Discipleship 101: Let Jesus Shine!

 

Discipleship 101: Let Jesus Shine!

Mark 4:21-25

Introduction: The writer to the Hebrews began his epistle, “Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets,  ² but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son…” That statement is profound: Almighty God, the Creator and Sustainer of the universe, the God who is, has spoken. Not only did He speak through messengers throughout biblical history, but finally, in the fulness of time, He revealed Himself personally, sending the Son. Paul said, “For God, who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness,’ has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ…” (2 Cor 4:6). God the Son, dwelt for a while among us! Remember that Jesus said, “He who has seen Me, has seen the Father…” (John 14:9b). Paul said, “In Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead in bodily form…” (Col 2:9; cf. John 1:18). That truth is at the heart of these verses in our context in the Gospel of Mark. Jesus is the revelation of God, and He is the subject of God’s revelation. The written Word points us to the living Word… Jesus, the Light of the world. As Mark began his Gospel, he said it was the good news about Jesus, and that Jesus is the Good News. That truth is not to be hidden, it is to be lifted up, set on a lampstand. That is…

The BIG Idea: God has revealed Himself in the Son. We are invited to come to Him, and then we who know Him are responsible to share the message of His Grace with the world.

I. Jesus is the Lamp: the Light of the World shined into the darkness (21-22).

“And he said to them, ‘Is a [the] lamp brought in [come] to be put under a basket, or under a bed, and not on a stand?  ²² For nothing is hidden except to be made manifest; nor is anything secret except to come to light.  

       Following the explanation of the parable of the soils, Jesus continues His teaching in figurative language. The imagery of a “lamp” is used with a somewhat different emphasis by the Lord in the Sermon on the Mount. Jesus said,

¹⁴ "You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden.  ¹⁵ 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.  ¹⁶ 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…” (Mt 5:14-16).

There Jesus tells His followers that they are light, and they are to shine brightly to point people to God. Here, it seems the light is more “focused.” In fact, the language is better translated, “Does [the] lamp come to be put under a basket…” Almost all of the English translations leave the lamp indefinite, “a lamp,” whereas Mark clearly uses the definite article, THE Lamp.  It also seems that it must be the subject of the verb, “come.” The Lamp is not brought in, but the Lamp “comes.” This evokes the language of the OT from a couple of perspectives. For one, it points to one of the verses you may have memorized as a child, Psalm 119:105, “Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.” The LXX translation of the psalm uses the same Greek word that for “lamp” that Jesus uses in the parable.

       The other key word that seems to fit with the message of Mark in these opening chapters is the verb “come,” Jesus rhetorically asks, “..has the Lamp come…”? Remember Mark has been answering some key questions, the first two: “Who is Jesus? Why did He come?” The promise that the Christ, our Rescuer, would come is woven into the pages of the Bible, and it is a key theme in Mark. Here Jesus asks, “Has the lamp come to be hidden…” [expecting a negative response, “Of course not!] So, is the Lamp the Word of God (in keeping with the psalm), or is it Jesus himself? I would say “YES!” We see this idea in the Gospel of John where Jesus is described as both the “Light” and the “Word” (Jn 1:9-10; cf. 1:1-4, 8:12; 9:5 [see also Jn 1:18]).

       Jesus is called the “Word” in that first chapter of John. The Bible is the written Word of God. One of the verses the AWANA kids have learned says, “All scripture is inspired by God…”, that is “God-breathed.” The Gospel is the heart of the message of the Bible. And Jesus, the Word who was made flesh, is the subject of the Good News, He is the coming one, the promised “Rescuer,” who bridges the gulf between fallen humans and Holy God. In fact, in Mark 1:1, we argued that Jesus IS the Good News! Here He is saying that He didn’t come to stay hidden! John was speaking in the context of creation and re-creation when he wrote,

⁴ In him was life, and the life was the light of men.  ⁵ The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.  ⁶ There was a man sent from God, whose name was John.  ⁷ He came as a witness, to bear witness about the light, that all might believe through him.  ⁸ He was not the light, but came to bear witness about the light.  ⁹ The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world.  ¹⁰ He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him.  ¹¹ He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him… (John 1:4-11).

In his gospel, Mark is describing the period of Jesus’ earthly ministry, but He, like John, is writing to believers after the cross and resurrection.  Jesus’ parables veiled the message from some for a time. Others, those with ears to hear, were drawn to the Light. Jesus said “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me…” That is faith, believing God, taking Him at His Word, trusting and obeying the Word of Christ. Later in John 3:18-21, he talks again about the Light…

¹⁸ Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God. ¹⁹ And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their deeds were evil.  ²⁰ For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed.  ²¹ But whoever does what is true comes to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that his deeds have been carried out in God (John 3:18-21).

Here we are reminded of the dual nature of light: on the one hand it illuminates and guides, on the other it exposes sin, the things hidden in the darkness. In another passage Paul uses the light metaphor to talk about the “blindness” of unbelievers, and the gracious revelation of Christ to those who believe…  

³ And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled only to those who are perishing.  ⁴ 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 image of God.  ⁵ For what we proclaim is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, with ourselves as your servants for Jesus' sake.  ⁶ For God, who said, "Let light shine out of darkness," has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ… (2 Corinthians 4:3-6).

Our English translations are right is using a lower case “g” to describe the god of this age… Going back to the parable of the Sower remember it is Satan who is the “bird” that swoops in and plucks the seed from hard soil by the wayside.  If the gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing. If we have believed in Christ, and received the gift of forgiveness and reconciliation with God, it is because the same God who said, “Let there be light!” has “…shone in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ…” Remember what Paul told the Corinthians: “What do you have that you did not receive? And if you received it, why do you boast as if you had not…?” His point: Jesus did it all. And the God who “is” has spoken. He has revealed Himself in the Son. The Light shines in the darkness. We who know Him are responsible to share the message of His Grace with the world. Jesus is the Lamp, the Light of the world, so…

II. Let Jesus Shine, in you and through you! We are responsible for what we do with the Light (23-25). We are called to listen with faith, trusting and obeying.

²³ “If anyone has ears to hear, let him hear.” ²⁴ And he said to them, “Pay attention to what you hear: with the measure you use, it will be measured to you, and still more will be added to you.  ²⁵ For to the one who has, more will be given, and from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away.”

        Let Him shine in you. Verse 23, and 24a go together. He who has ears to hear, let him hear. Not just hearing, but listening, with faith, receiving the Word. Verse 24a literally says, Watch what you hear!  That phrase strikes me as funny since the verb “to see” and the verb “to hear” describe two different senses! “See what you hear!” But Jesus is not just talking about physical senses, he is talking about spiritual perception. We have ears, are we using them? Jesus is urging His hearers to be active listeners, to hungrily devour the Word of life, to long for it, to receive it joyfully. Yet again we can hear an admonition to prepare our hearts, to come to the Bible expectantly, to come longing to hear from God. Last week I quoted Col 3:16, “Let the Word of Christ dwell richly within you…” That is a command!

       God wants us to listen with a good attitude. I read an illustration this week about two men who went to church one Sunday: Jim Smith and Sam Jones...

       At his church, Jim noticed a typo in the bulletin and thought about how sloppy they were in the church office. Then Jim was offended when a visitor had the nerve to sit in his regular seat. The pianist missed four notes during the offertory. And Jim felt like the usher was watching to see what he put in the offering plate. That made him boil. Then the preacher mispronounced three words in his message. Jim was keeping count. The sound of that guy’s voice was even getting annoying!

       Sam went to church, and was blessed as he worshiped the Lord through the beautiful music he heard. He was grateful that the preacher was preaching the Word of God. And the sermon answered a question that had bothered him for a long time. The best news of all was the good report he heard on VBS and that a child had gotten saved that week at VBS and that several others recommitted their hearts to the Lord!

This is the amazing part of the story: Both of those men were in the same church at the same time! Their hearts, however, were in very different places! In most cases, if we come hungry, expecting to hear from God, we will hear from God, we will find something we need. God’s Word won’t return void!

       God wants us to listen with a good attitude, and listen with good attention. There was a “Lockhorn” cartoon where Loretta asked Leroy if they could talk. Leroy replied, "Sure we can talk… Just don't block the TV." Oh boy. Are you a good listener? Or do you listen to the first few words and then find yourself distracted by the answer you are planning in your mind? That’s too convicting! That is bad for human relationships, and guess what, too often we give God the same kind of attention. We need to be intentional about listening to what the Lord is saying to us. We need to let the word of Christ dwell richly within us. And vs. 24-25 remind us that the more that we seek, the more we will find. “…with the measure you use, it will be measured to you…” This ties the paragraph together with a kind of play on words. The word “basket” in v. 21 is a basket used to measure grain, as we might use “bushel.” What are we doing with the Lamp that has shone in our life?

        Let Him shine through you. Everyone is responsible to use what God has given. Have you heard the expression “use it or lose it!”? Trainers use that phrase to urge us to exercise our muscles to stay strong. In the Christian life, it seems that as “we long for the pure milk of the Word” we grow, our understanding deepens, then we long for more, and God gives it!  He wants us to grow in our relationship with Him, to learn what it means to “walk in the Spirit,” and to increasingly “…put off the old man, and put on Christ.” I like the famous line of the Unicorn, in the Last Battle, the final volume of C.S. Lewis’s the Chronicles of Narnia, that says…

“I have come home at last! This is my real country! I belong here. This is the land I have been looking for all my life, though I never knew it till now...Come further up, come further in!”

The imagery points to eternity, and the deep, unfettered fellowship we will have one day with God. But Lewis is also inviting the reader not to settle for superficial faith, to hunger for more, and calling us to “Come further up, come further in!” As we live the Christian life, and live under the light of the Word, we grow to know and love God more deeply, and the amazing Grace that Has been revealed in the gospel fills our heart, and hopefully, moves us to obedience. Jesus said in John 8:12, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness but will have the light of life.” Are you drawn to Him? Do you long to know Him better? Do we want others to know Him? He has given us a mission. He has called us to share the “light” of the Gospel with the world… starting where He has placed us.

       There is a warning there in v.25 as well, “For to the one who has, more will be given, and from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away.” That sounds like the parable of the talents. We are to be growing, learning, going deeper… or we will atrophy in our faith.

What is God saying to me in this passage? The Light shone in the darkness! God has revealed Himself in the Son. He invites us to come to Him. And then we who know Him are responsible to share the message of His Grace with the world.

What would God have me to do in response to this passage? Jesus didn’t come for His presence to be kept a secret, for His gospel to remain hidden. God had a plan. Yes, it had to lead to Calvary. Once the story unfolded according to His plan, He entrusted His church with a mission! That means us. We need to be engaged… praying… preparing… inviting… sharing… Jesus is building His church! He, the Light of the World, is the Lamp that has come. Not to be hidden, but to be proclaimed to the world! Does our life and our testimony hold forth the Word of Life?

       Communion points to the heart of the Gospel, it is a God-given picture of the supreme act of grace and love… a perpetual reminder given to the church that “God demonstrated His love toward us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us…” (Rom 5:8). The hymn asks, Died He for me who caused His pain, for me who Him to death pursued? Amazing love! We have reminders every day that we live in a fallen world. The nightly news shouts it. Remember, this is why Jesus came. He said, “Greater love has no man this this: that He lay down His life for His friends…” We were sinners, deserving judgement, and yet through the death of Jesus we’ve been brought near… Behold what manner of love has been given to us that we should called children of God… And such we are!  Amazing grace!     AMEN.