Hello, and welcome to a new week of Foundations Daily. My name is Liam, I’m part of the team here at STC and it gives me great pleasure to be with you this week as dig into God’s word and seek to discover Him more. Last week, my colleague Casey shared some of his reflections from Luke’s Gospel. If you missed those, do take the time to listen back.

REFLECTION:

A bit of context. We’re in the middle of Luke’s Gospel account where Jesus is headed towards Jerusalem – the place where his mission here on Earth culminated. His mission, as we discover in Luke Ch 4 is to seek and to save, to restore and redeem, to make a way for people to know God and live the life they were created for. Much of this section focuses on what Jesus says and what he teaches people – those who are following Him and those that he encounters along the road to Jerusalem. His teachings helps us better understand what it means to know God, to grow in our relationship with Him and to do the things he does. Excitingly, this is something we as a church are actively engaging with through some something called the Grow Project. With this in mind, let’s look at our focus verse for today:

v33: “No one lights a lamp and puts it in a place where it will be hidden, or under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, so that those who come in may see the light.”

Jesus, who’s primarily talking to his disciples here, begins by making the point about a lamp and a stand. The lamp itself is probably a metaphor for Jesus and his mission. A mission we too are given when we receive God’s forgiveness, invite him into our lives and our welcomed into his family. We, the church, join with others in receiving Jesus great commission to go and make disciples, to grow God’s kingdom.

We, followers of Jesus, are the lamp. Each of us, as little Christ’s, carry Him with us, in us and as we live like him reveal something of who he is – wherever we go and whoever God has placed around us. We shine as a light to the world. It’s probably a very well known analogy to us. We read this and we think about Jesus teaching about us being salt and light in the Sermon on the Mount.

What is God saying to us today through this? Well, I think it has something to do with living an authentic life of faith.

I recently saw a video clip of a Christian leader talking about evangelism – about how we share our faith and he started by asking this question. Do others know I’m a follower of Jesus? My family? Friends? Colleagues? Class mates? Does what I say, what I do point to the fact that I’m his disciple? Do they match up?

That’s a really tough question isn’t it? Because if truth be told, and maybe this is just me, we sometimes find ourselves holding back, hiding what it is that we believe, who that it is we are – when we are in certain situations, places or around certain people. We hide the light. I know I sometimes do! Jesus says this is not the way God wants us to have to live our lives – to live our life in boxes. To shrink back. God wants us to grow!

He wants us to grow. To grow in our relationship with Him. To grow in our confidence in who He is. To trust Him. To learn from Him. To be like Him. And being like Him means representing Him. Paul talks about it in these terms – we are Christ’s ambassadors, as if he were making his appeal directly through us.

Transformation with God is always from the inside out. He puts his Spirit in us and therefore we are changed. Look at the Pharisees and the lawyers that Jesus addresses later on in this passage whilst at a meal. What’s projected to the outside world does not match what’s happening in their hearts.

As we come to Jesus, and receive his forgiveness, and invite his Spirit into our lives each day we are changed, from the inside out. We are filled with him – the light of the world- and as we live for Him we reveal that light to a broken, hurting and dark world.