Hills Connect Youth Service [Matthew 5:13-14] (24-Aug-2014)

This sermon was preached at St Mark's Lutheran Church, Mt Barker, 7pm.

Grace, mercy and peace be to you from God our Father, and from our Lord Jesus Christ.

You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden.

Prayer: Lord Jesus, we thank you for the opportunity to come together here tonight and we pray that you would send your Holy Spirit to all of us. Shine your light through all of us, that others may see our good works and give glory to you, dear Jesus, and give glory to your Father. Amen.

I’ve been thinking a lot about our little theme for tonight, “Double-dipping”. And one of the pictures that keeps popping up in my mind is where you go out to a party and one of my children—usually whoever happens to be a toddler—is caught at the snacks table and is standing there putting one half-eaten biscuit back into the dip after another. And you have to go up and say, “No—you can’t double-dip!”

Or there was always the annoying person who was spreading butter on their toast, and then would get butter all in the vegemite jar, or butter all in the jam jar, so that you ended up with this nice plum jam with floaty greasy yellow bits on the top. Or either that or you ended up with vegemite or jam in the butter.

But the more I’ve been thinking about this theme of ours tonight, I’ve been continually coming back to something that I’m sure that you all understand. Nobody likes a double-dipper! Nobody wants a toddler putting their half-chewed crackers back in the French onion dip. Nobody wants butter floating on top of the jam or in the vegemite.

But as Christians, there is a sense in which we find ourselves living in two completely different worlds. Jesus has called us to live in his kingdom, but we also then live in a world which is hostile to Jesus. We might come to church, and hear the word of God, and pray, and then during the week, we go out to wherever we go, whether it’s to work, or school, or uni, and we find ourselves amongst people who have no interest in church, or God’s word, or prayer, or Jesus. We’ve got one toe dipped in Jesus’ kingdom, and one toe dipped in another kingdom, and it can be a real struggle to be a Christian sometimes.

Jesus says: I have called you friends. What a wonderful thing it is to be called a friend by Jesus. Jesus baptises us and washes us clean from sin, and forgives us, and he makes us his friends. And he is the kind of friend that is always there for us, one that constantly looks after us, and visits us when we are in need, and never gets tired from listening to our whinging! And yet, then we also have other friends—friends at school, uni, work, facebook friends—and those friends are nowhere near as faithful as Jesus. Jesus never unfollows us when we post something to him that he doesn’t like. And yet, sometimes our friends will turn around to us and even make fun of us because we consider Jesus to be our friend as well. Have you ever been in this kind of situation?

So let’s come to Jesus and ask him—how do we live like this? Jesus, we want to be faithful to you. We want to live a Christian life and follow you. But how do we do it in this world? Where can we get the encouragement that we need?

In our readings tonight, we see this struggle going on in the book of Proverbs. We see a father saying to his son: My son, be attentive to my words; incline your ear to my sayings. Let them not escape from your sight; keep them within your heart. Can you picture something escaping from your sight? And Jesus wants to encourage us too—he wants us to look to him, to keep our eyes fixed on him, on his cross, on his resurrection. And he says: Let these things not escape from your sight; keep them within your heart. And he says: For they are life to those who find them, and healing to all their flesh. Do you hear those words? Life. Healing. Jesus’ words, his death, his blood, his cross, his resurrection—all these things are life to those who find them, healing to all their flesh. And the proverbs say: Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life. Hear it says that we should keep our heart, and watch it, and guard it like a security guard, and make sure nothing sneaks into it and that doesn’t belong there. Keep your heart with all vigilance. Vigilance means stay awake, and set a body-guard there and treasure up all the wonderful things in God’s word, so that your heart may overflow with the springs of life.

You can see—these proverbs are 3000 years old. But already from that time, there were people who struggled with being double-dippers. They wanted to remain faithful to God, and faithful to God’s word, but also it was a struggle not to let God’s word escape from their sight, and they needed to keep watch over their hearts like a body-guard, like a security guard.

But also, in our second reading tonight, St Paul says: You are all children of light, children of the day. We are not of the night or of the darkness.

Just imagine if St Paul had said here: You are all children of butter. You are not children of the vegemite. (You can see I’ve got a real problem with vegemite and butter!) What happens when butter mixes with vegemite—you end up with buttery vegemite! You have this double-dipping problem!

But think about what St Paul says. He says: You are all children of light, children of the day. We are not of the night or of the darkness.

St Paul here doesn’t want these two things to mix. But what happens if you bring light and darkness together? What happens when you bring a candle into a dark room? The darkness disappears. The light wins, the light lightens up the whole room. You can’t get a bit of light stuck in a dark room as if it doesn’t belong there, and you can’t get a bit of darkness stuck in a light room as if it doesn’t belong there.

The same happens with Jesus—when he walks into a room, he lightens it up. When the word of God comes into our hearts, it brings light and brightness and freshness there so that darkness can’t stand it. You can’t double-dip with darkness and light, they are mutually exclusive!

And so, St Paul here wants to encourage us. He knows there’s going to be a tendency for us, because we’re sinners, to want to be attracted to darkness. If there were two shows on TV, one about the life of Jesus, and another about witchcraft and occult, there would be plenty of people who would find the darkness much more interesting. But St Paul says: You are all children of light, children of the day. We are not of the night or of the darkness. So then let us not sleep, as others do, but let us keep awake and be sober. For those who sleep, sleep at night, and those who get drunk, are drunk at night. But since we belong to the day, let us be sober, having put on the breastplate of faith and love, and for a helmet the hope of salvation. Can you see the encouragement that St Paul wants to give us here? He says: Don’t be attracted and entertained by darkness. That’s your sinful nature, your flesh. Be a child of light—put on the armour of faith, and love, and the helmet of hope.

When we were baptised, this armour, this encouragement, this faith, this love, this hope, this light, was actually given to you. And what a wonderful gift it is! I would really like to encourage you all to learn more and more the word of God, to read a little bit each day, each week, and to keep letting that light that comes from heaven, that light that comes from the face of Jesus keep pouring into your baptised heart. Jesus wants to encourage you so much, and wants you never to lose hope in him. He is so much stronger that you are, and loves you so much more than anyone in this world. And the light which comes from his word is so much more pure that any light you have ever seen.

The longest chapter in the bible, Psalm 119, says: Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.

But before I mention our Gospel reading tonight, I’d like you to think about a story that a friend of mine told me recently.

Imagine there is a boat, and this boat is floating on a swamp, and there are people stuck in the swamp, and struggling to swim. Now if we found ourselves on that kind of boat, what would we do? Surely, we’d want to go straight to those people who are the closest to drowning and pull them out of the swamp first and bring them into the boat, and then rescue the others.

This is a bit like what we’re like as Christians. We’re floating around in a boat through a swamp. And there are so many people all around us that are drowning in the swamp. Wouldn’t we simply want to bring those people into the boat with us who are closest to drowning?

But what happens is that so often we only want to bring those people into the boat are a bit like us. And we say to people who are drowning, “Don’t worry: the swamp is not that bad. You’ll be right.” And then the people drown, and it’s almost like we’re on a boat with a hole in it, that is simply sinking into the swamp as well.

No—there are so many people out there who have never heard the gospel. There are so many people who are floundering, drowning in the swamp, and they have no hope. And they look to us here in the church for help—and we are called to go along with our rescue-boat, and drag them out of the swamp, not to lower our standards and to be dragged into the swamp with them.

Jesus says: You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden.

Now, I don’t about you, but I love lighthouses. Just recently, before I came to this parish, my family and I went on a little holiday to Kangaroo Island, and I just loved climbing the lighthouses. I could spend a whole holiday just going around and visiting lighthouses. I think secretly that I’d love to live in one. And in a lighthouse, the walls are so thick, that you can almost crawl up and go to sleep where the windows are.

Now, just imagine a lighthouse in the old days. There are ships going past, and they look to the lighthouse to give a clear signal where the land is. Now just imagine if there were some people who came and wanted to build some houses nearby, and thought: this lighthouse is a waste of bricks. We’ll just take a few bricks from the top and lower the lighthouse a bit. And gradually over the years the lighthouse gets shorter and shorter. And then, you know what happens, the light ends up being so low that it doesn’t shine out to sea anymore and you end up with shipwrecks.

We’re not called to lower our standards for the world. We’re called to shine the gospel brightly and high up so that all those all around can see us. We’re not called to use the bricks for a lighthouse to build little houses all around the bottom! That’s called “double-dipping!” We’re not called to shine the light of the gospel to people who are just like us so that we build a little Christian social club. The gospel needs to go far out into the darkest parts of Mt Barker, of Hahndorf, of Lobethal, of Woodside, and all throughout the Adelaide Hills. The church needs to shine brightly, not with its standards lowered, so that nobody can see the light anymore.

Jesus says: Let your light shine before others, so that they may see your godo works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.

So keep reading and learning the Scripture. Let it penetrate deeply into your heart. Particularly, can I set you a challenge as young people—go to the bible and learn and study what it says about marriage and sex. If there’s one area in our society where young people are really floundering and drowning, it’s in this area. Now, it would be great to spend some time in the future to talk about this some more. And I know that many of you will be cut very deeply just by the fact that I have even mentioned this area—because every young person knows that the internet also provides people with a worldwide pornography network, which is causing so many people to drown. Many of you will know exactly what I’m talking about, and the great darkness that is found there.

But there’s one thing that’s even deeper that this kind of darkness—and that is that so many people, and so many young people, are so full of despair. Many of you will probably know about people who have resorted to self-harm and other things like this. If only these people knew just how deeply Jesus loves them and how much he forgives them, and how he paid for every single one of their sins with every drop of his precious blood. Do you know you this? Some of you may have studied Luther’s Small Catechism in Confirmation. Let me read to you what it says about the Lord’s Prayer on the words: Lead us not into temptation. God tempts no one. We pray in this petition that God would guard and keep us so that the devil, the world, and our sinful nature may not deceive us or mislead us into [what? Into] false belief, despair, and other great sshame and vice. Although we are attacked by these things, we pray that we may finally overcome them and win the victory.

Despair. Lack of hope. Jesus gives us so much hope: he shines the hope of the forgiveness of sins so high and so powerfully, so much more powerfully than we can ever imagine.

So don’t dip yourselves in hope, and then in despair. Dip yourselves in eternal hope, and then double dip yourselves in eternal hope again! Let the light continually shine into your dark hearts and bring new life and energy and hope there. Don’t stay home on Sunday mornings. Go and hear the word of God. Go and receive the body and blood of Jesus. He has given it for you. He has shed it for you. He knows that you need it. And don’t you know that you need it? Climb the lighthouse, one step at a time, and let the light of the gospel shine brightly through you. There is so much encouragement for you. There is so much life that comes from Jesus’ blood and from his wounds, and so much power that comes from his resurrection.

So Jesus says: You are the light of the world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden.

Amen.

Lord Jesus Christ, we need so much encouragement from you, because we are often dipping ourselves into your kingdom, and then we go and dip ourselves in the kingdom of the world, of darkness. We don’t want to double dip. We want to dip ourselves in the light and the forgiveness that you have given to us in our baptism, and we know that no darkness into the whole world can overcome it. Bless us, encourage us and forgive us. Amen.