Philip Reichen has said that nothing in the world is more precious than the church of Jesus Christ. That's a rather startling statement when you think about it. And I wonder sometimes if I actually believe that. Do you believe it? Nothing in the world is more precious than the church of Jesus Christ. And I want to talk a little bit about the church of Jesus Christ. I want to look at what I consider to be one of the most explicit texts on telling us what the church should look like in the world. And that's found in Matthew, chapter 5, beginning with verse 14. And what we see there is Jesus is expounding on the church. And of course this takes place in one of Jesus's greatest sermons. Indeed, it's considered to be the greatest sermon ever given. It's called the sermon on the Mount. And Jesus has been telling his people what the Christian looks like. And now he switches to what the church looks like. And so I wanted to take a look here and see what he says about the church beginning in verse 14. And he says about the church, he says, you are the light of the world. And the first thing that I want us to see here is that when he says you are the light of the world is that that word you there is plural. So what he's saying to the people gathered there is that you all collectively, wholly make up the light of the world. You are the collective light of the world. So what he is saying there is that the people who've gone together are the light of the world. And that's really an amazing thought when you think about it. And the second thing that I want to point out is that because of that, you see, we shouldn't think so much of ourselves, that is our individual selves, as the light of the world. Christians are not in and of themselves, that is their individual selves, the light of the world. It is the church, it is the collective covenant people of God that make up the light of the world, that are the light of the world. And that's an important for us to understand because we live in a time and we live in a culture that is extremely individualistic. Everything, you know, our whole approach to life, our whole approach to culture is almost wholly and entirely individualistic. And this is something that we really have to fight against because our culture is so entrenched in thinking in terms of individualism that it is very difficult to get people out of that mode or that way of thinking. To think in terms of the church as the collective body of Christ as the people of God is something that is very important for us to see. That is to say that there is too much I think in the way of Christianity today that is purely individualistic. And what Jesus is saying here is that we've got to rethink or put it a better way, we've got to reform the way we think about all of life and particularly the church. He is saying that you, the collective people of God, the church are the light of the world. And the language here is not only plural, but it's infatic. The word you appears first in the sentence and Jesus is saying you, you the church, you the people of God and no one else are the light of the world. It's infatic. You and no one else, no other institution, you and not the state are the light of the world. You and not the academy are the light of the world. You and not the marketplace are the light of the world. You and no one else, only you are the light of the world. And what that tells us is that the church is not something that is optional for the world to be in light for the world to not be in utter and total and complete darkness. The church is not something optional. The church is absolutely necessary for there to be light in the world. You, it's infatic. You and no one else. It's plural. You, you all, you, the people of God are the light of the world. And not only is it plural and not only is it infatic, but it is also a statement of being rather than a statement of becoming. Jesus isn't saying what were to become is telling us what we are. And what he is saying is that the nature and the function and here nature and function are one, the nature and the function of the church is to be light for the world. Jesus is absolutely essential that the church understands that his nature and its function is as light. There's a man that has an institute on the island of Crete. He's a Greek man. He grew up during the times of World War II when the island of Crete was invaded by the Germans. His name is Papadopolis. And Papadopolis, having grown up in that era, realized that there was such hatred in his country towards Germany for invading them that he decided to start an institute to bring peace between the people on the island of Crete and the Germans. And he thought that this would be a great opportunity because he thought if I could teach the Cretans how to forgive the Germans for what they did, then this would be a model for forgiveness throughout the whole world. And so he started this institute and he dedicated it to making peace between these divided peoples. And he would hold these conferences and people from all over the world would come to these conferences. And one particular occasion, the author Robert Fogham was attending one of these conferences. And Papadopolis had gone through his several weeks of lectures and teachings and classes and courses. And at the end of the course, like all teachers are want to do, they will, when they complete their class, they will ask a question. And if you've ever been a student or if you've ever been a teacher, you know what the question is at the end of the class, the teacher will usually say something like, are there any questions. And of course, everybody in the class is hoping what? Everybody in the class is hoping that there aren't any more questions. And of course what the people in the class don't really understand is that that is the same thing that the teacher is hoping, the teachers also hoping that there aren't any more questions. But as we know from experience, there's always one person in the class that just has to ask one more question, right? And make both the rest of the students and the teacher angry at them. Well, in this case, it was the author, Robert Fogham, who asked a question. And he raised his hand and he said, Dr. Papadopolis, I just have one question for you. He said, can you tell me what is the meaning of life? And you can imagine all the students are like, you got to be kidding me, right? What is the meaning of life? You know, why don't you just get with this guy after class and work this out, you know. And Dr. Papadopolis thought at first that he was kidding. Then he looked at him and he saw in his eyes that he was asking a sincere question. And so he said, because I see that you're sincere, I'm going to answer that question for you. He says, when I was a little boy and I was growing up on the island of Crete, the Germans invaded our island with the best known soldier and paratrooper on the face of the earth, the most skilled soldier on the face of the earth. And they came in, we had no weapons, we had no guns, we had no artillery, we had no way to defend ourselves, except for our common farm tools. Our people went out there with their pitchforks and their other kinds of farming tools to try to take on the Germans, the best army in the world of that day. And he said, we were slaughtered, wholesale. And this very day there's a cemetery and a monastery that has two burial grounds, one of which is the burial ground for all the Germans who they killed. And the other right across from it is the burial ground from all the Cretans that were killed. And the institute sits in the middle of those two, trying to bring reconciliation between these two people. And Dr. Papalof said, when I was a little boy, we didn't have any toys, we didn't have anything to play with. And he said, one day I was walking down the street and I came across a wreck of an old motorcycle, a old German motorcycle. It was lying in the street and it was all busted up. And he said, I reached down and I found the mirror of the rearview mirror of the motorcycle. And he said, it was broken. But I picked up a piece, it was about the size of a half a dollar and he said, I rounded off the edges, smooth them out. And he said, I put it in my pocket. And he said, that became my toy. That's what I played with. And he said, I would occasionally during the day, I'd pull that out of my pocket and I would reflect the sunlight into little dark crevices and corners and cracks and holes in the ground. And he said, that's how I entertain myself as a little boy. He said, then I got a little older and I still carried that around with me years after I still had this little mirror in my pocket. And he said, I would find myself, even as a grown man as an adult, occasionally I'd be on a plane or some place and I'd pick out that and I would look and I would just reflect light off that little mirror into dark places. And then he said, I realized that this little childhood game, this little childhood toy was a metaphor for life. And he said, ever since then, I have dedicated myself to reflecting light into dark places. And he said, I'm not the light. Light is there, but I'm not the light. I'm just a broken piece of mirror that is used by God to reflect light into dark places. Blow it, I'm not the light. You as individuals are not the light, but light is there. Jesus said, I am the light of the world. And Jesus said to the church, you are the light of the world. That is you are a reflection of his light. You're not perfect. You're broken. You're fragile. You're just a piece of a broken mirror that God will use to reflect light into dark places in this world. You are the light of the world. That's what Jesus says the church is. The church is the light of the world. You are the light of the world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden to the churches like a city on a hill when the Puritans came here and pastor went through up was leading them his first sermon that he preached to the Puritans on the way here was using this metaphor as an image of what the church should be when it gets here. There is a city on a hill and that has been an image that has been used time and again to describe what the church should look like. The church should look like a city on a hill. And I find that language rather interesting. The idea of the church is a city. The word there is the Greek word police. If you've ever done any study of Greek history at all, you know that one of the dominant ideas of the Greek culture is the idea of the police. The police is the city state, the city states of ancient Greece. And this was one of the major themes, one of the major ideas that has influenced all of Western civilization from the time of the classical period in ancient Greece up until the present. Our own culture right now has been extremely influenced by this idea of the city state, by this idea of the police. In fact, some of our cities have the word police in them, right? Annapolis. For instance, there's a lot of our cities that have the word police in them. Plato said that a person's identity in the Greek city states, the person's identity was so wrapped up with the idea of the police that they were virtually synonymous. In fact, Plato said that the police is man writ large. That is that their identities are so interconnected that you can virtually not separate them without harming the man or the state. This is of course why Socrates thought it was much better to be executed than to go into exile because he could not bear the thought of being separated from the police, from the city state. In the Greek mind, one's identity was wrapped up in the police. It was the center of all of life, of all cultural life, of all social life, of all political life, of all economic life. The police was the center of all of life. It was man writ large. Plato said, what you see for the Jews. And for Jesus, the police was different. The police was not man writ large. It was God writ large. The center of the police here that Jesus is talking about is the city of God, not the city of man. This is not Babylon. This is not Athens. This is not Rome. This is the city of God. This is the new Jerusalem. This is Zion. This is the new heavens in the earth. The church is that city. The city sat on, you know, I have mentioned to you before that I have been traveling a lot down to another church named covenant, Covenant Presbyterian Church in Palm Bay. And I think our work down there is about wrapped up thankfully, but you all know that while I was traveling out of the country, we went to Croatia and then we went to Kenya. And you know that during that time I had the former pastor, the founding pastor of covenant of Palm Bay, come here and speak while I was gone, Dan Henley. And if you were here during that time, you got to meet Dan and probably heard a little bit of a story. Dan was the founding pastor down at Covenant Palm Bay. He built that church from scratch. And I had kind of an amazing revelation, amazing experience when I was down there. The first time I went down there, I went, we met at one of the elders homes. And we were dealing with some matters in the church and so we met with all the elders who met in one of their homes. And after the meeting we got out, I don't know, it was kind of late 10, 11 o'clock and then I was going to start coming home. And you know, I am just a little bit directionally challenged. I think that's a qualification for ministry, I'm not sure, but I'm a little bit directionally challenged. And so I came out of the house and after several hours of meeting and business and so forth, I was looking around, I was going like, you know, I don't really know where I am. And I'm not sure if I should go left or right or where I should go. I didn't quite know how to get out of the neighborhood. We're back in a subdivision. I didn't quite know how to get back out of the subdivision. And so I was thinking of thinking about what to do and all of a sudden I looked up and up over the trees, I could make out these trees and I could see this light. It was absolutely amazing. I looked up and I could see this light that was emanating from over the top of these trees on the other side of this subdivision. And I realized what that light was, it was the church. This church takes up about two city blocks and the lights that are that are on in the parking area and other places of the church were emanating from the church. And I could tell which direction the church was. And so I followed that light out of the neighborhood that light became my beacon. And you know, as I was thinking about this, this idea of the city on the hill, you know, that cannot be hidden. And I thought about that experience, you know, I was lost. And of course, that's sort of a common occurrence for me. My wife doesn't understand how I get any place. She thinks that explains how I burn up so much gas in my car because I'm always traveling around and making wrong turns and such. But I was lost. See, this is the human predicament, isn't it? This is the human predicament. This is the human problem. This is the difference between Christianity and every other religion of the world. Christianity acknowledges the fact that we are all lost human beings. That because of our sin, we are blinded. We're dead in our trespasses of sin. We're all lost. This is what is, you know, so amazing, right? About grace, as John Newton said, amazing grace. How sweet the sound, right? It was blind, but now I see I was lost, but now I'm found that, you know, that is the summary of Christian doctrine that we are blind. And then we see that we are lost and then we're found. And the church is to be a beacon of light. It is to be a city on the hill where the gospel of Jesus Christ is empowered by the Holy Spirit. It's able to open our eyes and our hearts so that we can see our own human condition. You see, we're unable, apart from that light, apart from that gospel light that emanates from the church, we are unable to even see our own human condition. You know, this is one of the things that is so difficult for people to understand. That really what the, you know, the first thing that the gospel is saying to us is that we are unable to see even our own condition. Unless the power of the gospel opens our eyes to see the light of the gospel, we're, we're in a state of inability. And the light of the gospel, the glorious gospel and the face of Christ is what opens our eyes to see our own human condition and our own need for a savior. And the church is the place of that light. You are the light of the world. A city on a hill can not be hidden. You do people light a lamp and put it under a ball. Instead, they put it on a stand and it gives light to everyone in the house in the same way. Jesus says, let your light shine before men. That your good deeds, that men may see your good deeds and praise your father and heaven. You know, just this week I was reading something that I came across that I thought I would share. And it was just a little, a little poem written by the Louvre brothers entitled Satan is real. And it says that Satan is real working his spirit. You can see him and you can hear him in this world every day. Now it's a simple little poem. But as I thought about that, as I looked around the world, I couldn't deny that Satan is real is working his spirit. You can see him and hear him every day. Do you believe the Satan is real? Do you believe he's working his spirit? Do you see him and hear him? Have you looked around the world today? I mean, it's like GK Chester has said, you know, how people can disbelieve in the doctrine of human depravity when there is so much evidence to the contrary was beyond his imagination. How people can disbelieve and say to him with all the evidence to the contrary is beyond my comprehension. You look around the world in your own experience when you're all alone at home when you close the doors when you pull into your garage and you put the door down and you go into your room and you don't you don't allow yourself to be distracted by all the myriad of things that we use to keep our minds occupied. We always got to have something for our eyes and something for our ears and something to distract our attention because the bottom line is that we really can't stand to be alone, not even for five minutes. We have to make sure that we are distracted because the truth of the matter is that the reality of the devil will become real to us if we don't. And that's why we have to keep ourselves preoccupied minute by minute and moment by moment and day by day and week by week and month by month.
And what is that assigned? That's a sign that we actually know that there is something there that is terrifying to us.
What it says to us is that Satan is real. He's so real that I will not give myself any space or anytime at all to even entertain that idea. And so I constantly feed my senses with all kinds of things as a way of escaping from the reality that is right before my very eyes. Satan is really working this spirit. I see him and I hear him in the world every day. Let me tell you what Jesus is saying. Jesus is saying the church is real working the spirit of God and he's saying that this church should be seen and heard as the light of the world as the city on a hill that you should see it and hear it in the world every day. The church is the light of the world. The church is a city on the hill. The church is the place that neither Satan nor the gates of hell can prevail against. And think about this folks. Here's where we need to be very careful and I'll just say this and then I'll quit. You are the light of the world and if you take the words the light of out of that sentence basically that means there's no difference between the church and the world. If you take the words the light of out of that sentence you are left with you are the world and that's where we need to be very careful about how we do church. The church isn't to be the world. The world and the church are distinct. The world and the church are separate. The world and the church are different.
We are to be the light of the world. The city set. Satan is real. The church is real. Satan is working his spirit. The church is working God's spirit. You can see him and hear him. You can see and hear the church in this world every day. We love it. This is not dualism. This is not good and evil as two separate but equal powers. The church is an institution of God in which the gates of hell can not and will not prevail. Heavenly Father, we are grateful for the church, the church of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ who is the light of the world and Lord we are grateful and thankful that he has shined his lights into his light into our hearts with his glorious gospel and that we have been saved from our sins. From the justice and the wrath of God that we might have abundant and eternal life. We pray, Lord, that now our lights would shine into this otherwise dark world. We give you the praise and it's in Jesus' name that we pray. Amen.