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“Turned
Around Into Light”
a sermon by
Thomas L. Jenkins
Text: Matthew 4:12-23
“Repent
for the Kingdom of heaven has come near.”
DEAR SISTERS AND BROTHERS, the two main ideas that we will be hearing,
at this time, will be concepts of “light” and “repentance.”
Many of the sermons I have read on this passage were primarily
about Jesus calling his disciples to fish for people; which is a
wonderful lesson and an important concept for the church to help bring
people into Christian faith. However,
the other passages we have also read today focus much on light and
repentance, in other words, the gospel.
The apostle Paul as he wrote to the church in Corinth, were he had heard
that they were experiencing some quarrels among themselves regarding who
was more righteous based on who brought them into the faith, responded
by telling them that the importance is not so much pertaining to who
participated in their conversions, as it is in the very witness as to
the news they had been given about what God had already accomplished in
Jesus.
“For Christ did not send me to
baptize but to proclaim the gospel, and not with eloquent wisdom, so
that the cross of Christ might not be emptied of its power.” (1
Cor. 1:12)
The cross of Christ was an experience of the greatest darkness a human
could receive; and of course Christ went through it to save us from
having to go through that kind of death applied to us by the devil.
Jesus is victor! Light has
already won over darkness.
There was a pastor in Germany, J.C. Blumhardt, in the middle 1800s, who
gave a report to his church’s session of a young lady named Gottleibin
Dittus who was entrusted to his pastoral care.
She suffered seriously for about two years.
Rev. Blumhardt brought a number of psychologists and medical
doctors to help her. But, a
change was not seen. At the
climax of two years of suffering, on December 28, 1843, the Reverend
prayed “Lord Jesus, help me. We
have seen long enough what the devil can do.
We now desire to see the power of Jesus.”
It was not long before a voice was heard from the young lady
which uttered “Jesus is Victor!”
Then she showed herself healed. JESUS IS VICTOR for every one of
us. That is the light of
God!
Light! A man looses his
wife after 30 years of marriage, and goes into a deep and dark
depression. He could not work, stopped seeing his friends, stayed at home
with all the blinds shut. In
the darkness he would sit for hours, even thinking about ending his own
life. But in the dark hour
of his soul, a friend knocked on his door, and in the cold of a
winter’s afternoon they went out for coffee.
His friend too knew the dark night of his soul after his son was
killed in a car accident. After
coffee as they left the little local restaurant, and they were walking
back to his house, the sky was totally covered with deep gray clouds,
and all the sudden, the sun broke the clouds at one single point, and a
ray of light came upon them. He said, “Maybe God is trying to tell me something.”
God was telling him something.
In his dark hour of grief, as he walked through the valley of the
shadow of death, God was walking with him and would lead him to the
light, and actually turn him around in his heart to understand it.
In Psalm 27, David recognizes the light of God for his life, and he too,
is familiar through his own experiences of times in darkness. The Psalm
is a prayer. He testifies
to God being his salvation and his light.
Then he tells the Lord that he wants to spend his entire life in
God’s house. Which means
that he does want to constantly be in God’s light?
He wants to communicate with God.
He wants to know God’s specific will for his life. David wants
the most important personal relationships in his life to be with God’s
children. And in one verse
he prays: “Do not hide your face
from me. Do not turn your
servant away in anger, you who have been my help.
Do not cast me off, do not forsake me, O God of my salvation.”
Because of what God has already accomplished for us in Jesus Christ, God
does not hide from us, does not turn us away from Him based on anger
toward us, does not forget
us.
David prayed this part of his prayer because he had gone through dark
times in his life where his suffering and pain led him to have these
kinds of thoughts. As
simple and profound, and maybe even a little frightening, as this may
sound, we are in darkness when we see God’s light
based on Gods’ love and devotion to us.
God experienced His own light during the greatest darkness of the devil,
as he was crucified on the cross, and actually even experienced what the
Bible calls hell. And the
greatest light he came to know was resurrection out of all this, into
eternal life. Jesus is
Victor!
Jesus is not Victor for Himself. He
did not go through all of this simply so He could beat the devil and see
Himself as the greatest winner in this world.
He did this for you, and me, and each and every one of us.
When the Son of God entered into the heart of this world in Jesus of
Nazareth, the Son of God entered into your heart, even before you were
born. When He died on the
cross, you died on the cross with Him.
And when He was raised from the dead and returned to God the
Father, to live eternally in God’s love in the Holy Spirit, Jesus took
your soul with him. You are the soul of your body; and you, who are your soul,
are already saved in the light of Christ.
Jesus Christ, who is the Word of God, speaks of the end of the old
humanity in the power of His cross and the coming of the new humanity in
the power of His resurrection. “Because I live, you shall live also.” (JN 14:19)
Whether we laugh at this or have a questionable time trying to
understand it, the Word of grace does not say that we will be this new
person in the future, but that in Jesus Christ we already are a new
person.
This is very much what Jesus was preaching Matthew 4, “Repent
for the Kingdom of heaven has come near.”
He knew the kingdom was hear; near at that time because He had
not yet died and been raised into eternal life.
His message to us today is “REPENT FOR THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN HAS
ALREADY COME INTO YOU SOUL. BY
GOD YOU HAVE ALREADY BEEN TURNED INTO LIGHT.”
To repent does not simply mean for you to change the sinfulness of
yourselves, confess it to God, and then pray that God will bring you
into His salvation. That is
a legalistic definition of repentance.
We do not have to repent to earn forgiveness; we are led by God to
repent because we have already been forgiven.
The gospel’s presentation of repentance is a turn around in our lives
based on the truth that we have already heard.
We have already been forgiven and saved in Jesus Christ. Our repentance is to pray to God: “Yes, God I hear this
astonishing good news. In
Jesus I have already been turned around into light.
I believe this is true; but I need to be lead by the Holy Spirit
to see this light. I hear
that I need to turn around into where my truth already is.
Please help me to experience this with all by sisters and
brothers in Christ.”
Amen.
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