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Jan. 31, 2023 - Just Informed Talk - Craig James
13:58
Why Did Jesus Tells Us To Let Our Light Shine? Luke 8:16-21 | God's Grace Is Greater
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Welcome back to another God's Grace is Greater segment today.
We are going to do a deep dive into Scripture.
We're in Luke chapter 8, the Gospel of Luke, and we started in chapter 8 last week, and it was really powerful where we talked about the parable of the sower.
And Jesus gives us parables to understand the kingdom that much better.
And he gives us a little bit of an explanation these next few verses as to what it means to listen to these parables and how to really fully grasp and understand them.
So I hope you guys are ready for that.
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But today, let's get into our God's grace.
We're going to read Luke 8, verse 16 to verse 21.
And these are powerful, powerful verses.
And I'm going to explain them, but it talks about letting your light shine for Jesus.
Right?
Letting the light, letting shine the light of Jesus.
And what does Jesus mean by this?
Well, we're going to talk about that.
Let's go ahead and read.
This is Luke chapter 8, verse 16, 21.
It says,
And brothers came to him, but they could not meet with him because of the crowd.
He was told, Your mother and your brothers are standing outside wanting to see you.
But he replied to them, My mother and my brothers are those who hear and do the word of God.
So now to give you context, of course, what's happening here is Jesus is giving this incredible parable, and this is right after he talked about He's done an incredible miracle.
In chapter 7, at the end of chapter 7, what he did was he brought a young man back to life, the son of a widow.
He was dead and he had just brought him back to life.
And now we're talking about the parable of the sower.
He's doing all of this in front of a large crowd that's been gathered, where you have both believers and nonbelievers.
You have the Christians that were of the day.
There were Jews who had decided to follow Christ, and there were Gentiles who had decided to follow Christ who were there listening.
But there are also those who were Jews and Gentiles who didn't believe in Christ.
And he gave the parable of the sower, which we went over in our last video.
You can find that if you go look through the library and look at the last few videos.
This is a powerful verse, though.
He's telling us, after giving us the parable of the sower and explaining it, He, and you can get your full explanation on that, I'm not going to re-go over that since we already did, but it talks about how, you know, the word of God being spread is, and those who hear it and accept it are those who are sown on good ground, and they can produce more than what they are in the first place, and that's kind of the general, you know, consolidation of that.
But now he's talking about another thing.
He's talking about light.
So he's got this crowd of people listening to him.
He's just finished explaining the parable of the sower.
And now he gives us this example of a light.
And it's a clear one, right?
He says, no one lights a lamp and puts it under a bed or under a basket.
Imagine that.
You're at your house, right?
You're in your room.
It's dark, right?
You turn on your lamp, right?
I mean, they didn't have electric back then, so back then you'd light a lamp, right?
A fire lamp.
An oil lamp.
But you'd turn on your lamp.
Well, do you take it and put it under your bed?
Well, how would that help?
That wouldn't help.
Do you put a basket over it?
No.
No.
He says, you light it so that those who come in may see its light.
Also, those who come in can see.
And you can see.
Everything's more clear.
Then he gives us this incredible verse.
It says, for nothing is concealed that won't be revealed and nothing hidden that won't be made known and come to light.
Jesus is telling us here, I believe, that once we have the gospel, the light has been lit.
Now we have a choice.
Do we conceal it or do we let it show?
And in this example, Jesus is telling us, well, the obvious thing is to let it shine, to let it show.
But then he gives us a warning.
He says, take care how you listen.
For whoever has, more will be given to him, and whoever does not have, even what he thinks he has, will be taken away from him.
What does he mean by that?
Well, what he's saying is, be careful with what you do with this gospel.
Because he's essentially saying that people, if you've listened to the gospel, meaning you've accepted the gospel, you believe the gospel, you're embracing the gospel...
If you do that, more will be given to you, he's saying.
He's basically saying that the gospel opens up doors and opportunities and it opens up the pathway to salvation that would otherwise not be there.
So you will be given more, is what he's saying.
And essentially, with your light shining, that's what he's asking us to do.
But then he says, whoever does not listen or accept or believe The gospel.
Even what he thinks he has will be taken away from him.
There are those who reject Jesus.
They reject the gospel.
They reject it all outright.
Because they're more worried about the things of this world.
I hope you're not that way, but if you are, this message is for you.
All of the things of this world that you may have right now that you think are more important than the gospel, that are more important than your relationship with God, that are more important than building a strong foundation and shining your light into the world to show all others that the gospel is greater than anything.
God's grace is greater than anything we can imagine.
And what is grace?
Grace is undeserved love and forgiveness.
And I'm telling you right now, That in this particular verse, don't be like the latter person who does not listen because even whatever you have now, it'll all be taken away.
Because there's only one way out of this world.
We all have the same end destination.
Well, there's actually two destinations.
Some of us are going...
To a fiery lake and some of us are going to heaven.
The kingdom of heaven is with us.
Once we've accepted Jesus and we have found that salvation, God is with us.
Jesus is living with us.
He's asking us to shine our light to the world because we have to show.
We don't just wait to go to heaven to celebrate Jesus.
We're called to celebrate him now.
That's what this whole story, this whole parable that he's giving us is meant to teach us, I believe, is that your light is meant to shine.
It's not to be hid under a bed or under a basket.
The light of the gospel is meant to shine for all to see because we've been given the kingdom of heaven.
And if you reject the gospel, then even what you have in this earth, it's going to disappear.
The house that you thought was most important, the things that you thought, the material things, whatever it is, it's all going to disappear.
But this is a gift and a gift that keeps on giving eternal salvation that is beyond compare.
And then finally, we have these few verses, right, where Mark does a more deep dive into this exchange, right, where Jesus' mothers and brothers come up and they basically are worried about Jesus.
And the people are telling them, the disciples are saying, you know, your mother and your brother are here to see you.
They want to see you.
Now he's not saying what he says next.
Jesus is not saying this, I believe, is a rejection of his family.
He's trying to tell the crowd that we're all connected to Jesus.
We all have access to him.
It's not just a familial connection.
It's a connection that's made through true belief and faith.
And here, Jesus says, My mother and brothers are those who hear and do the word of God.
He's not rejecting his mother and brothers, I don't believe.
Because, I mean, you've got to remember, his mother and brothers, some of his brothers, didn't believe in Jesus.
Unbelievably, they doubted him.
You know, when Jesus goes to his hometown in Nazareth, he's rejected.
It's incredible.
His own family didn't believe in him.
And Jesus said, a prophet is not without worry when he goes to his only unwelcome in his own hometown, essentially.
And Jesus is telling us here, though, I believe, That our connection to Him is not a familial connection, though it is similar to relationships we have in our family, but rather a connection built on faith, trust, and belief in God.
And that that is a connection that connects us all through Christ to one another.
So...
That's our lesson for today and our deep dive in the scripture.
I hope it spoke to your heart.
I hope that you will be, like Jesus says, the one who has already listened and received and held on to and believed in the word because that's how we will gain more in this world and that your light will be let to shine for all those to see.
I always like to say that the salvation that was given to me when I found Christ in my heart, truly, and turned my life over to Him, it was crazy because the first thing I wanted to do with it was give it to everyone.
God saved me.
I was in a dark place.
I was living a pretty menial existence.
I wasn't doing anything with my life that was really worth anything.
I mean, at least not, I wasn't doing anything for the kingdom of God.
I wasn't living for Christ.
I wasn't doing my best to bring forth the treasure, put forth the treasure in heaven that God calls us to do.
And I was lost and I was depressed and I was alone and I was scared and I was all the things that you would be when you don't have God and the eternal salvation in your life.
But when I found him and he saved me, all I wanted to do was help give that to others.
Because I realized immediately that it's not a gift that is just for me.
It's a gift for us all.
And I do pray that you have that same belief in your heart that this gift that you've been given through Jesus and the gospel and his sacrifice on the cross is not just a gift to hide under your bed.
It's not just a gift to place under a lamp or under a basket and say, okay, I'm going to save that for later.
It's a gift to be embraced and shown to others so that they can see the light, that they can see where they're going.
They can find direction so that we can all find Christ more closely in our hearts.
So let's go ahead and say a prayer and then we'll wrap it up.
Lord and Heavenly Father, we give great thanks for your amazing gospel that we can learn so much through.
I pray, Lord, that we will shine our light into the world for you.
Lord, I pray that those who don't, who haven't found you in their heart yet fully, that they will accept you as their Lord and Savior and see the amazing power Of change that can come through your amazing grace that can be shown to all, not just some.
Lord, and I pray that those who have fully accepted you already, that they let their light shine into the world and help bring others to your incredible kingdom through you, for you.
So we thank you most of all, Lord, for our eternal salvation.
In Jesus' name, amen.
Alright, well, I want to say thanks to everybody for watching.
Make sure you like, share, subscribe.
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Do me a favor.
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But with that being said, I want to say thank you all for watching this episode of God's Grace is Greater.
And we'll see you on the next one.
But until then, my name is Craig.
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