Let It Shine

And seeing the multitudes, He went up on a mountain, and when He was seated His disciples came to Him. Then He opened His mouth and taught them, saying: Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven... You are the salt of the earth; but if the salt loses its flavor, how shall it be seasoned?... You are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hidden... Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven. (Matthew 5:1–16)

God wants to shift our focus from the fading means of this life to the eternal ends of His glory—so that we shine as salt and light in a dark world.

A Testimony of Healing

As I look back over the last year, I reflect on when I was a kid learning to play guitar and country western music. I sang songs about Jesus for many years before I actually knew Him. Twenty years after I got saved, I was given the opportunity to become a worship leader, around 2013 and 2014. Ministry was thriving, my life was thriving, and I was at the height of my professional life—a beautiful wife, four beautiful kids, seven beautiful grandchildren. Life was going along like I couldn't believe.

Then in April, on a Friday night, I woke up in the middle of the night with a stomachache. I thought maybe I'd just eaten too much. By Monday morning we decided I needed to go to the emergency room. I still didn't think it was anything serious—something minor. But the doctors suddenly got serious and said they were going to run more tests. At about three o'clock that afternoon the results came back: I had stage-four pancreatic cancer that had metastasized to the liver.

Everything stopped on April 28th. The doctor said to me, with a very blank expression, "You have maybe six months, maybe twelve months to live." When you receive news like that, you can't explain what happens. The questions roll into your mind: Why? This can't be true. This is somebody else's life—this is my life, because God, I'm serving You.

Into the Valley and Up Again

We decided to try chemotherapy. The amazing thing is what it did to me—it led me into a valley where I felt more sick than I ever did with just the cancer. During this time, both closeness to the Lord and distance from Him were at the extremes. At times in the pain and suffering I felt so close to God and knew He was there. But there were times so dark that I couldn't feel God's presence at all.

After the next round of treatment, I reached the bottom—lower than I'd ever been in my entire life. I remember praying, "God, just take my life. I can't do this anymore." And God brought me to Job 37:14. Loosely paraphrased: "Job, pay attention. Remember the miracles I've done." I could hear God saying, "Richie, pay attention. Look at the miracles."

When we got the results of the new scans, Dr. Lee said the tumor was gone. The doctors were puzzled; they didn't know what to say. He said, "That never, ever happens." It was a miracle. God had healed. He did something the medical community can't explain—something no one could explain. He moves mightily, and He still does today. He never changes. In my case, it drives me to trust Him even more for continued healing. God is good, isn't He?

God Still Answers Prayer

Rich Gary's story is just one of many of the things God is doing. Several months ago, after the third service, a man fairly new to the church came up with a grave look on his face, his wife beside him with tears in her eyes. He said, "We need prayer. There's been a test, and they're concerned it might be cancer." Rich was standing a few feet away, so I called him over, and we laid hands on the man and prayed for Don. A few days later I received an email: they ran more tests, and there's no cancer. Praise the Lord.

The very next Sunday, after the third service, another man came up—same look, his wife beside him with tears in her eyes—saying the exact same thing. And Don, the man we had just prayed for, was standing a few feet away. So I called Don over, and we prayed. The following week we heard: no cancer. God answers prayer.

This is why every week we ask for your prayer requests. They're not only for healing. Sometimes someone prays for a job, and a week or two later they share that the Lord gave them one. We hear of spiritual and emotional healing, of family members who walked away from the Lord coming back, because God works through prayer. E. M. Bounds, a great man of God, once wrote, "Where prayer is focused, power falls." God hears and answers prayer because He wants to magnify and glorify His name—and He wants us, His people, this church, to be a light shining in a dark place: a light of hope, goodness, and grace.

And Seeing the Multitudes

So today we turn to a passage that deals with that, as an interim step between Philippians and Colossians. Matthew 5 is part of the portion of Scripture called the Sermon on the Mount—a teaching Jesus gave while sitting on a mountain, spanning Matthew 5, 6, and 7.

I love how this passage opens: "And seeing the multitudes." Throughout Matthew, Mark, and Luke, you see that as Jesus preached, healed the sick, cast out demons, and fed multitudes, crowds followed Him everywhere. Jesus was well aware of all that was happening around Him. So often we are completely oblivious to the things around us. I'm one of those people who can zero in on something and zone out everything else. Then, from a distance, a voice grows louder: "Dad, dad, dad—what?" Or my wife: "Miles, hello?" "Oh—sorry, where were you?" I'll even drive home, pull into the garage, and realize I don't remember anything from the last fifteen minutes of driving, which is scary.

To illustrate this, consider the famous awareness test where you count how many passes the team in white makes. The answer is thirteen—but did you see the moonwalking bear? Many people miss it entirely. Point one: We see only what we're looking for. That's why I'm grateful this passage opens, "And seeing the multitudes."

Zacchaeus and the Seeking Savior

There's a perfect illustration in Luke 19. Jesus entered and passed through Jericho—He wasn't going to stay. There was a man named Zacchaeus, a chief tax collector, and he was rich. He sought to see who Jesus was but couldn't because of the crowd, for he was short. So he ran ahead and climbed a sycamore tree.

When Jesus came to the place, He looked up and saw him, and said to him, "Zacchaeus, make haste and come down, for today I must stay at your house." (Luke 19:5)

The crowd complained that He had gone to be the guest of a sinner. But Zacchaeus stood and said he would give half his goods to the poor and restore fourfold anything he'd taken falsely—more than the law required. Jesus said, "Today salvation has come to this house... for the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost" (Luke 19:9–10).

Even with a press of people all around Him, Jesus looked up and saw one little man in a tree, because He came to seek and to save the lost. We only see what we're looking for. In Mark, "in seeing the multitudes He was moved with compassion for them, for they were like sheep that were scattered with no shepherd" (Mark 9:36). And immediately afterward He turned to His disciples and said to pray the Lord of the harvest to send forth workers. He was trying to change what they were looking at. Point two: Jesus wants to adjust our focus—because so often our focus is wrong, and we're missing it.

Adjusting the Disciples' Focus

Back in Matthew 5, "when He was seated His disciples came to Him." Sitting down was the posture of a teaching rabbi; those who followed knew it was time to listen. Jesus sees the multitudes of hurting, hungry, lost people, and His response is not to immediately fix all their hurts. He goes up the mountain and sits down. Why? Because He's moved with compassion, because He came to seek and save the lost, and because His time on earth was short—so He had to call to Himself and teach the ones who would fulfill the mission of reaching the multitudes.

He begins, "Blessed are the poor in spirit." The word "blessed" can be translated "Oh how happy." Bible teachers call these the Beatitudes. A beatitude isn't an attitude you must have; it's a condition of blessing—a "blessing algorithm," an equation for blessing, the path to blessing.

The World's Path Versus Jesus' Path

The world constantly tells us different paths to blessing: an education, a good career, a padded 401(k), a house and a family and a dog and 2.1 kids. We're bombarded with it. But cancer does not fall into the American equation of the path to blessing, does it? And the words of Jesus are completely dissonant with the modern path to blessing.

"Blessed are the poor in spirit." There's a cognitive dissonance when you hear it—that's just not true, it doesn't jive with what we're told or what we feel. "Blessed are those who mourn"—oh how happy are those in deep despair? "Blessed are the meek." Meekness here seems in line with what you realize when you recognize you're nothing. "Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness"—who starve for something they don't have.

But these Beatitudes are a progression. Jesus is moving us toward what He ultimately wants us to be, described in verse 16: "You are the light of the world." You cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor become a beacon of it, without first recognizing your spiritual poverty.

Recognizing Our Spiritual Bankruptcy

We live in a time where fewer people identify as Christian, but more identify as "spiritual." That can mean anything—people self-define it through yoga, hallucinogenic drugs, long treks into the wilderness, jumping out of airplanes—anything to feel connected to something bigger. The reality is that every one of us is spiritually poverty-stricken. We have nothing to offer God. To have any value for the kingdom of heaven, we must come to recognize our total spiritual bankruptcy—and Jesus says that is a happy thing.

Today we'd call that recognition a midlife crisis. There's one illustrated in Saul of Tarsus in Acts 9. He had worked his whole life at being religious, dedicating himself to a level of obedience we can't comprehend. Then in one moment on the road to Damascus he had a massive midlife crisis—the realization that everything he'd worked so hard for was rubbish. There he met the risen Lord Jesus Christ, and everything he thought he knew was cast down. That's the entry point.

The Crucial Word "For"

"Blessed are the poor in spirit"—why? "For theirs is the kingdom of heaven." Circle the word "for" in your Bible, because it appears over and over. The condition of being poor in spirit, sorrowful, meek, or starving for righteousness is not itself a blessing; the result is the blessing. "Blessed are the poor in spirit" makes no sense without "for theirs is the kingdom of heaven."

"Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted"—the Greek word is related to the comfort of the Holy Spirit. "Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth." There is no blessing in poorness of spirit, mourning, or meekness without the resulting "for." This is how Jesus changes our focus.

The Ends More Than the Means

Point three: Our focus must be on the ends more than the means. Our culture tells us the ends are pleasurable, happy experiences—the problem being that those fade away and often turn unpleasant. Two months ago I had a pleasurable, happy experience: we paid off our family car, no more $406 a month to Chase Bank. Then two weeks ago the car was totaled when someone ran into my wife. She's okay, but the car is gone, and my happy experience is gone. Or it's cancer. If your joy and salvation are anchored in pleasurable experiences, when those vanish, you're left with despair and darkness.

So Jesus shifts our focus from the means to the ultimate ends—and the ultimate ends are not here. "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven"—that's the end. "Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted"—the end. "Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled" with a righteousness that comes from somewhere else.

Becoming Profitable for His Kingdom

As He moves us through this progression, we become profitable for His kingdom. "Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy." God wants us to become merciful in a merciless society. "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God"—He transforms us from the inside out. "Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the sons of God." Paul calls this the ministry of reconciliation in 2 Corinthians 5—going to reconcile people warring with God back to God.

The sad reality is that those who walk in these things often end up in a world totally against them. So He says, "Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." Then He brings it home: "Blessed are you when they revile and persecute you and say all kinds of evil against you falsely for My sake. Rejoice and be exceedingly glad, for great is your reward in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you."

Salt and Light

Then He wraps it up: "You are the salt of the earth; but if the salt loses its flavor, how shall it be seasoned? It is then good for nothing but to be thrown out and trampled underfoot by men." My followers, Jesus says, are to be a salting agent—not an assaulting agent. Salt brings flavor and, especially in a time before refrigeration, preserves. To do that, salt must be different from what it touches. So you become different by focusing on the ends of God's glory more than the means of this life.

"You are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do they light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a lampstand, and it gives light to all who are in the house." We have a perfect picture in North County: Emerald Heights on the hilltop in San Marcos, brightly lit, impossible to hide—unless a fog bank rolls in. There is no such thing as a covert Christian, no double-oh-seven Christian. Jesus has lit your life up so you would shine brightly in a world in desperate need.

So He exhorts in verse 16: "Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven." How? By working out the good works He's describing here. We could spend weeks defining them, but simply: good works are things in line with the character and nature of God.

The Difficult Means for the Ends of His Glory

Point four: The difficult means we endure are for the ends of God's glory. I have to constantly remind myself of this, because we all go through difficult means—a cancer diagnosis, the loss of a job, the loss of a family member, the loss of a home, a shrinking 401(k). Whatever it is, I have to ask: How can God be glorified through this?

It's not an easy question, and honestly, I often don't ask it until I'm well into the difficulty. "God, how do You want to glorify Yourself in this?" Even asking the question acknowledges that He has allowed it into my life to glorify Himself. I find the first step is often to step back and see the kingdom of heaven—because like everyone here, I'm tempted in my own carnality to think my joy and peace and salvation are found in the means of this life. They're just not. So Jesus says, "I've got to change your focus, so you see what I want you to see, and so you'd be a light in a dark place."

Let It Shine in Your Neighborhood

As I wrap up, here's a simple step to be a light in a dark place: open your house as a harvest house on October 31st. Halloween has become the fastest-growing holiday in America—Christmas has plateaued while Halloween is on the increase. Everyone wants the scariest, freakiest house. But here's some market research from my own kids: little kids don't like those houses.

So we have an opportunity. Last year at our house we did something super simple: we set up little pumpkins in a triangle on the ground, and the kids tossed glow-in-the-dark necklaces around them like a ring toss. It was totally cheesy—"Here, have another necklace, throw it on there!"—and the kids had the time of their lives. We handed coffee to the parents, who don't get any trick-or-treats, and had a little photo booth. Our house became the coolest house on the street. And when parents asked, "Why are you doing this?" we got to say, "We're from Cross Connection Church. We want to bring light to the darkness." Amen.

Closing Prayer

Father, help me to see as You see. I realize that takes a change of focus, because my focus is so often absorbed in the day-to-day happenings of life that are sometimes happy and sometimes not. God, it's so easy for me to think my peace and joy come from those happenings, but I pray You'd help me to see that Your kingdom is greater and bigger and more glorious than anything that happens here. Help me to shine that light to my neighborhood. I pray for my brothers and sisters here today as they go to school campuses, office buildings, construction sites, the grocery store, or just their front yards talking with their neighbors—help us to shine brightly Your love and grace and peace to people in such desperate need of light and hope. God, shine through our lives. We pray it in Jesus' name, and all those who agreed said amen.