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Let Your Light Shine (Matt 5:16)
May 8, 2025
Let Your Light Shine (Matt 5:16)
I wrote today (Thursday) in the daily email about letting “your light” shine. We seem to have as many questions about this as answers. In reading through the remainder of the Sermon on the Mount (Matt 5-7) I believe Jesus gives us plenty of answers. So what about this light?
Flesh and blood doesn’t seem to shine. We say sometimes that a pregnant woman “glows.” It’s not light, but there’s something going on within that is noticeable. There are also features of appearance that are noticeable, but that does not harm the metaphor.
Christians are those with “something going on within” that also has evidences on the outside. Let’s look at the internal reality first. Christians have an “alien righteousness,” that is, a righteousness that is from outside themselves, the righteousness of Jesus Christ. It is not just theoretical or spiritual. It is a real righteousness that is practiced. We march to a different drummer. We see ourselves and the world differently. We are in the world, but not of the world. We are, so to speak, pregnant with the righteousness and life of Jesus. It makes a difference.
What are the differences? Let’s not suppose. Let’s just listen to Jesus. Though He makes use of many word pictures, He also speaks literally. And He speaks of a “surpassing righteousness.” This kind of righteousness is not a righteousness that we ourselves, or any diligent and driven “holy” person, can produce on our own. It is Jesus’ righteousness in us, producing a new kind of person.
It is a righteousness that, as we worship before God, cannot tolerate differences with other brothers and sisters in Christ. Those differences must be resolved if we are to engage in true worship together. Ideas matter. Words matter. And relationships matter (5:23-24).
It is a righteousness that deals ruthlessly with sin (5:29-30). We will discuss tomorrow in the “daily” whether the right eye and hand are metaphors or not. But the point remains the same.
It is a righteousness that loves one’s enemies. There is not much wiggle room here, and if our light isn’t shining, perhaps we are more known by those whom we hate than those whom we love. Jesus demands this righteousness-from-above quality (5:38-47).
Jesus’ righteousness given to us produces a trust that is deeper and more apparent than trust in a political person or party, more fundamental than a trust in a portfolio, more secure than a trust in military might. In God we trust, not just on our coin, but in our hearts and practice (5:6-25-34).
This righteousness that we have received by faith in Jesus is a righteousness that regularly repents (7:3-5); that prays persistently (7:7-8); and that, finally, takes Jesus’ words literally and seriously (7:24-27).
We must ask ourselves in what ways our patterns have left the way of Jesus’ righteous way.
- “Prayer is a sincere, sensible, affectionate pouring out of the heart and soul to God, through Christ, with the strength and assistance of the Holy Spirit, for such things as God has promised, or according to the Word, for the good of the church, with submission, in faith, to the will of God.” - John Bunyan
