“Kingdom of God: Great Light: Power Of Life” 

Our text for tonight is taken from 1 Cor 4:5, in which Paul, talking to Christians, said: ‘Therefore, judge nothing before the time, until the Lord come, Who both will bring to light the hidden things of darkness, and will make manifest the counsels of the heart: and then shall every man have praise of God.’

First, as a reminder and background to this text, we know that Jesus had told His followers, ‘Ye are the light of the world.’

And He explained that by saying: ‘Those who follow Me shall not walk in darkness but shall have the light of life.’

Paul, in our text, emphasized these very two things Jesus did.

Those who follow Jesus shall not walk in darkness. 

And, to that, Paul reminded these Christians that those hidden things of darkness in their lives are going to be brought to light.

And, in regard to those who have Christ’s light of life, Paul said ‘...the counsels of the heart...’, those secret motives, inner aims and plans of man, will show what the life was. 

It will tell whether it has been in the crystal clear light of Christ or in the shadows of darkness wherein the man will receive from God the praise that the man is due. 

Paul, in the context of this passage, was speaking of his influence among the Christian Corinthians.

Every truly Christian life, submitted in loyalty and faithfulness to Jesus Christ, has its upright influence in the world. 	

So, if Paul’s influence stood the test of the light of Christ shining piercingly upon it, then his work among them has not been in vain, no matter how they have judged him. 
  
He could summarize his life easily by saying, ‘The man who lives in the will of God is the ‘light of the world’ in his influence to others about him and in the universe.’

From such a life, light will be ministered to those in the dark - those groping about to find the secret of life.

By a quiet, simple abiding in Christ and in His light, the  Christian’s character will flash its light abroad. 

This is the ‘gospel’ a Christian preaches in the influence of his character.

And, - hear me carefully - as strange as this may sound at first - the ‘gospel’ a Christian preaches, does not consist of what Christ taught, or even of what He did. 

It consists of Who Christ is - the living source of power from which His teaching and His actions come. 

His glory is explained by the fact that He is the likeness of God and reveals God’s nature and character.

This is why it is the person of Christ that was the subject of Paul’s message and of the life he lived in which Christ was the absolute focus.

He knew that there was no power in what he could say or do to change a man’s spiritual character.

For, as he gave up ‘everything’ [which, he said at another time, amounted to ‘dung’] - as he gave it all up for the sake of Christ, always looking into the face of Jesus Christ, he saw there the image of God, the knowledge of God’s glory.

And, that after all, was what Paul had always longed to know.

He had worked hard in his studies and pursuits of the Old Testament writings.

He worked hard as one of God’s ‘lawyers’ among the Sanhedrin Council of Jewish authorities and scholars.      

His heart looked for exactly what he saw when he met Jesus Christ, face to face. (And I refer you to verse 6 in this fourth chapter of 2 Corinthians.)

And, now, he let the Corinthians know that he was not preaching himself. 

He was not promoting his own agenda. 

He was preaching only Christ - only the Person of Christ who was his Light and power of his new life. 

And in his preaching, he was simply preaching about Jesus of Nazareth Who fulfilled all the Messianic prophecies God gave about the ‘Great Light’ to come.

And, not only that - he preached Him as the present living Power, who  had ‘...died...is risen again, Who is...at the right hand of God...’, now in a place of authority.

If that is so, then, he said elsewhere,  ‘Seek those things that are above...set your affections on things above...’, not on things that cause men to live in the shadows of darkness.  

That is, ‘Seek Christ, therefore, as the Light of your being and, in His power, darkness will have no hold on you.’

This was the gist, this was the substance, this was the fundamental fact of his message.

And, no matter how Paul may have been judged, he could stand in the light of Christ with an honest heart.

He could say he gave ‘light’, he was ‘light’ to others through the knowledge that his conversion experience gave him of God and his saving work.

The ‘light’ of his character and its influence was the ‘light of the world’ he faithfully passed on to others as the light of Christ within him came through.  
  
But - why was he such a powerful influence?

And - how do we - you and I - come to this place of the ‘light of Christ’ becoming so crystal clear and bright in us so that others also take notice?

Of course, there are no ‘one, two’ three’ steps to follow, as much as we would like them and even crave them, at times!

But Jesus, before He left the earth, gave the answer.

To His followers, He said: ‘As the Father hath sent Me, so send I you...Receive ye the Spirit’.

The authority the Father had delegated to Him was the same authority Jesus gave His followers.

And with that authority, there also was the power of the Holy Spirit in them.  

And, Paul understood that - and embraced it. 

‘The Lord is that Spirit: and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty,’ he said in 2 Cor 3:17.

It was the Holy Spirit Who was the power in the followers of Christ.

Paul understood that it is He Who would liberate men from sin, set men free from ‘the lusts of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life’ so that the ‘light’ of Christ is crystal clear!

It was He Who would clear out the debris blocking the channel to becoming the ‘light of the world.’

The world’s ways of presenting ‘evil’ appeal to the lusts, especially since so much is through our new technologies and they can be done secretly.

But - these keep us from seeing the light of the gospel clearly, if we give in to the temptation.

They deliberately keep us from making intelligent decisions spiritually.

They are the channels that keep us from being sensitive to our moral choices and thereby, darken the way of Christ within.

They hinder the work the Holy Spirit is seeking to do since the choice is not the choice for Christ.

Engaging in them is the choice for evil. 

And choosing evil always perpetuates more evil.

I wonder if we realize that we are actually giving it the ‘go ahead - I’m behind you all the way!’ signal when we choose its side.

Thankfully, it is the Holy Spirit Who is aware of everything in us and about us.

He is the One Who works out the ‘steps’ we need to take to that end, and - sometimes, not always pleasantly, I might add!

But - there are some things we can know and recognize, that we can embrace.

The first thing is to know is that it is definitely the Spirit of the Lord Who frees us from the power of sin and the grip it
can have upon us.

He is anxious that we walk in freedom - of not being glued and fixed in darkness any longer, but of being fixed ‘in the light of Christ.’

He gives the freedom to be emancipated from the power of sin in order to see the difference between spiritual ‘light’ and ‘darkness’.

He gives the freedom to be devoted to that which is higher than ourselves and higher than our innate desire to do as we please.

He gives the freedom to be released to do as we ought to do, and not to use freedom as an ‘opportunity to the flesh’ that insists on dappling into darkness again and again.

He is the freedom from that inner hold that reverts to the passions of lust, pride, selfishness, and all the other snares of the flesh.

He is the freedom that acts as a safeguard against going back to them for the light of Christ is the power that deflects the inner man from siding with those snares.

In short, the freedom the Holy Spirit gives is the only real freedom we have - the freedom to choose who and what masters us!

For - it is the secret of His power that tells us what we ought to do and gives the power to do it as we embrace the light we have in Christ.

It is then that we are able to see what our true nature is and to cooperate with Christ and the work of His Spirit in the service of His kingdom.

Rom 6:16 tells us: ‘Do you not know that if you yield yourselves to any one as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom ye obey, either of sin, which leads to death,
(see it there: ‘either of sin, which leads to death’) or of obedience, which leads to righteousness?’

So, then, embrace the fact of the Holy Spirit Who actively works in freeing us from the power of sin and the grip it has upon us. 

Then, the second thing to remember is that the changes He brings in us do not always come all at once.

Paul saw a ‘Great Light’ that changed him from ‘Saul’, the figure of the old man, to ‘Paul’, the figure of a new man, almost overnight - we probably would assume.

However, it was Paul - toward the end of his life, who pleaded, ‘Oh, that I would know Him [Christ] as He is known.’

He still had some more to know and some more to go, and he was the first to admit it.

But he had the vision of the light of Christ always before him.

As he walked in it, the shunning of darkness was no longer a chore for him.

When we see this, we see how important Christ is!

And - what was so amazing about Paul was that he   was able to discern the difference between the power he exerted on his own and the power of Christ that ‘worketh effectually in all who believe.’ 

His own inborn power proved itself to be of little help when it came to his spiritual growth and his knowledge of the glory of God.

He realized that it was not a human achievement, something that we can do on our own in the way we think it is done.

But he saw, in his own growth - and in all believers and in the Lord’s church, universal - in all who follow Christ, who shun walking in darkness, and who have the Life of Christ within, the power of the Holy Spirit working mightily.

And what does it take for that to happen? 

That work calls for a sincere and humble heart that truly seeks the ‘knowledge of the glory of God in Christ’ above else.

It calls for a quiet submissiveness to God that gives Him a place to work within the heart.

It calls for cooperation within in yielding to Christ in which there develops an obvious consciousness of Him within.

This is when a transformation begins and when the depth and enlargement of our vision of Him grows. 

And, it is when He is the focus, that we become more like Him, ‘for we shall see Him as He is.’   

This is the power of the Holy Spirit at work.    

So - He not only gives the Life of Christ, He gives the Light of Christ to the inner man which keeps man in the course to become the ‘light of the world’ along with His church universal.

By this, the truth of His Lordship that is the power of God’s redemptive action in history will take center stage! 

Not only will the perfect moral beauty of Christ shine through His church, but also the truth that the living Lord
reigns now and is active now in all who believe!

I will close for tonight.

May the Lord bless these meditations to our hearts this week.

I urge you to let them soak in deeply and become life to our innermost beings as we go through another week together in His Name.

Amen.

Let us pray.