming love of God in the face of Christ. They now belong to the light. Colossians 1:13-14 says that God,
He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.
He took on himself the darkness of our judgment, that in him we might be forgiven and transferred into the Kingdom of Heaven.
But have you seen this light? Which is really the same as asking, have you trusted in Christ? In him the light of divine love is shining into our darkness.
The Light Shining On Us
The Light Shining On Us
But now, there is a great mistake that Christians can make here. I’ve made it, and I’m willing to bet that many of you have also. Christ is the Light of God’s redeeming love. But we can treat that as just a light that gets us in the door of the Kingdom… then there must be something else.
The thought goes like this: “God’s love to redeem me in Christ—that’s the love which removes my guilt, so that I can be adopted into God’s family. After that, I don’t need redemption anymore, so I guess the love of God becomes more generic?”
Did you ever wonder, “Why did Jesus keep his wounds in his glorified body?” It seems that the cross is a crucial part of how he made the Father’s love know, and so the glory of the cross is always with him. As the old hymn says:
Crown him the Lord of love;
behold his hands and side,
rich wounds, yet visible above,
in beauty glorified;
no angels in the sky
can fully bear that sight,
but downward bends his burning eye
at mysteries so bright.
This the light of Christ—the glory of God’s redeeming love—that shines on you NOW, believer. Do you see it?
So what are you supposed to do, walking through the darkness of this life? Of your own sin? Of inescapable suffering?
The world has plenty of counterfeit lights to offer—
maybe porn can ease the darkness of your loneliness?
maybe a nicer car or a bigger house will finally give you satisfaction to fill your dark emptiness?
maybe binge-watching the news, or some other kind of entertainment, will dull the pain?
But these false lights are more like bug zappers—they draw you in until they have destroyed you.
But imagine an ancient sailor, piloting his ship in a storm. The sky is covered with clouds—he has no way to navigate. But he can see, in the distance, the glow of the light of the harbor-city he is trying to reach. The light of the glow guides him safely in, and the light is itself the thing he desires.
Brothers and sisters, that is us. In our distress, in the darkness of this world, we look to the blazing glory of the love of God in Christ. That love lifts our faces and guides us safely through, and that love is itself our desire.
And when that love has brought us safely through this present darkness, as it says in Psalm 27:4, “we will gaze upon the beauty of the LORD.” We will gaze upon the beauty of that divine love—of those glorified wounds—and it will fill the desire of our hearts forever.