Light 1983

I'd like to read the first four verses of Psalm 27. The Lord is my light and my salvation, whom shall I fear? The Lord is the strength of my life, of whom shall I be afraid? When the wicked, even my enemies and my foes, came upon me to eat up my flesh, they stumbled and fell. Though in host should encamp against me, my heart shall not fear.

Though war should rise against me, in this will I be confident. One thing have I desire to the Lord, that will I seek after, that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord, and to inquire in his temple. The Lord is my light and my salvation.

Salvation is much, much, much more than believing certain doctrines or believing certain things about Jesus. Jesus died on the cross for my sin, and I may believe that or believe that I believe that. He rose from the dead in order to give me life, and I may believe that or think that I believe that.

See, with my mind now, I believe the doctrine of the cross. I believe the doctrine of the resurrection. Yet my life remains unchanged.

Why? Because the power of Jesus' death on that cross, and the power, the same power really that raised him from the dead, first has to touch my heart. And before it touches my heart, before it slays my sin, and before it raises me up into a new life, before that can happen, that same power that raised Jesus from the dead has to come into my heart with light, so that I can see the cross, and I see the resurrection, and I see Jesus in some way. And seeing Jesus, I now begin to come to life.

See, before I believed certain things about Jesus, but Jesus himself was still like a vapor for me. He was like a mist. Now I see him, and seeing him, I begin to live.

The Lord is my light. He's the one who opens my eyes and makes it possible for me to see. One thing have I desired of the Lord, that will I seek after, that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord, and to inquire in his temple.

When I behold the Lord, when I see glory, that's when I begin to live. A few verses down in the same psalm, it says, When thou seekest my face, my heart set unto thee, thy face, Lord, will I seek. And when I begin, in some way, to see the face of God, the glory of God in the face of Jesus, that's when I begin to become conscious, and really experience the life and power of the salvation he bought from me through his death and resurrection.

Reading from 2 Corinthians 4, verse 3, And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled only to those who are perishing. In their case, the God of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the likeness of God. For what we preach is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, and with ourselves as your servants for Jesus' sake.

For it is the God who said, Let light shine out of darkness, who has shown in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. Salvation, for us, begins with inner illumination. The same God who at the beginning said, Let there be light, and there was light.

Now says to our inmost heart, Let there be light, and there stands Jesus. And suddenly, we begin to know with a knowledge more certain than any we ever had. We begin to know by an inner illumining, by the Spirit of God, that this is indeed the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.

By the power of this inner vision, we now have the power to trust Him. We begin to trust Him now with our life, with our future, with our everything. And in the light of that glory that begins to stream down into our hearts from Him, our achievements and our possessions and all the other things which we held on to as a source of security before become as nothing.

And all that matters is Jesus. Also, that light that streams from His face begins to shine now on sin inside us. And now I begin to see my sins in all their death-dealing, their death-infecting power and horror and ugliness.

Now I begin to repent. See, before the light came on, I believed certain things about Jesus, but these beliefs that I had about Jesus never seemed to have any serious influence on my daily behavior. I also knew that certain things were wrong.

I knew that it was wrong to lie, to slander, to hold a grudge, to lust, to be covetous, to hate, but I went right on doing them. Now the light comes on, and by the power of that tremendous light that burns inside my heart, your heart, our hearts, we see glory, and we also see hell. By the power of that glory, sin begins to appear for what it really is as sin.

Satan begins to show up for what he is as Satan. And that light that uncovers and reveals sin also slays sin. For instance, when Peter, that day in the fishing boat, when the net came up loaded with fish, fell down at Jesus' knees crying, Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord.

What had happened was that Peter now was beginning to see glory shining forth from the face of Jesus. In the light of that glory, Peter saw himself as absolutely unclean. The light that showed him this glory in Jesus and also showed him his sinfulness was the light that also began to slay his sin.

Notice that Jesus didn't say, Now you've got to get your life straightened up, Peter, and then maybe I can use you. No, no. Jesus says to Peter immediately, Don't be afraid.

From now on, you're going to be catching men. In other words, I'll take care of your sin. I'll deal with your sin.

It's not as if he ignores the sin, but he alone is the one who can do this. Looking at that fourth verse of, sixth verse, rather, of 2 Corinthians 4, one more time. For it is the God who said, Let light shine out of darkness, who has shone in our hearts to give the light of a knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.

Now this light, which is our light and our salvation, is available to all of us. We can have it. We can have it.

And we can have it not just in rare moments of vision, but we can have it all the time. The Lord is my light and my salvation, not only when I'm up on the Mount of Transfiguration, but also when I'm down in the demon-possessed valley. The Lord is my light and my salvation every day through this light, right on through the door of death into the next light, still my light and my salvation.

This light, which shows me the reality of Jesus and has the power to slay that sin, bring it under the blood of the Lamb, this light can be ours afresh now. And it can remain ours every day, forever. All we have to do is expect it, receive it, and walk in it.

First, of course, we have to expect it. One thing have I desired of the Lord, that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life to behold the beauty of the Lord and to inquire in his temple. Many of us have long since given up really expecting light.

Perhaps we had a time of vision somewhere in the past, but it seemed so long ago, or it was so brief, or it seemed so unreal to us now, or so far away, that we've given up really expecting anything like that anymore. And it's this resignation the true light that enlightens every man, woman, was coming into the world, it says in John chapter 1, that enlightens everybody. This light is for everybody.

In him was life, and the life was the light of man, all people. I am the light of the world, Jesus says. He who follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.

But we have to expect this, and I believe that he's going to give it to us. When thou seest seeking my face, my heart said unto thee, thy face, Lord, will I seek. And so now I make up my mind I'm going to expect.

I'm going to seek, and I'm going to expect. I'm going to knock, and I'm going to expect that door to open and the light to come. When we kneel at this altar today to eat the living bread, and to drink the wine of his blood, to partake of him, but while we do this, the inner light that is a gift from God will begin to burn fresh within us.

And when we open our Bibles, let's expect light to come on. You know, half our problem that we find a Bible often so boring is because we really come there with no expectancy. And when we pray, God help us to expect that we're going to be communicating that the light will begin to shine.

And here, when we have this privilege to come together to worship God, to expect, expect that today there will be an illumining of the Spirit from within each of our hearts, enabling us to see the Lamb. We also have to receive the light. When it begins to shine, to begin to receive it, reading from John chapter 1, verse 9, the true light that enlightens every man is coming into the world.

He was in the world when he first came to Aaron, yet the world knew him not. He came to his own home and his own people received him not. But to all who received him, who believed on his name, to them he gave power to become sons of God, children of God, who are born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God, to all who received him.

And so now the light shines and there is a need for us to be opening up, surrendering. The light begins to shine, we lift up our hearts and open them and it begins to fill them. Mary was sitting in the living room at Jesus' feet.

Martha's out in the kitchen trying to get dinner together and you remember how she gets all upset. And God, Lord, doesn't it bother you that my sister has left me here to serve alone? Martha, Martha, you've received the light. Mary has chosen that good part, it's not going to be taken from her.

And when Thomas missed out on seeing Jesus on Easter day, the first day of the resurrection, and it's very hard to believe that his disciples really did see him. And then on the eighth day, was it eight days later, whenever it was, they're in the room and Jesus appears again and says, Thomas, all right, put your fingers in here, thrust your hand into my side, be not faithless in believing, but believing. And Thomas does this, he falls down before Jesus and worships him and says, my Lord and my God, and when he's doing this, he's receiving light.

You know, Jesus doesn't say, get out of here, you don't have enough faith, but he welcomes him and he fills him with light. We need to receive the light that shines from the face of the Lord. We also need to receive the light, the same light that begins to shine on our sins.

Let's say over the last ten years I've developed a little habit of sarcasm. That's not really that bad. You know, something to break the monotony, a little sarcastic remark now and then.

Now comes the light and the light shines on this thing, this sarcasm in me and suddenly I see that it's not just a little remark once in a while to break the monotony, but that this is absolutely devastating people, hurting, demoralizing, discouraging them and filling my own heart with darkness. Seeing this, I receive the light by repenting. Maybe it's been my habit to look out the window and daydream and wish I were in the Upper Peninsula or Hawaii, or how about New Zealand? You know, and we begin to dream and think, you know, five minutes a day maybe, then the light comes on and we begin to see that it's not five minutes a day, it's gobs and gobs of time opening our spirits to the Father of Lies as we just get filled with all kinds of illusion with our little wishes and our daydreams and that these daydreams are not innocent, they're sin.

To receive the light is to repent. Lord God, I see it now, forgive me, I confess it and I put it away. I confess it, I just talk about people a little bit once in a while, maybe too much.

Then the light comes on and I begin to see what my tongue has been doing to other people and to myself and I receive the light by repenting, I acknowledge that, Lord God, that's me, forgive me, forgive me. Or, and this is true for many of us, tend to be a little bit critical, you know, that's how we feel about ourselves, the light comes on us and we begin to see that we're not just a little bit critical, we're absolutely obsessed with a spirit of criticism. Every single thing we see we have to pick at, nothing's right, have to take it apart, tear it apart, analyze it, improve it, nobody's any good, nothing's any good, I could do it better.

And when I see this, I begin to repent. Job, at the end of the book, says, I have heard of thee with the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees thee and I abhor myself and repent in dust and ashes. And so today, if the spirit of the Lord begins to put his finger on a specific area of sin in our life, now or as the service progresses, may God help us to have the courage to walk in the light.

Finally, we need to walk in the light, and to walk in the light is to walk in love. Reading from 1 John, chapter 2, verse 8. I am writing you a new commandment, which is true in him and in you, because the darkness is passing away and the true light is already shining. He who says he is in the light and hates his brother is in the darkness still.

He who loves his brother abides in the darkness and walks in the light, and in it there is no cause for stumbling. But he who hates his brother is in the darkness and walks in the darkness and does not know where he is going because the darkness has blinded his eyes. To walk in the light is to walk in love.

Again from 1 John, chapter 1, verse 6. If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, in the light of love, as he is in the light of love, we have fellowship with one another and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin. The Lord is my light and my salvation. Whom shall I fear? To walk in the light and the salvation of the Lord is to walk in love.

And the place where we learn how to do that, how to walk in love, is here. The Lord brought us together. He brought us together to teach us to walk in love.

This, for us, is the kingdom school of compassion. And it's not just lectures, it's mostly laboratory. And so, for each of us, God probably throws at least one person who is a reflection of our own sin and personality across our path to annoy us.

And they happen to be, of all things, in the same stinking church. But this becomes a gift from God. And in this we learn to walk in love.

What is this bread that we eat today? This bread is the bread of self-giving love. My body, given for you. This wine is love poured out as blood, shed for your sins.

Then we get up from his table. We turn toward each other. And we accept each other.

And forgive each other. And encourage each other. And share with each other.

And give to each other. And help each other. Now we're walking in love.

We're walking in the light. Walking in the light, we are now then able to go out into the world with light. How can we possibly go out there with the healing mercy of God unless it begins in here? But now that we're walking in the light, we go out there and call people from darkness to light, from the power of Satan to God.

And they will respond. They will come. The Lord is my light and my salvation.

Whom shall I fear? We need to expect the light, receive the light, walk in the light. All right, let's just wait upon the Lord in total silence for a while.