The Light of the World

If you remain standing, we'll be reading the Word of God from Acts chapter 13.

Acts 13 · chapter mention

Acts chapter 13, we'll be reading the same section as we did last week,

Acts 13 · chapter mention

verses 13 through 52, with a focus towards the conclusion.

So listen carefully, because what I'm about to read is God's holy and inspired Word.

Now Paul and his companions set sail from Paphos and came to Perga in Pamphylia.

And John left them and returned to Jerusalem. But they went on from there,

from Pergamum, from Perga, and came to Antioch and Pisidia.

And on the Sabbath day, they went into the synagogue and sat down.

After the reading from the law and the prophets, the rulers of the synagogue

sent a message to them saying, Brothers, if you have any word of encouragement for the people, say it.

So Paul stood up in motion with his hand and said, Men of Israel and you who

fear God, Listen, the God of this people Israel chose our fathers and made the

people great during their stay in the land of Egypt.

And with uplifted arm, he led them out. And for about 40 years,

he put up with them in the wilderness.

And after destroying seven nations in the land of Canaan, he gave them the land as an inheritance.

All this took about 450 years.

And after that, he gave them judges until Samuel the prophet.

Then they asked for a king and God gave them Saul, the son of Kish,

a man of the tribe of Benjamin for 40 years.

And when he had removed him, he raised up David to be their king.

Of whom he testified and said, I have found in David, the son of Jesse,

a man after my heart, who will do my will.

Of this man's offspring, God has brought to Israel a Savior, Jesus, as he promised.

Before his coming, John had proclaimed a baptism of repentance to all the people of Israel.

And as John was finished his course, he said, What do you suppose that I am?

I am not he. No, but behold, after

me is one coming, the sandals of whose feet I am not worthy to untie.

Brothers, sons of the family of Abraham, and those among you who fear God,

to us has been sent the message of this salvation.

For those who live in Jerusalem and their rulers, because they did not recognize

him nor understood the utterances of the prophets, which they read every Sabbath,

fulfilled them by condemning him.

And though they found in him no guilt worthy of death, they asked Pilate to have him executed.

And when they had carried out all that was written of him, they took him down

to the tree and laid him in the tomb.

But God raised him from the dead, and for many days he appeared to those.

To those who had come up to him from Galilee to Jerusalem, who are now his witnesses to the people.

And we bring you the good news that what God promised to the fathers,

this he has fulfilled to us their children by raising Jesus,

as is also written in the second Psalm.

You are my son. Today I have begotten you. And as far as the fact that he raised

him from the dead, no more to return to corruption, he has spoken in this way.

I will give you the holy and sure blessings of David.

Therefore, he also says in another song, you will not let your holy one see corruption.

For David, after he had served the purpose of God in his own generation,

fell asleep and was laid with his fathers and saw corruption.

But he whom God raised up did not see corruption.

And let it be known to you, therefore, brothers, that through this man forgiveness

of sins is proclaimed to you.

And by him, everyone who believes is freed from everything from which you could

not be freed by the law of Moses.

Beware, therefore, lest what is said in the prophet should come about.

Look, you scoffers, be astounded and perished, for I am doing a work in your

days, a work that you will not believe, even if one tells you.

As they sent out the people, as they went out, the people begged that those

things might be told to them the next Sabbath.

And after the meeting of the synagogue broke up, many Jews and devout converts

of Judaism followed Paul and Barnabas, who, as they spoke with them,

urged them to continue in the grace of God.

The next Sabbath, almost the whole city gathered to hear the word of the Lord.

And when the Jews saw the crowd, they were filled with jealousy and began to

contradict what was spoken by Paul, reviling him.

And Paul and Barnabas spoke out boldly, saying, It was necessary that the word

of God be spoken first to you, since you thrust it aside and judge yourselves

unworthy of eternal life.

Behold, we are turning to the Gentiles.

For so the Lord commanded us, saying, I have made you a light for the Gentiles,

that you may bring salvation to the ends of the earth.

And when the Gentiles heard this, they began rejoicing and glorifying the word

of the Lord. And as many as were appointed to eternal life believed.

And the word of the Lord was spreading throughout the whole region But the Jews

incited the devout women of high standing And the leading men of the city Stirred

up persecution against Paul and Barnabas And drove them out of their district,

But they shook off the dust from their feet against them And went to Iconium,

And the disciples were filled with joy And with the Holy Spirit This is the

word of the Lord You can be seated.

Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we ask for your spirit to come to be with us,

to guide us like a light and a lamp to our path. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.

What do you think Paul meant as he concluded this address when he said,

I have made you a light for the Gentiles, that you may bring salvation to the ends of the earth.

He's actually quoting from Isaiah 49, 6, which we read earlier,

which says virtually the same thing.

It says, I will make you as a light

for the nations that my salvation may reach to the ends of the earth.

So Paul, as he's preaching, he's giving this beautiful story about the nation

of Israel, the history of redemption,

beginning with the days in Egypt and moving from Egypt to the mighty redemption

of God out of Egypt, to the entering of the land, the conquest of the land,

the blessings of the prophets, the blessings of a kingdom, particularly the kingdom of David.

And as Paul moves to the kingdom of David, Paul moves from the kingdom of David

to the light of the world.

He's connecting the kingdom of David with a fulfillment in Jesus.

And now the kingdom, particularly the kingdom's focus on the church as becoming the light of the world.

What does he mean by that? We're going to look at this just briefly,

just get the juices flowing, I guess, or get your mind working.

When you think of light in the Bible, it's a powerful metaphor It sometimes

can speak of the presence of God, his moral purity, divine truth, sometimes salvation.

God is light, John says, and in him is no darkness at all.

In fact, Jesus himself came in John 8, verse 12 said, I am the light of the world.

John 8:12

Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.

Light is seen in John earlier, John 1, where he speaks of the light shines in

the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it.

Sometimes your translations might say has not comprehended it or something,

but it's actually language of warfare. The light comes into the darkness and

the darkness, though fighting against it, cannot overcome the light.

Light is all over the scriptures.

In the Psalmist 27.1, it says, the Lord is my light and my salvation, whom shall I fear?

Guidance and truth, your word is a lamp to my feet and a light for my path.

In Genesis, and we'll go to that in a little bit, in Genesis,

the very first words of creation spoken after the Lord created the heavens and

the earth, he said, let there be light and light was.

At the end of Revelation, beginning of Genesis, book of Revelation.

It speaks in Revelation 21, 23 as saying.

The city has no need of a sun or moon because the glory of God gives its light,

and the light or lamp is the Lamb of God. It's interesting that he says this.

Paul is focusing on the kingdom of David fulfilled in Christ and in that kingdom

through the church bringing light to the world, right as he mentions that the

Jews, the Jewish leaders have effectively rejected him.

And if you have been with us through this series on Acts, this ain't just one rejection.

This isn't just a guy saying, I don't think so. This is going back to Jesus'

rejection and Jesus' crucifixion and the Jews at Pentecost being severely rebuked

saying, you took him with your hands.

It's fascinating because early on in that, Peter was actually speaking to the

very same Sanhedrin that condemned Jesus.

And then Stephen, of course, presents his mighty address where he also goes

through redemptive history with a highlight of the arrogant and foolish leaders

who were constantly resisting the prophets and persecuting them and killing them.

And the Jewish leaders of Jesus' day were fulfilling in a sort of anti-type way what those men were.

He kept pointing to them so much that they ended up doing what? They killed him.

And this is not uncommon. Remember, we've seen it, a parallel between the life

of Jesus and the establishment of his church in Peter and now in Paul,

when Jesus came into the world. And this is gonna be something we have to cycle over.

We're gonna face persecution from time to time. And when we do,

we'll often wonder why, especially when, haven't you ever faced this?

When you see a problem and you want to help and you do something good.

Man, boy, I'm sure they'll be grateful. And they hate you for it. What?

It's so perplexing. And that's what happened to Jesus. Jesus comes and casts out demons.

And immediately the Pharisees and Sadducees see it. And again,

they're always worried in every text about their political position and their power.

And so they see it and they say, this man cast out demons by Beelzebub.

Yeah, that's a good answer. You almost wonder if they were just like,

just had to rush and say something quickly because it's so absurd.

How can you cast out demons by the power of demons?

They did it to Jesus. They did the same thing to Paul or Peter.

Remember the same scene for Peter. When he does a good thing, they say, stop it.

Now Paul is facing the parallel situation.

And what's the result? It's interesting that the result keeps getting fuller.

You'll notice that through the book of Acts.

The result of the resistance of Israel, which is ironic because Israel was given

these promise and given these prophecies.

But now Israel as a nation is saying no to everything God has said.

We've seen this before. The Jews did not want the gospel and the blessings to go to the Gentiles.

But now we're seeing that from Peter to Stephen to Paul, and especially in Paul.

The gospel message and the power of Jesus Christ is bursting onto the Gentile scene into the world.

It's like the story of Jonah. And the story of Jonah, remember,

Jonah didn't want to go. He didn't want to go to the Ninevites. He went.

The Lord blessed it. Tens, maybe hundreds of thousands of Assyrians were converted.

And when they were converted, Jonah was moping.

What Paul is about to do here, right in our reading, which is pretty exciting,

Paul's about to set into motion, Jonah multiplied by billions.

When Paul goes out and the church goes out and the light of the world goes out,

not just 10,000, 100,000, ultimately over the last 2,000 years,

billions of people have now come to the light of the world.

And I want you to notice that now that metaphor of light is being attached,

not simply to Jesus, but to his church.

You are the light to the Gentiles.

It's a metaphor specifically attached to the church, but it was once attached to Israel.

Notice now there's not a subtle shift away from Israel. There's a dramatic shift away from Israel.

We've been saying it all along. When the Jews reject Jesus Christ,

when the apostles come, it's not just that they're rejecting Jesus.

They're rejecting everything about God and their place in the plan of God,

right? It's now the church.

So now Paul uses this powerful metaphor of light that he borrows from Isaiah 49.

And it's a very powerful metaphor because it's so pervasive.

Even at the creation scene, which we're going to keep sort of moving through,

we notice that when light comes, it pushes back darkness and it divides and

orders things correctly.

It brings order into things. Even the idea of day.

He brought the light and he called the light day.

Well, that language, that language becomes also, and I want you to notice this,

the language of redemption.

When the Lord chooses the word day, it's not just like a scientific way of organizing our work week.

This is the Lord structuring into creation itself, the language of redemption.

That's why the Lord will say, this is what? What happens on a judgment?

What happens? The Lord says, the day of the Lord is coming.

The presence of almighty God will come down. And on that day,

the day of the Lord, it's also why we worship when? On the Lord's what? The Lord's day.

This is the day of the Lord. We you will rejoice and be glad at it.

This is the day, the day of light established from all eternity past to the present.

And he uses this language of light, which is a powerful metaphor.

Sometimes God's judgment towards sin is spoken of as light into darkness.

And light at the creation is a powerful metaphor. I was reminded of John Milton's,

Paradise Lost. There's a section called Invocation to Light where he says,

hail, holy light, offspring of heaven, firstborn, or the eternal co-eternal being.

May I express the unblamed. Listen to what he says. Since God is light and never

but in unapproached light dwelt from eternity, dwelt then in thee,

bright effluence of bright essence in create.

Light comes from the essence of God, is what Milton is saying.

He says, whose fountain who shall tell before the sun, before the heavens thou wert.

And at the voice of God is with a mantle dist invest. The rising world of waters,

dark and deep, one from the fore, Milton.

Probably better than any poem I've ever read about light or darkness,

is capturing the creation scene and the metaphor of light as coming from God

and then coming also into order all things.

He captures eloquently the birth of light.

Where did light come from? From God, when he said, let there be light.

And then it says, light was, which is in the creation scene.

You'll notice in Genesis chapter one, it says, in the beginning,

God created the heavens and the earth and the earth was, and this is what Milton

captures and we need to pay attention to it, without form, void or empty and darkness was.

That's that phrase, darkness was. And after the creation, it says light was.

You'll see that in redemption as well.

Sometimes when the Lord brought darkness to the land of Egypt,

it says not the land of Goshen where the Israelites were, but all of the people

of Egypt, it said darkness was.

Darkness was. These images of formlessness and emptiness and desolation and

darkness become the foundation. God created the world that way so we could see

in creation a formlessness, an emptiness, a void, and even a raging.

And over those waters, the Spirit of God was hovering.

We're to pay attention to that darkness and that raging and that storm that

was there at creation was about to be brought into order and about to be brought

to peace by what? By light.

When God said, let there be light, he brought order to that chaos.

The story of creation is more powerful than we think sometimes if we plug it

into the stories of redemption because these become, this language of creation

becomes the basic language of redemption, light and darkness, storm.

How many times do you see Jesus on the waters and stormy waters? What's up with that?

You should ask yourself the question. When you see certain scenes in the Bible,

like why is he always on the storm? What's the matter? He's not a good,

doesn't have a meteorologist back then. What's going on?

Our minds are to be drawn back to creation and to the way in which when God

created the world, he wanted us to see that rage and that storm and that formlessness

and that emptiness and that turbulence and to keep that in mind when he spoke

light into the world because that would not be the end of it.

It would not be that he would just order creation, but that would be the image

by which we begin to see how he would order redemption as well.

And the prophets pick up on this all the time. It's beautiful.

Pay attention to it when you see it.

Even the language of creation and how the Lord brought beauty and peace and

order and goodness into creation, but sin caused that creation to crumble.

And oftentimes when the prophets come to Israel and they say,

the Lord is about to judge you, they will use creation language.

They will use what I think Jim Jordan called decreation language.

I thought that was pretty cool.

Zephaniah, for instance, when he comes to the people, he said,

I will utterly consume you from the face of the earth, says the Lord. Listen to the language.

I will consume man and beast. I will consume birds of the air,

the fish of the sea, and the stumbling block along with the wicked.

I will cut off man from the face of the land. You'll notice what he did.

He took days six, five, and four and reversed them.

I'll cut off man and beast and fish and birds of the air. He was basically saying

to us, when God comes in judgment, he's gonna push you back into those stormy,

dark waters that once existed that you don't wanna be there.

And he uses the language of creation. So I will consume man and beast,

birds of the heavens and the fish of the sea.

The Jew who was paying attention said, well, I've heard that story before.

That's creation, except guess what? He's reversing it. And the language of judgment

becomes the very reversal of the language of creation against the people of Israel.

Jeremiah 4, and Jeremiah does the same thing. I beheld the earth,

and indeed it was without form and void, and the heavens had no light.

I beheld the mountains, and indeed they trembled, and all the hills moved back and forth.

I beheld, and indeed there was no man, and all the birds of the heaven had fled.

Notice this language of creation.

When he's speaking of the fierce anger of the Lord that's coming to the Jews,

the coming to the people, he says, I'll make a full end of it.

Zephaniah speaks of the curses as pushing God's people back to the darkness

and the turbulence of the original creation scene.

It's one of the reasons God brought Israel into existence. You see that?

Amidst all the darkness, at the failure of the Tower of Babel,

he calls Abraham out, and he

calls Abraham and says, I'm going to make you the father of many nations.

And from Abraham comes the promises to Israel. And Israel was told that they

were to be, Isaiah 42, I will hold your hand, I will keep you,

you as a covenant people, as a light to the Gentiles, to open blind eyes.

To let prisoners out, those who sit in what? In darkness.

I am the Lord, that is my name, and my glory, and I will not give to another.

And his praise will go from Israel, ready, to the ends of the earth.

Isaiah 49 forecast that too. When he says, basically, from Isaiah 42 up to 49,

says, I've made you this light, Israel. I've given you this mission.

And if you won't uphold it, it will not stop me from loving the nations of this

world and bringing to them the light of Messiah.

Which is interesting because here we see then.

When Paul says to the church, you are to be a light of the nation,

it's interesting that he's using language that was reserved for Israel.

Israel did have a light, by the way.

Remember the menorah, the lampstands? This will be interesting because this

is what happens in Revelation.

In Revelations 2 and 3, when the Lord talks about the seven churches. Why seven churches?

Well, guess what? There were seven lampstands in the menorah,

one in the middle and three on each side, and they were to be a light in the Holy of Holies.

The tabernacle and temple held profound symbolic meaning. They were there in

the presence of God and there was always to be a light in that.

And only the great high priest was allowed to enter and trim the wicks and deal

with the candles. Only the great high priest of those seven lampstands or branches.

But here you'll notice that Paul is using language that Revelation,

John will pick up on in Revelation again, that lampstands that were once in

the Holy of Holies are now brought out.

In Revelation, it's an amazing scene where you see that every church,

in fact, it says it in Revelation, each church is a what? A lampstand.

Each church is a lampstand. Each church has its angel.

Each church will be judged by the Lord as to how they bring the light to the

nations. And each church was.

As a side note, when I was reading through this, I thought that would be a great

study for us at Wilmington Reformed Church. How is our lampstand?

How is it? Because you'll notice in all of those churches, he'll start out and

say, oh, you Ephesus, you're great at this, you're great at this,

but I have a problem with you.

And you, oh, Laodicea, you're good at this, but you're lukewarm.

Each church, every church should think of that. We are a lampstand.

We are to be a light of the nations. We are, as a church, the light.

Even this worship service, as it were, was us putting into the ground a lampstand

and lighting the light of Jesus Christ from this church.

And you'll notice that what we preach about in reference to the light is ironically

the cross, the cross where darkness was that day.

Israel was responsible for the cross.

That awful scene that draws the same language of creation. Darkness simply existed.

You know, from 12 o'clock till three o'clock that day when Jesus was crucified,

when he said, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? What happened? Darkness was.

That's where we see the scenes turning back to the chaos and the formlessness

of the original creation scene.

The earth is quaking. Dead people are coming out of their tombs.

Rocks are splitting and the sun stopped shining. Darkness was at that day of the cross.

Just like it was in Egypt, Jesus himself came under the darkness of judgment

so that he would give us his light.

And we preach the cross of Jesus Christ and the light of the world to Jesus Christ.

Israel was supposed to do that. Israel not only failed, it's not like they stumbled

and got down and, oh, hit my head.

No, they looked at Messiah and they said, no, and we're gonna kill you.

And as a result, Jesus Christ went to that cross, endured the pains and darkness

of hell itself for us so that we would be the light of the world.

The cross is what we preach at this church, at every church.

It should be the cross of Jesus Christ.

Ironically, the darkness of that cross brings on its other side resurrection

and light to all who will believe.

And that's what we preach, and that's what we believe. And you see it here.

That's exactly what's happening with Paul as he's going from place to place

and establishing churches everywhere.

He's planting lampstands of light that those former synagogues would become

churches and now would preach the light of Jesus Christ to the world.

It's actually what Paul does. Also, I'm weaving, obviously, different things

in at once. can't help it.

But what Paul is doing is a good model for us as well. As we consider the church

as the light of the world, as the light of the nations, how is our light shining?

What are we doing to shine the light?

How are we worshiping? Are we preaching the gospel? Are we receiving the gospel?

Are we living the gospel?

And then when, not if, but when God blesses like he did in Acts,

how are we ready to take the lampstands of God's church to all the other places of the world?

There's a lot of places that need churches where there's a light planted.

The banner and lampstand of Jesus Christ needs to be raised,

and the gospel needs to be preached from churches everywhere.

So Paul goes around and finds a place, establishes a church,

and then goes and says, now what's another place? We should think like that.

Where are we going to plant a church next?

Say, well, we have a few chairs to fill up still. By God's grace,

we need to think about the light. How are we doing in extending the light into the darkness?

It's a helpful model for the church to think about, Both in terms of Revelation as a lampstand.

I read that this week. Again, I was like, man, every church should read that section of Revelation.

Every session, every group of elders should read it and say, how are we doing?

Where do we fit in? Where's our weakness? Where's our strength? How do we need to repent?

How do we need to light the light of the gospel brighter and burn more fervently?

Revelation 2 says, the angel of the Lord in Ephesus said, the words of him who

holds the seven stars in his right hand, who walks among the seven golden lampstands.

Jesus Christ judges the church for whether or not they are the light to the

world. Are you the light of the world?

We're all called to see the cross, to live the cross, and then take the cross

of Jesus Christ everywhere.

We oftentimes confuse it with, well, maybe I'm not being evangelistic enough.

Maybe I need to go down. You know, I often see on Saturday, everyone seems to

stand on the corner at the courthouse.

They're usually, I don't know what they're doing.

Every time I see the sign, I'm usually not for it, but I don't know what they're

doing. But maybe you think we should go down there and give out tracts.

That's great. We should do that. That's good.

But we should live our lives in light of the cross of Jesus Christ and shine

our light wherever we are.

Mothers sometimes think, I wish I could do more evangelism. No,

mothers, you have all the evangelistic opportunities right there every day in your home, right?

To shine the light, to live the light of the gospel.

More powerful, by the way, statistically, of people who come into the church

and stay in the church are mothers and fathers who raise their children in the

light of the gospel than any evangelistic campaign that I've ever seen.

Just children raised in the light of the love of Jesus Christ.

God's people resounding with joy and praise.

Are you praising the Lord all the time for the light of salvation given to you

by Jesus Christ as the light of the world?

He is the light of the world. He has given us this light. The church is his

lampstand and all of us are to take that light into everything we do.

Not only were they given the blessing of light through Jesus Christ,

but were charged to carry this light to the nations.

Important. It says, you are the light of the world. You are the light of the

world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden, nor do they light a lamp and put

it under a basket, but on a lampstand, and it gives light to all those who are in the house.

Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify

your Father in heaven. Amen. Let's pray together.

Lord, what a joy that we have been saved and brought into the light out of darkness,

and that we can speak of the light of Jesus Christ as shining into our own darkness.

We pray, Heavenly Father, that as a church, we would be called to see that we

are the light of the world, that Jesus said, I am the light of the world.

He who follows me will never walk in darkness, but have the light of light.

Lord, may we have that light.

If there's someone here who doesn't know that, Lord, if they're living in darkness,

bring them to that light.

Bring them to the only light, Jesus Christ, and help all of us then to take

that lamp, that light of Jesus Christ, into everywhere we can in the world,

that people would see our good works and glorify our Father in heaven.

We pray this in Jesus' name, amen.